La civiltà delle macchine

As is well known, the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI), together with encouraging promises relating to the emancipation from more and more complex and dangerous, and/or tiring and repetitive tasks, challenges, to some extent, the welfare of humanity. With regard to the potential negative impact of AI on our lives, besides the often debated ethical issues concerning the violation of privacy, the manipulation of public opinion, the dramatic reduction of the workforce, etc. we find most worrisome the so-called ‘awakening problem;’ the question, that is, of what could happen if machines were to acquire consciousness. This essay is about whether it is worth taking the risk that, with the eventual construction of conscious machines, certain dramatic, and irreversible, scenarios might become humanity’s living nightmare.