Artificial intelligence or real stupidity 

With artificial intelligence being such a hot topic this year there are all kinds of opinion articles about the possible risks of AI. What most of these seem to do is not consider the alternatives to AI. What will we use instead of AI if the singularity isn’t reached any time soon. 

Of course, we would continue to use humans. Humans whose brains haven’t evolved substantially for the last hundred thousand years or so. Humans whose brains aren’t wired to be able to cope with the complexity of the world we live in today, let alone the world of tomorrow. Humans whose stupidity knows no bounds. Humans, who struggle to maintain concentration for more than a few minutes, get easily distracted, make poor decisions, and let emotion interfere with those decisions, versus a hive of AI cars, satellite navigation and smart roads that could make road travel much safer than it currently is and coordinate traffic flow with such accuracy that traffic jams would almost never happen.

Artificial intelligence doesn’t scare me. Real stupidity does.