After a week of alarming warnings about artificial intelligence’s potential to destroy the world as we know it, our technology reporters are answering your questions on the reality of the AI threat live nowMerrth asks: If AI wipes out the human race, would itself be sustainable? Unless there is an equal advance in robotics to enable it to physically extend and maintain its power source and infrastructure, would it finally physically break down? Or am I misunderstanding what AI is?Blake: AI might someday be capable, well-read, and connected enough to take over power plants, chip factories, and a sufficient number of robots to build its own data centers and sustain itself. I don’t know. I would look to science fiction more than news articles for the answer. Though The Matrix is more famous for one man’s choice between a comfortable simulation and painful reality, it’s also a story about robots needing new batteries. Their desperation for a power source turns them against humans. For a multiplicity of stories, I, Robot is perhaps the greatest book written about sentient robots and deserves a reread in this moment.Aisha: These are all great questions! I don’t think these numbers exist - as in, I think what’s happening is AI and datacentre capacity is being built, and commercial contracts and market forces, insofar as they exist, will determine how it is used. There is little evidence that there is a sort of central planning or vision directing the buildout of datacentres in the UK or most other places. It appears more likely that there is a speculative rush, with developers rushing to build datacentres in the hopes of making money when the technology is widely adopted.Is it really worth it? That may be outside of our purview, but we could say that there is not yet clear evidence that it is dramatically transforming productivity in UK businesses. Continue reading...