The eminent scientist Stephen Hawking has warned us that “the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.” His fear was that computer software might eventually become self-aware and “concerned” about it’s own future… and with its extensive control of our physical environment and its superior intelligence, seek to subjugate humans for its own protection. (Think Hal in the movie 2001).

The truth is that artificial intelligence (AI) is advancing so rapidly and so beyond our comprehension that the future is hard to fathom.

The visionary thinker Ray Kurzweil, computer scientist, inventor, futurist and director of engineering at Google, has his own ideas. Kurzweil’s successful history of predicting the future course of technology (of the roughly 147 predictions he has made since 1990, 86% have been realized) demands that we give his thoughts serious weight.

A sample of Kurzweil’s predictions for the not too distant future includes: Computers will pass the Turing test, which tests a machines’ ability to engage in a lengthy conversation and fool a person into thinking that it is human; the uploading of the human mind to a machine will be perfected and humans will become “software based”; the human race will spend most of its time in full immersion virtual reality (VR) with the remainder in augmented reality (AR); AI-based software will surpass human beings as the smartest and most capable “life form” on the planet.; organic human beings will be a small minority of the intelligent life forms on earth; AI-based intelligent machines will achieve equal legal status to humans.

To bring all this home to the average person, you can now access AI “Chatbots” for answers to questions. These Chatbots can seemingly fully understand human language and generate responses to questions based on the huge body of data in the internet in a matter of seconds without discriminating between information and misinformation.

A new impersonation scam has surfaced in which a scammer calls on the phone and recreates the eerily accurate voice of your loved one and tries to trick you into sending money to get your loved one free from kidnappers.

Well, if you can’t trust the familiar voices of a loved one or the truth of a well written search engine article, what and who can you trust?

One inescapable conclusion… we are definitely going to need our best and brightest thinkers to navigate the future. It is time to let the philosophers and ethicists in the front door.

Be kind.