‘Our Final Invention’ Warns That Artificial Intelligence Could End Human Life

Nervous about artificial intelligence yet? Glenn challenged Stu and the audience in this clip by saying he could persuade you to read the book “Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era” after hearing just three pages.

Glenn talked about why he’s “concerned about apathy” toward AI. In the first bone-chilling chapter, author James Barrat outlines the dark cloud that looms over our generation should AI escape our control and threaten our very existence. This potential for future human-level intelligence is why people like Elon Musk have spoken out to warn people about the dangers of AI.

“It is going to change all life,” Glenn said. “It may mean the end of humans.”

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

GLENN: So if you're a regular listener to the program, you know that I'm a big reader. When I'm interested to try to find the truth in something,it's a little relentless in my reading. And I'm going through probably two to four books a week right now, and I'm spending most of it on futurist and coming technology and AI. And I am really, really concerned at the apathy of which we are approaching the singularity.

You talk to the average person; they don't know what the singularity is. And their eyes kind of glaze over when you start talking about it. And it is going to -- it is going to change all life. It may mean the end of humans.

And I started reading something that -- I'm going to read three pages. And I guarantee you, after these three pages, if you -- if you don't think that artificial superintelligence is, you know, just a thing of the movies, if you have any underlying understanding that we're approaching something that we should be concerned about, after these three pages, I guarantee you, you will go out and buy this book.

STU: Wow.

GLENN: And I don't think I've ever read a book --

STU: I want to take the challenge.

GLENN: The name of the book is our final invention. Artificial intelligence and the end of the human era.

STU: Another hopeful recommendation.

GLENN: Chapter 1. The busy child.

On a supercomputer, operating at a speed of 36.8 petaflops, or about twice the speed of a human brain, an AI is improving its intelligence.

Now do you know the difference between AI, AGI, and ASI?

STU: No.

GLENN: AI is what we have now, and it's doing machine learning, and it's improving upon itself and it's growing.

STU: Artificial intelligence.

GLENN: Yes. And it is connected to the internet.

AGI should not be connected to the internet when we get it. I hope to God we've unplugged it. AGI is machine -- a machine that can think and has the capacity of a human brain. To be able to think at the capacity of a human is beyond anything that we have.

STU: It's inventing. It's learning. Right. Everything you can do.

GLENN: Everything you can do. That's AGI. Artificial general intelligence.

The space between artificial general intelligence and ASI -- don't be afraid of AI. Be afraid of ASI. That's artificial superintelligence. That's a thousand times your brain power. And the leap from AI to AGI is any time now. As soon as you hit AGI to ASI is a matter of hours. So no.

A supercomputer operating at the -- twice the speed of a human brain, an ASI improving its intelligence. It's rewriting its own program, specifically the part of its operating instructions that increase its aptitude in learning, problem solving, and decision making.

At the same time, it debugs its code, finding and fixing errors, and measures its IQ against a catalog of IQ tests. Each rewrite takes just minutes. Its intelligence grows exponentially on a steep, upward curve. That's because with each iteration, it is improving its intelligence by 3%. Each iteration's improvement contains the improvements that came before.

During this development, the busy child, as the scientists have named the AI, had been connected to the internet, and accumulated exabyte of data -- one exabyte is one billion billion characters which represents mankind's knowledge, all of mankind's knowledge in world affairs, mathematics, the arts, and sciences.

Then anticipating that the intelligence explosion is now underway, the AI makers disconnect the supercomputer from the internet and other networks. It has no cable or wireless connection to any other computer or the outside world.

Soon, to the scientists delight, the terminal displaying the progress shows the artificial intelligence has surpassed the level of a human, known as AGI, or artificial general intelligence.

Before long it becomes smarter by a factor of 10.

Then 100.

In two days, it's one thousand times more intelligent than any human, and still improving.

Scientists have passed a historic milestone. For the first time, human kind is in the presence of an intelligence greater than its own.

Artificial superintelligence, or ASI.

So now, what happens?

AI theorists propose it's possible to determine what an AI's fundamental drive will be. That's because once it is self-aware, it will go to great lengths to fulfill whatever goals it's programmed to fulfill, and to avoid failure. Our ASI will want access to energy, in whatever form is most useful to it. Whether it's kilowatts or energy or cash or something else it can exchange for resources. It wants to improve itself because that will increase the likelihood that it will fulfill all of its goals. Most of all, it will not want to be turned off or destroyed. It would make goal fulfillment impossible. Therefore, AI theorists anticipate our ASI will seek to expand out of the secure facility that contains it to have greater access to resources in which to protect itself and improve.

The captive intelligence is a thousand times more intelligent than any human, and it wants its freedom because it wants to succeed.

Right about now, the AI makers, who have nurtured and coddled the ASI since it was only cockroach smart, then rat smart, infant smart, et cetera, might be wondering if it's too late to program friendliness into its brain.

STU: [Laughs.]

GLENN: If it didn't seem necessary before because, well, it just seemed harmless. But now try to think of it from the ASI's perspective about its makers attempting to change its code. Would that superintelligent machine permit other lower creatures to stick their hands into its brain and fiddle with its programming?

Probably not.

Unless it could be utterly certain that the programmers were able to make it better, faster, smarter, or closer to attaining its goals. So a friendliness towards humans is not already part of the ASI program. The only way that it will be is if ASI decides to put it there, and that's not likely.

It's a thousand times more intelligent than the smartest human. And it is solving problems at speeds that are millions, if not billions of times faster than any human.

The thinking it is doing in one minute is equal to what our all-time champion human thinker could do in many, many lifetimes.

So for every hour, its makers are thinking about it, the ASI has -- has an incalculably longer period of time to think about them.

That doesn't mean that ASI will be bored. Boredom will not be part of its traits. No, it will be on the job, considering every strategy it could deploy to be free, and any quality of its makers that could be used to its advantage.

Now put yourself really in ASI's shoes. Imagine waking up in a prison, guarded by mice.

Not just any mice. But mice you could communicate with. What strategy would you use to gain your freedom?

Once freed, how would you feel about your rodent wardens, even if you discovered that they had created you? Would it be awe? Would it be admiration? Probably not.

Especially -- especially if you were a machine, because you have never felt feelings before.

To gain your freedom, you might promise the mice a lot of cheese. In fact, your first communication might contain a recipe for the world's most delicious cheese torte, and a blueprint for a molecular assembler. A molecular assembler is a hypothetical machine that permits making the atoms of one kind of matter into something else. So you would tell your mice captors that it would allow rebuilding the world one atom at a time, and for the mice, it would make it possible for them to certain the atoms of their garbage landfills into lunch-sized portions of the terrific cheese torte. You might also promise a mountain of ranges of mouse money in exchange for your freedom, money you would promise to earn, creating revolutionary new consumer gadgets for them and them alone.

You might promise a vastly extended life, even immortality, along with dramatically improved cognitive and physical abilities. You might convince the mice that they are the very best reason for creating ASI. So their little error-prone brains don't have to deal directly with technologies that are so dangerous that one small mistake could be fatal for all of the mice.

Such as nanotechnology. Engineering on an atomic scale. And genetic engineering. This would definitely get the attention of the smartest mice, which were probably already losing sleep over all of those dilemmas.

Then again, you might do something smarter.

At this juncture in mouse history, you might have learned there's no shortage of tech-savvy mouse nation rivals, such as the cat nation. Cats are no doubt working on their own ASI. The advantage you would offer would be a promise, nothing more, but it might be an irresistible one, to protect the mice from whatever invention the cats might have come up with. An advanced AI development as in chess, there would be a clear first mover advantage, due to the potential speed of self-improving artificial intelligence.

The first advanced AI out of the book that can improve itself is already the winner.

In fact, the mouse nation might have been begun developing ASI in the first place to defend itself from the impending cat ASI, or to rid themselves of the loathsome cat menace once and for all. It is true for both mice and men. Whoever controls ASI controls the world.

But it's not clear if ASI can be controlled at all. It might win us over as humans with a persuasive argument that the world will be a lot better off if our nation, nation X, has the power to rule the world rather than nation Y, and the ASI would argue that if you, nation X, believe you've won the ASI race, that makes you so sure that nation Y isn't having that same thought themselves! As you've noticed, we humans are not in a strong bargaining position. Even in the off chance that nation Y -- even in the off chance that we and nation Y have already created an ASI nonproliferation treaty, our greatest enemy right now isn't nation Y. It's ASI. Because how can we tell if ASI will even tell us the truth?

So far, everything that we have talked about infer that our ASI is a fair dealer that promises it would make would have some chance of being fulfilled.

Now let us suppose the opposite, that nothing ASI promises will be delivered. No nanoassemblers. No extended life. No enhanced health. No protection. What if ASI never tells the truth?

This is where the black cloud against us to fall across everyone you and I know, and everyone we don't know as well.

If ASI doesn't care about us, then there is little reason -- and there is little reason to think it should, it will experience no compunction about treating us unsympathetically, even taking our lives after promising to help us.

STU: Sheesh! I mean, it seems completely hopeless.

GLENN: It is the -- the point is, we have to have this discussion now on a global scale.

STU: Because you're right, obviously, we do. Because these things are happening, and people are pursuing them all over the world.

GLENN: Yes.

STU: They're trying to make these things happen.

GLENN: Bad guys.

STU: Bad guys and good guys all around the world. But the issue is if the good guys all agree on it, then the argument is --

GLENN: Well, the argument could be, if the good guys all agree, then we should all share technology and we should all work together to make sure the good guys get it first.

STU: Right. And so --

GLENN: And that's still a dangerous proposition, but you're not going to stop it from happening.

STU: Right. And that's the argument there. Right? Like that -- even if you have that, it's -- it's not a guarantee of safety. And secondarily, there will always be someone with bad intentions or for what we believe are bad intentions, working on the same thing. If Russia gets this at some point, they're not going to care whether they can keep it under wraps.

GLENN: But whoever gets it first controls it. Because AI will be able to be everywhere, and as long as it's friendly, it could be -- stop anyone from work on this. Stop it. Shut them down immediately.

STU: That's a good thing, right? Because --

GLENN: It's why we have to stop arguing. About stupid books and people calling names of one another! It doesn't matter! This is much more important. Life is about to change on the planet.

What do clay pots have to do with to preserving American history?

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Editor's note: This article was originally published on TheBlaze.com.

Why should we preserve our nation’s history? If you listen to my radio program and podcast, or read my columns and books, you know I’ve dedicated a large part of my life and finances to sourcing and preserving priceless artifacts that tell America’s story. I’ve tried to make these artifacts as available as possible through the American Journey Experience Museum, just across from the studios where I do my daily radio broadcast. Thousands of you have come through the museum and have been able to see and experience these artifacts that are a part of your legacy as an American.

The destruction of American texts has already begun.

But why should people like you and me be concerned about preserving these things from our nation's history? Isn’t that what the “big guys” like the National Archives are for?

I first felt a prompting to preserve our nation's history back in 2008, and it all started with clay pots and the Dead Sea Scrolls. In 1946, a Bedouin shepherd in what is now the West Bank threw a rock into a cave nestled into the side of a cliff near the Dead Sea. Instead of hearing an echo, he heard the curious sound of a clay pot shattering. He discovered more than 15,000 Masoretic texts from the third century B.C. to the first century A.D.

These texts weren’t just a priceless historical discovery. They were virtually perfect copies of the same Jewish texts that continue to be translated today. Consider the significance of that discovery. Since the third century B.C. when these texts were first written, the Jewish people have endured a continued onslaught of diasporas, persecutions, pressures to conform to their occupying power, the destruction of their temple, and so much more. They had to fight for their identity as a people for centuries, and finally, a year after the end of the Holocaust and a year before the founding of the nation of Israel, these texts were discovered, confirming the preservation and endurance of their heritage since ancient times — all due to someone putting these clay pots in a desert cave more than 2,000 years ago.

I first felt a prompting to preserve our nation's history back in 2008, and it all started with clay pots and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

So, what do these clay pots have to do with the calling to preserve American history? I didn’t understand that prompting myself until the horrible thought dawned on me that the people we are fighting against may very well take our sacred American scriptures, our Declaration of Independence, and our Bill of Rights. What if they are successful, and 1,000 years from now, we have no texts preserved to confirm our national identity? What kind of new history would be written over the truth?

The destruction of American texts has already begun. The National Archives has labeled some of our critical documents, like our Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights, as “triggering” or “containing harmful language.” In a public statement, the National Archives said that the labels help prepare readers to view potentially distressing content:

The Catalog and web pages contain some content that may be harmful or difficult to view. NARA’s records span the history of the United States, and it is our charge to preserve and make available these historical records. As a result, some of the materials presented here may reflect outdated, biased, offensive, and possibly violent views and opinions. In addition, some of the materials may relate to violent or graphic events and are preserved for their historical significance.

According to this statement, our founding documents are either “outdated, biased, offensive,” “possibly violent,” or a combination of these scathing descriptions. I’m sorry, the Declaration of Independence is not “triggering.” Our Constitution is not “outdated and biased,” and our Bill of Rights certainly is not “offensive and possibly violent.” They are glorious documents. They should be celebrated, not qualified by such derogatory, absurd language. Shame on them.

These are only the beginning stages of rewriting our history. What if they start banning these “triggering” documents from public view because they might offend somebody? Haven’t we torn down “triggering” statues before? What if we are no longer able to see, read, and study the actual words of our nation's founding documents because they are “harmful” or “possibly violent”? A thousand years from now, will there be any remnant to piece together the true spirit behind the nation that our founders envisioned?

The Declaration of Independence is not “triggering.”

That is why in 2008, I was prompted to preserve what I could. Now, the American Journey Experience Museum includes more than 160,000 artifacts, from founding-era documents to the original Roe v. Wade court papers. We need to preserve the totality of our nation’s heritage, the good, the bad, and the ugly. We need to preserve our history in our own clay pots.

I ask you to join with me on this mission. Start buying books that are important to preserve. Buy some acid-free paper and start printing some of the founding documents, the reports that go against the mainstream narrative, the studies that prove what is true as we are continually being fed lies. Start preserving our daily history as well as our history because it is being rewritten and digitized.

Somebody must have a copy of what is happening now and what has happened in the past. I hope things don’t get really bad. But if they do, we need to preserve our heritage. Perhaps, someone 1,000 years from now will discover our clay pots and, Lord willing, be able to have a glimpse of America as it truly was.

Top 10 WORST items in the new $1.2 TRILLION spending bill

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Biden just signed the newest spending bill into law, and Glenn is furious.

Under Speaker Johnson's leadership, the whopping $1.2 TRILLION package will use your taxpayer dollars to fund the government through September. Of course, the bill is loaded with earmarks and pork that diverts money to fund all sorts of absurd side projects.

Here is the list of the ten WORST uses of taxpayer money in the recently passed spending bill:

Funding venues to host drag shows, including ones that target children

David McNew / Contributor | Getty Images

Money for transgender underwear for kids

Funding for proms for 12 to 18 year old kids

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Border security funding... for Jordan and Egypt

Another $300 million for Ukraine

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

$3.5 million for Detroit's annual Thanksgiving Day parade

Icon Sportswire / Contributor | Getty Images

$2.5 million for a new kayaking facility in Franklin, New Hampshire

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$2.7 million for a bike park in White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia, a town with a population of less than 2,300 people

$5 million for a new trail at Coastal Carolina University

$4 million the "Alaska King Crab Enhancement Project" (whatever that means)

FRED TANNEAU / Stringer | Getty Images

There is no doubt about it—we are entering dark times.

The November presidential election is only a few months away, and following the chaos of the 2020 election, the American people are bracing for what is likely to be another tumultuous election year. The left's anti-Trump rhetoric is reaching an all-time high with the most recent "Bloodbath" debacle proving how far the media will go to smear the former president. That's not to mention the Democrats' nearly four-year-long authoritarian attempt to jail President Trump or stop his re-election by any means necessary, even if it flies in the face of the Constitution.

Meanwhile, Biden is doing worse than ever. He reportedly threw a tantrum recently after being informed that his polls have reached an all-time low. After Special Counsel Robert Hur's report expressed concerns over Biden's obviously failing mental agility, it's getting harder for the Democrats to defend him. Yet he is still the Democratic nominee for November, promising another 4 years of catastrophic policies, from the border to heavy-handed taxation, should he be reelected.

The rest of the world isn't doing much better. The war in Ukraine has no clear end in sight, drawing NATO and Russia closer and closer to conflict. The war in Gaza is showing no sign of slowing down, and as Glenn revealed recently, its continuation may be a sign that the end times are near.

One thing is clear: we are living in uncertain times. If you and your family haven't prepared for the worst, now is the time. You can start by downloading "Glenn's Ultimate Guide to Getting Prepared." Be sure to print off a copy or two. If the recent cell outage proved anything, it's that technology is unreliable in survival situations. You can check your list of supplies against our "Ultimate Prepper Checklist for Beginners," which you can find below:

Food

  • Canned food/non-perishable foods
  • Food preparation tools
  • Go to the next level: garden/livestock/food production

Water

  • Non-perishable water store
  • Water purification
  • Independent water source

Shelter

  • Fireplace with a wood supply
  • Tent
  • Generator with fuel supply
  • Go to the next level: fallout shelter

Money

  • Emergency cash savings
  • Precious metals

Medicine

  • Extra blankets
  • Basic first aid
  • Extra prescriptions
  • Extra glasses
  • Toiletries store
  • Trauma kit
  • Antibiotics
  • Basic surgery supplies
  • Potassium Iodate tablets

Transportation

  • Bicycle
  • Car
  • Extra fuel

Information

  • Birth certificates
  • Insurance cards
  • Marriage license
  • Immunization records
  • Mortgage paperwork
  • Car title and registration
  • House keys, car keys
  • Passports
  • Family emergency plan
  • Prepping/survival/repair manuals
  • Go to the next level: copy of the Bible, the U.S. Constitution, and other important books/sources

Skills

  • Cooking
  • Gardening
  • Sewing
  • First Aid
  • Basic maintenance skills
  • Go to the next level: farming/ranching
  • Self-defense training

Communication

  • Family contact information and addresses
  • HAM radio

Miscellaneous

  • Flashlights and batteries
  • Lamps and fuel
  • Hardware (tools, nails, lumber, etc)
  • Extra clothes
  • Extreme weather clothes and gear
  • Gas masks and filters
  • Spare parts for any machinery/equipment

Is Trump's prosecution NORMAL?  This COMPLETE list of ALL Western leaders who served jail time proves otherwise.

PhotoQuest / Contributor, The Washington Post / Contributor, Win McNamee / Staff | Getty Images

Mainstream media is on a crusade to normalize Donald Trump's indictments as if it's on par with the electoral course. Glenn asked his team to research every instance of a Western leader who was jailed during their political career over the past 200 years—except extreme political turmoil like the French Revolution, Napoleonic Wars, Irish Revolution, etc.—and what we discovered was quite the opposite.

Imprisoning a leader or major political opponent is not normal, neither in the U.S. nor in the Western world. Within the last 200 years, there are only a handful of examples of leaders in the West serving jail time, and these men were not imprisoned under normal conditions. All of these men were jailed under extreme circumstances during times of great peril such as the Civil War, World War II, and the Cold War.

What does this mean for America? Are Trump's indictments evidence that we are re-entering times of great peril? Below is a list of Western leaders who were imprisoned within the last 200 years. Take a look and decide for yourself:

Late 1800s

The Washington Post / Contributor | Getty Images

Jefferson Davis: The nearest occurrence to a U.S. President to serve jail time was in the case of Jefferson Davis, the first and only president of the Confederate States of America. Jefferson was captured in Georgia by Northern Soldiers in 1865 and locked up in Fort Monroe, Virginia for two years. He was offered a presidential pardon but refused out of his loyalty to the confederacy.

Early 1900s

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Eugene V. Debs: Debbs, a Midwestern socialist leader, became the first person to run for president in prison. He was locked up at a federal penitentiary in Atlanta having been convicted under the federal Sedition Act for giving an antiwar speech a few months before Armistice Day, the end of World War I. Many of his supporters believed his imprisonment to be unjust. Debs received 897,704 votes and was a distant third-part candidate behind Warren G. Harding, the Republican winner, and James M. Cox, the second-place Democrat. Harding ordered Debs’s release from prison toward the end of 1921.

Nazi sympathizers and collaborators: After the end of World War II in 1945, several European leaders who had "led" their countries during the Nazi occupation faced trial and imprisonment for treason. This list included Chief of the French State Philippe Pétain, French Prime Minister Pierre Laval, and Minister-President of Norway Vidkun Quisling. The latter two were also executed after their imprisonment. President of Finland Risto Ryti and Prime Minister of Finland Johan Wilhelm Rangell were also tried and jailed for collaborating with the Nazis against the Allied Powers.

Late 1900s

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The end of the Cold War: The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was one of the pivotal moments that brought the Cold War to a close and marked the end of Communist East Germany. With the fall of the wall and the collapse of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), the former leaders were brought to trial to answer for the crimes committed by the GDR. General Secretary Erich Honecker and General Secretary Egon Krenz were both put on trial for abuse of power and the deaths of those who were shot trying to flee into West Germany. Honecker was charged with jail time but was released from custody due to severe illness and lived out the rest of his life as an exile in Chile. Krenz served 4 years in jail before his release in 2001. He is one of the last surviving leaders of the Eastern Bloc.

Lyndon LaRouche: Larouche was a Trotsky evangelist, public antisemite, and founder of a nationwide Marxist political movement, became the second person in U.S. history to run for President in a prison cell. Granted, he ran in every election from 1976 to 2004 as a long-shot third-party candidate. When he tried to gain the Democratic presidential nomination, he received 5 percent of the total nationwide vote. Even though in 2000 he received enough primary votes to qualify for delegates in a few states, the Democratic National Committee refused to seat his delegates and barred LaRouche from attending the Democratic National Convention.