OPINION: Satire: Beware of killer robots

Elon Musk’s Neuralink program might spell end of humanity

LAUREN PETTIT

Killer robots aren’t merely the stuff of sci-fi anymore — they could be right around the corner.

JOEY FRANKLIN

Elon Musk recently put a computer chip in a pigs’ brain. While I’m not exactly sure what the end game for Musk is, it’s a very fascinating idea. I wonder how long — if it hasn’t happened already — it will take for the pig to become sentient and develop an intelligent view of the world.

Who says that Musk will stop with the pig? What will be next? A horse? A dolphin? A human? What if Musk, the CEO of Tesla, tries to make an artificial intelligence program smart enough to develop its’ own thoughts and emotions?

Musk could be able to fund or create software that is capable of taking over the human race. There have been many far-fetched movies that have covered this topic but none of them seem quite real. Along with how crazy this year has been, who says that intelligent AI is not the next challenger up?

If installed into the right hardware, this AI could have the chance to do some real damage to humans. At the same time, it would be pretty cool to have a highly intelligent toaster. Having a toaster that could cook bread perfectly every time would be quite the commodity.

On the other hand, if Musk’s AI were to be installed into a Tesla, that could be a different story. It could end up like the 1986 classic movie, “Maximum Overdrive,” where semi-trucks become intelligent and start running over humans intentionally.

But a Tesla would be able to do more damage — they can move at high speeds and who knows what kind of hidden features Musk could add to the vehicle? Teslas already have a variety of customizations that don’t seem overly necessary, but Musk could secretly add things that could make the car dangerous. He has already produced a line of flamethrowers, so that could be a possibility if this AI apocalypse happens in the near future.

The world already has an idea of what intelligent AI could look like, coming from the movie, “Terminator.” Especially in the third adaptation where the AI becomes self-aware. The technology could keep improving upon itself to become more and more powerful.

Facebook had created an AI program in 2017 but was quickly shut down after two intelligent robots started communicating with each other in a language that was not understandable to the people operating the systems.

The program was quickly shut down, but how terrifying of a thought is that? Seeing two robots communicate is one thing, but in a language that did not make any sense? That’s some next-level sci-fi material.

For now, we are safe from the threat of AI taking over the world. But be careful of what you say to Siri, you never know who could be listening and if they might hold a grudge.