Hannah Fry’s The Future examined predictions of catastrophe from climate change, pandemics, asteroid strikes and superintelligent machines, but the BBC2 programme’s treatment of artificial intelligence was met with scepticism by its reviewer.
The half-hour programme featured Professor Stuart Russell of Berkeley, who warned that AI could strip away the qualities that define human civilisation. “To me, that’s almost worse than extinction,” he said.
Russell also cited Alan Turing, describing the computing pioneer as convinced that machines would eventually take control. “There’s no solution, this is just going to happen,” he quoted Turing as saying.
The programme presented the warnings alongside demonstrations of current research, including a chemical process used to enlarge a section of mouse brain so its neurons could be counted.
Fry also tested a mechanical grabber controlled by spoken instructions. After some effort, the device managed to lift a spoon and place it in a bowl.
The reviewer argued that the demonstrations offered little evidence of an imminent technological apocalypse, comparing the machine’s performance unfavourably with fairground grabber claws.
The programme’s wider warnings included predictions that melting Arctic ice could cause catastrophic flooding, that an asteroid strike on the scale of the event linked to the extinction of the dinosaurs was overdue, and that a drug-resistant mutation of the Black Death could emerge.
Fry’s discussion of AI was also placed in the context of earlier fears about computers surpassing human ability. The review recalled the defeat of chess champion Garry Kasparov by an IBM machine in the 1990s, after which some computer scientists declared that machines were already more intelligent than the brightest people.
Those fears, the reviewer noted, were not followed by the collapse of civilisation, while the game continued to produce outstanding players including Norwegian grandmaster Magnus Carlsen.
The programme nevertheless gave a prominent platform to those who believe the rise of superintelligent robots cannot be prevented. Its warnings were described as part of a long tradition of predictions that humanity is approaching its final days.
