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What are the odds that AI kills the whole of humanity? Apparently greater than 10%, at least according to a top researcher at Anthropic. Who could have predicted we would reach this point? If someone went back in time to four years ago, around the time ChatGPT became available to the public, and told people that AI would pose a credible risk to the viability of humanity by the end of the decade, he would have been reasonably called crazy! How we decide to engage, control, and develop AI in the present moment will have potentially indelible consequences that will ripple out for years to come.

Some may understandably argue that AI is somehow a suspect force that we do not fully understand, and therefore argue for the adoption of a sort of luddite approach. Most feel generally concerned at the growing presence of AI. Indeed, the prospect of AI destroying humanity does not make me particularly eager to open Claude to look up recipes for cookies I’ll never actually bake. Despite the trepidation most of us feel towards AI, it is imperative to maintain a balanced approach towards this critical technology — one share of prudence, one share of optimism. For as much as AI may be a threat to human dignity, it has tremendous potential to uplift humanity, especially the vulnerable and marginalized.

AI should be properly understood as a tool. Progress can be called authentic only when it facilitates the social and personal development in a society. Economic growth, efficiency and technological innovation, while beneficial in some contexts, are vain if they do not contribute to authentic human flourishing. We should feel alarmed at the prospect of rapid, untethered AI development. Unbridled AI development for the sake of an international arms race, economic gain and so on displaces the vision of technology serving humanity, endangering the promotion of human dignity.

Despite these genuine risks and concerns, it is important to maintain a sense of optimism. Prudence must not devolve into demonizing a technology that stands to potentially uplift an unnumbered amount of lives. Take the realm of healthcare, for example. AI is already being implemented in medical scanning and imaging, flagging malignant tumors and irregularities that doctors may have otherwise missed. AI is also playing a crucial role in hastening drug and vaccine development and was even used in the development of the COVID-19 vaccine. Furthermore, AI is being used to power virtual assistants that can triage symptoms and reduce a burden in the process of seeking the proper medical care — a boon particularly helpful for those living in rural areas, for example, that lack adequate healthcare access. AI in the realm of healthcare is just one example of how this technology may uplift and protect human dignity, and a myriad of other realms. I could devote many pages to detailing the potential benefits of AI to humanity.

It is important, therefore, that we take a proactive approach to AI. Being a true optimist is believing that good things can happen, not that they necessarily will happen. This implies an obligation: It is incumbent upon all of us to understand the potential benefits and risks of AI and to earnestly advocate for a human-centered development process. Don’t restrain yourself from being mad, scared and excited at the same time. Write to your representatives in Congress, march in the streets, daydream about technology making the world a better place. Whatever you do, don’t keep on with the status quo. Our collective fate as a species is at stake.