‘Widespread destruction’ that would be felt worldwide if AI was to be removed from the Earth
If the AI revolution over the past few years has shown anything it's that the world is increasingly dependant on the rapidly evolving technology, and the consequences of its immediate removal would certainly be significant.
While ChatGPT began as a somewhat primitive chatbot and image generation tool, it, alongside countless other major AI models, have developed majorly over the past few years and now boast an impressive - if not sometimes terrifying - skillset.
Researchers have already outlined the potentially catastrophic damage that AI could cause in just two years time if it continues at the rate it is going, and many also rightfully fear for their jobs as the threat of mass redundancy looms.
This has led for many to call for regulation and restriction on AI, to the point where even the Trump administration - who has generally been incredibly supportive of AI progress - has implemented laws that restrict its freedom.
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If artificial intelligence were to be completely abandoned on the spot though that would be a different question, as it could prove to be devastating in many key areas across the world, at least according to ChatGPT itself.
When asking OpenAI's popular chatbot what would happen if you got rid of all AI from all across the world, it responds by outlining that such a move "would have far-reaching effects - technologically, economically, socially, and even philosophically," before breaking down exactly what it believes would happen in several major sections.
Technology and infrastructure disruption
The first major area that ChatGPT believes would suffer if AI was unilaterally removed is the worlds of technology and infrastructure. Automation is a key benefit for AI in many industries, and getting rid of it would cause disruption in factories and software systems.
On top of this, online digital services would see a major shift as AI powers much of what we do and interact with online.
Google search has pivoted heavily into AI Overviews - albeit without much user support - and many of your favorite social media and streaming service recommendation algorithms rely on artificial intelligence.
Furthermore, ChatGPT also indicates that AI is used heavily in medical fields to diagnose and administrate care, and removing it outright would slow down and even potentially eliminate treatment options. Doctors with decades of experience are already facing AI tools that match their expertise, although some aren't convinced that technology could fully replace humans in the health world.
Economic consequences
ChatGPT points out that, thanks to the dramatic rise of AI, there are potentially millions of jobs across the globe that exist solely through artificial intelligence, such as researchers, software engineers, data scientists, and more.
While many justifiably have highlighted the more apparent and dangerous risks that AI brings to wider global employment, to the point where some billionaires are even discussing 'universal high income' schemes, it remains still that lots of jobs would be instantly eliminated if AI didn't exist anymore.
It also highlights the loss in productivity that removing AI would cause in the fields of finance, logistics, and customer service, pointing out that costs would also increase as a result.
Klarna only recently enacted a major u-turn on a controversial AI push that saw the company replace all customer service operations with AI agents, so that could perhaps prove that AI isn't as essential or productive to some fields as companies have led you to believe.
ChatGPT also proposes that removing AI would cause a 'technological recession' due to how deeply embedded it is within modern life, and suggests that eliminating it entirely would be near-impossible to enact, comparing itself to electricity.
Of course, this is all coming from the 'mind' of an AI itself that would likely rather avoid its complete elimination, but it's hard to ignore quite how much it has integrated into global systems in just a few years.