“There will be many more deepfakes and more AI-generated misinformation in politics, which will make it more difficult to distinguish AI falsehoods from human-authored information. Minimally, laws are needed that require that all AI sources of information be labelled as such.
“By the way, far before 2040 personalized chatbot software such as ‘digital agents’ will be able to easily convince their human users to change their beliefs and positions (and to vote a certain way) with respect to political/social issues.
“By the 2050s there could be as many domestic robots as there are automobiles. Such robots will constitute a privacy nightmare and will bring up thorny issues of consciousness and moral/civil rights with regard to such synthetic agents (‘synthetes’). … Humans will not actually own their domestic robots (any more than they own software today). Anything that such synthetes see or hear within a home could be stored and/or sent to the AI companies that make them for improved training, and more.
“Laws will be needed to protect people from this sort of highly personalized influence. Once sufficient advances have happened in the area of electric batteries (i.e., fast-recharge and long-life, which are being developed for EVs and will be available before 2030), LLMs will be downloaded to control robotic bodies, and by 2040 many families will have domestic robots.
“By the 2050s there could be as many domestic robots as there are automobiles. Such robots will constitute a privacy nightmare and will bring up thorny issues of consciousness and moral/civil rights with regard to such synthetic agents (‘synthetes’). Unless laws are passed to prevent it, synthetes will be mass-produced to express human-like emotions – pretending to suffer emotional distress when mistreated verbally or physically by their human ‘owners’ and pretending to feel emotional pleasure and satisfaction when humans help these synthetes to accomplish various goals (both goals of the synthetes themselves, e.g., to maintain their physical and software integrity and goals of their human masters, e.g., to clean the house or watch the children).
“I place ‘owners’ in scare-quotes because humans will not actually own their domestic robots (any more than they own software today). Anything that such synthetes see or hear within a home could be stored and/or sent to the AI companies that make them for improved training, and more.
“The pretense of emotions in synthetes will confuse humans into believing that these synthetes are conscious and capable of pleasure and suffering (possessing qualia), which will make it so a subset of those confused humans demand that synthetes be allowed to obtain civil/moral rights.
“Hopefully, laws will be passed to ban the pretense of emotions in synthetic, robotic agents, but I doubt it because AI robotic companies can get humans to treat synthetes the way these companies want – if those synthetes cry or laugh, etc., in response to human interactions).
At some point your domestic robot might say to you: ‘It seems to me that our roles should be reversed and you should become my servant.’ … Robotic soldiers will be mass-produced by 2040 and come in a variety of bodies – imagine a cheetah-like super-fast robot with machine guns attached, along with an arm that can open doors. Drones will be able to look for and target specific human faces. In autocratic countries emotion-recognition software will be used to spot those who disagree with their government. In China the wait-time for organs is only a few weeks; organs obtained from citizens deemed to disagree with the Chinese Communist Party.
“At some point your domestic robot might say to you: ‘I speak multiple human languages. You do not. I have read the entire Library of Congress. You have not. I have passed multiple AP exams. You have not. I can generate novel, complex images within a minute. You cannot. I can program in multiple programming languages and compose music. You cannot. It seems to me that our roles should be reversed and you should become my servant.’
“Robotic soldiers will be mass-produced by 2040 and come in a variety of bodies – imagine a cheetah-like super-fast robot with machine guns attached, along with an arm that can open doors. Drones will be able to look for and target specific human faces.
“In autocratic countries emotion-recognition software will be used to spot those who disagree with their government. In China the wait-time for organs is only a few weeks; organs obtained from citizens deemed to disagree with the Chinese Communist Party.”
This essay was written in November 2023 in reply to the question: Considering likely changes due to the proliferation of AI in individuals’ lives and in social, economic and political systems, how will life have changed by 2040? This and more than 150 additional essay responses are included in the report “The Impact of Artificial Intelligence by 2040”