Will artificial intelligence destroy the world? Or is man voluntarily surrendering his mind to machines? Will technology save man or make him lazy? Why are the world's greatest scientists, Nobel laureates, and technology giants worried?
Now these questions confront the whole world.
Note that a few years ago, a student spent months in libraries to write a thesis. Now, a few seconds are enough for him.
Once, it took years of experience to write an article, prepare a legal document, code a program, or even make a diagnosis. Today, millions of people use systems like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Grok, and DeepSeek in their daily lives.
Artificial intelligence is now the reality of our day.
The reality is that just as humanity could not escape electricity, the internet, and smartphones, it will not be able to escape artificial intelligence. But the main question is different: will man control artificial intelligence, or will artificial intelligence control man?
More precisely, will man voluntarily surrender his mind, creativity, thinking, and research ability to machines?
Why are the smartest people in the world worried?
One of the most talked-about people regarding artificial intelligence is Sam Altman, the head of OpenAI. In his opinion, AI will become a technology as fundamental as electricity.
Demis Hassabis, head of Google DeepMind and 2024 Nobel laureate, believes that artificial intelligence could be a turning point in solving many global problems, from cancer to climate change. But concern is also growing among the most influential scientists in the technology world.
Geoffrey Hinton, dubbed the “godfather of artificial intelligence,” focused all his attention on one issue after leaving Google. “For the first time in human history, artificial intelligence is creating systems smarter than itself. This is a serious danger,” he said.
Historian and philosopher Yuval Noah Harari believes that humanity is creating systems that can make better decisions than itself for the first time: “Throughout history, humans created tools. Now, they are creating intelligence that can replace humans.”
Elon Musk speaks even more harshly: “Artificial intelligence could be more dangerous than nuclear weapons.”
Although these ideas sound like science fiction, AI threats have already become a separate field of study at the world's largest universities.
Hundreds of studies on artificial intelligence ethics, AI safety, and superintelligence scenarios are being conducted at Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Oxford, and Cambridge universities.
Is man refusing to think?
The biggest danger is not robots invading the world. The biggest danger is man losing his ability to think. Scientists at Harvard University call this “Cognitive Offloading.” In other words, they evaluate it as the human brain transferring certain functions to technology.
Once, we memorized phone numbers. Then we entrusted memory to the phone.
Today, people are beginning to transfer thinking, analyzing, and decision-making to artificial intelligence.
Professors at Stanford University warn that while artificial intelligence increases productivity, it can weaken critical thinking skills in the long run.
MIT Media Lab calls this process “de-skilling.” This means that a person gradually loses professional abilities.
Once there were students who read hundreds of sources…
20 years ago, a student writing a scientific paper spent months researching in libraries. He compared the ideas of dozens of authors. He read hundreds of sources. As a result, he gained a comprehensive understanding of the topic.
Now, the situation has changed. ChatGPT provides the necessary information in seconds. Of course, this is a great advantage, saving time. At the same time, it is a danger. The result is sad, man does not have a broad knowledge base on the topic. Imagine, sometimes a scientist has less information about an article he wrote than artificial intelligence itself. This process is observed in journalism, law, marketing, programming, economics, and even medicine.
Why does the older generation use AI better?
Paradoxically, the older generation often gets the best results from artificial intelligence. The reason is simple: they are knowledgeable and experienced. They see the gaps in the answers provided by artificial intelligence. They are not satisfied with this and check the sources. They make changes when necessary.
The situation is different for the younger generation. In many cases, they accept the text provided by AI as the final result. Their knowledge base is not sufficient for changes. The laziness factor should also be added here. If a person does not want to research, artificial intelligence can make him even more passive.
Yuval Noah Harari warns: “The biggest problem of the future, alongside unemployed people, may be the emergence of a class of useless people.”
The world's largest artificial intelligence factories
Many consider artificial intelligence to be just software. You probably think so too. In reality, a giant industry stands behind AI.
United States of America
Texas
The “Stargate” project, implemented by OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank, is valued at nearly 500 billion dollars.
This project is considered the largest AI infrastructure in history.
Tennessee
Elon Musk's xAI company's “Colossus” supercomputer is located in Memphis. About 200,000 NVIDIA processors are expected to operate here.
Iowa and Louisiana
Meta is building giant data centers.
Finland
Google has created one of Europe's largest data centers here.
China
Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu are forming large AI clusters in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen.
Let's go back to the previous issue, how do you think artificial intelligence works? In fact, ChatGPT and other systems do not “think.” They are large language models (LLMs) trained on trillions of data. Neural networks consisting of billions of parameters predict the next word based on probabilities. For this, thousands of graphics processors work simultaneously. Of course, this requires a lot of energy.
Artificial intelligence drinks more water than a human
Perhaps this is the most interesting issue. Servers overheat excessively. Large volumes of water are used to cool them. Even in Norway, this water is used for heating homes as a pilot project.
According to research by the University of California, 50 queries with ChatGPT consume approximately half a liter of water.
Google's data centers use up to 20 billion liters of water annually. Microsoft's water consumption has increased by more than 30 percent in recent years. By 2030, the energy demand of the AI industry is projected to approach the total energy consumption of some countries.
Will artificial intelligence destroy jobs?
Goldman Sachs believes that 300 million jobs could be subject to AI transformation.
The International Monetary Fund states that artificial intelligence will affect 40 percent of jobs worldwide.
But the World Economic Forum shows a different picture. By 2030, hundreds of thousands of professions will disappear. Instead, many new professions will emerge.
Based on all this, we can say that technologies do not destroy jobs. History also shows this. They simply change professions. The main problem here is the inability to adapt.
Where is Azerbaijan in this race?
It seems that Azerbaijan is still at the beginning of the AI race. An artificial intelligence strategy is being formed in the country. Projects in this direction are being implemented by the Ministry of Digital Development and Transport, the Innovation Agency, and ADA University.
However, Azerbaijan's biggest problem is not technology, but human capital. Because in the era of artificial intelligence, the main wealth will not be oil, gas, and land. The main wealth will be knowledge, the reading person. It will be a person with analytical ability and creativity.
Thus, the final conclusion is that artificial intelligence will not destroy the world. But a person who stops thinking, does not research, does not learn, and entrusts all his decisions to machines can destroy his own future. Throughout history, it has not been technologies that destroyed humanity, but the people who used technology.
So, the answer to the question, will artificial intelligence destroy the world? lies within each person.
Elnur AMIROV
