Sci-fi writer eerily 'predicts the end of mankind and rise of AI' in video from 1964
A sci-fi writer from 1964 eerily predicted ‘the end of mankind and rise of AI’.
In a resurfaced clip, the man shared his foresight on how artificial intelligence will advance in the future.
The man in question is Arthur C. Clarke, who was a British science fiction writer as well as a futurist, inventor and undersea explorer.
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And it seems that he was right on the money with some of his predictions after a video clip from over half a century ago appeared online.
In 1964, Clarke made the argument that humans were a stepping stone towards the evolution of AI.
In the video posted on YouTube, he said: “The most intelligent inhabitants of that future world won’t be men or monkeys, they’ll be machines.
“The remote descendants of today’s computers now the present-day electronic brains are complete morons but this will not be true in another generation.
“They will start to think and eventually, they will completely out-think their makers. Is this depressing? I don’t see why it should be.
“We superseded the Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal man and we presume we’re an improvement. I think we should regard it as a privilege to be stepping stones to higher things.
“I suspect that organic or biological evolution has about come to its end and we are now at the beginning of inorganic or mechanical evolution, which will be thousands of times swifter.”
The eerie prediction has caused a stir on social media, with many people taking to the YouTube comment section to share their own thoughts on the matter.
One user wrote: “He predicted the internet of today. I’m sure this prediction will come true as well.”
Another said: “When he said humans will be like a ‘stepping stone’. That really put into perspective why guys like Elon Musk fear AI.”
A third person commented: “We will just merge with the machines. The machines will be us. We will be the machines. It’s already happening.”
And a fourth user added: “He seems to think that intelligence is the pinnacle of development, and since machines will be more intelligent they will supersede us. But he forgets there's more to humans than intelligence.”
Other predictions made by Arthur C. Clarke
This wasn’t the only time Clarke correctly guessed what was in store for us in the future.
In the 60s, he accurately predicted that robotic surgery would be a future practice in medicine.
He also foresaw the evolution of the internet, satellite technology and 3D printing.
However, not all of Clarke’s fortune-telling has come true.
Some of his more outlandish and yet to be proven accurate predictions include the likes of the first human to be cloned, bringing soil samples from Mars back to Earth, the destruction of all nuclear weapons in the world and the abolishment of all currencies.