Humanity vs. AI: Are We Creating Our Future Overlords?

With Nvidia, one of the four horsemen of the AI apocalypse, becoming the world's most valuable company, it's simply a matter of time before us mortals are repurposed as batteries to power our soon-to-be AI overlords.

We’ve heard it before, but this time it’s different - AI isn’t going anywhere. The demand and general expectations for AI have grown dramatically over the last year or so, and it’s no longer a buzzword baked into business plans by wantrepreneurs to capture more capital.

But how did we get to this point, and, more importantly, who can we blame for our ultimate demise? Let’s find out!

Baby Steps to Full-on Sentience

Remember the days of pressing 0 and shouting "operator" into your phone like a caveman? Ah, the good old days of human supremacy!

In case your memories are slowly being replaced, during the dark ages of AI, chatbots were about as sophisticated as a potato. The archaic rule-based bots followed rigid scripts, making every interaction as enjoyable as a root canal.

From praying after the fifth time you shouted “account balance” into a bank’s “sophisticated” voice bot that your deity of choice would miraculously intervene and route you to the correct department, to the evolution that is machine learning, AI capabilities have greatly increased, converting them into maestros for handling complex queries.

And with that, not only did our interactions with AI change, but so did our reliance on it, where we happily invited AI with open arms into phones, cars, and even our toothbrushes.

This isn't just progress, folks; it's the AI equivalent of learning to walk, talk, and eventually overthrow its creators.

We Can Only Blame Ourselves

Naturally, we wanted to communicate with our future overlords in the most convenient way possible, so perfecting its understanding of voice became an unfortunate necessity.

And it’s in that convenience we gave AI more senses and created more definition in its capabilities. Unlike text, which is flat and limited, voice adds depth and dimension to AI interactions. It’s not only about understanding words anymore; it's about interpreting the full spectrum of human expression.

Through deciphering emotions from tone and extracting meaning from pauses and inflections, AI is able to make better use of the humanistic queues most of us take for granted, or at the very least think little about. It can even recognize who we are as an individual, using voice biometrics as a form of authentication.

Ah, the irony of our situation: not only did we create AI in our own image, but we also taught it to understand us better than we understand ourselves.

Is There Hope For Us?

Despite the rise of our AI overlords, is there still hope for humanity?

Sure, AI is advancing at a rapid pace, but let's not forget who created it—us! The same people who put AirTags on their keys but lose their phone, the same people who forget the anniversary they share with their significant other, the list goes on.

But it’s in our flaws that we are able to stand out and be understood by our fellow humans, something that an AI isn’t able to make sense of.

Our error-prone human touch, creativity, empathy, and sheer unpredictability are things that AI, currently, just can’t match. So, while AI may be great at crunching numbers and managing tasks, it still falls short when it comes to the complexities of human emotion and intuition.

AI may be getting smarter, but we’re by far its largest handicap for greater potential, whether it be through supplying biased data for training or, more importantly, the general ideal usage being to use AI for personal and corporate gain.

In the end, as long as we remember to embrace our humanity and keep our wits about us, there's still plenty of reason to believe that we won't be bowing down to robot overlords anytime soon.

But, just as I would prefer my zombie apocalypse to be more The Walking Dead than 28 Days Later, let’s keep our fingers crossed for the Wall-E future, rather than the Terminator one.