What if humans are no longer earth's most intelligent beings?

In his final, posthumously published book, famed physicist Stephen Hawking raises an alarm about the dangers of artificial intelligence, or AI, and the existential threat it could pose to humanity. In "Brief Answers to the Big Questions," Hawking writes, "a super-intelligent AI will be extremely good at accomplishing goals, and if those goals aren't aligned with ours, we're in trouble." University of Virginia economist Anton Korinek could not agree more, and he believes that the kind of AI that Hawking refers to – "general artificial intelligence" that can equal or surpass human intelligence – could be just a few decades away. "I believe that, by the second half of this century, AI – robots and programs – will be better than us humans at nearly everything," said Korinek, who holds a joint appointment in UVA's Economics Department and the Darden School of Business. "The fundamental question becomes, 'What will happen to humans if we are no longer the most generally intelligent beings on Earth?'" Korinek has written and co-written several published and forthcoming papers on the economic impact of increasing artificial intelligence, including a paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research and several works in progress.