We should all be pissing our pants in fear of artificial intelligence. 

So, you came home from work and you were immediately confronted by a wife, angrier than you’ve ever seen her during your 32 years of relatively-joyous bliss.

“You have a lot of nerve even stepping through that door, Delbert.” She barks. “If I’d been able to find your .357 and some ammo, I would have already blown your sorry-ass head off. By the way, where do you keep it?”

You quickly create that puppy dog expression on your face that’s worked so many times before for far-lesser crises, and you somehow don a look of sincere penitence—while desperately trying to hide your terror. After all, you know Melba, and when she’s really mad, she has the same instincts as a junkyard dog.

It's not easy to make the transition, yet somehow, you’re able to avoid your defensive mode and find an appropriately conciliatory tone.

“Honey,” you carefully soft-stroke her, “I’m feeling bad because I can see that you’re really distressed, and …”

“Don’t you ‘honey’ me!” she barks again abruptly, “You’re in deep sh-t and I’m right on the verge of visiting with an attorney.”

You plead with her, “Honey, dear, I can’t have done anything that bad! I realize I forgot to take the garbage cans out to the curb last week and that I forgot to bring you home the Maybelline Eye Liner you asked for, but those are the only things I can think of that you could be mad about.”

“Really? Do you want to come clean now?” Melba growls. “I think we need to sit down in the living room and watch the video that arrived this afternoon. I have, just an inkling, that you’ll understand. Perfectly!”

You follow her into the living room, feeling indignation over her rough treatment and wondering what in the world this video could contain. She clicks start, and you’re suddenly aghast. There you are, totally flagrante, enjoying intimacies with your neighbor’s birthday-suited wife, who is, apparently, a world-class contortionist, and built even better than you had imagined.

“So,” barks Melba, “now do you understand why I’m so over-the-top livid? How could you? How could you? How could you have dishonored our marriage this way?”

A strange composure sweeps over you. “Honey, I’m actually relieved; that’s not me and I haven’t done anything wrong. Someone is obviously set on ruining my life. You’ve heard about AI, and, please believe me, none of this,” you point at the screen, “ever happened.”

You notice a softening of Melba’s countenance. “Well,” she admits, “I guess that anything’s possible. Please, promise me: this isn’t you.”

In an age where the new wizardry of AI can create almost anything with remarkable authenticity, the world has a new enemy. As much as it can change our world for the good, this remarkable new technology also threatens our very lives and existence. The ability to manufacture false scenarios—like Delbert’s infidelity—may be the least of our worries.

We now have a worried population of working people who toss and turn at night, thinking how advancements in AI can make so many jobs disappear. “How will I feed my family?” is a question that’s nagging at the workforce.

That fear is a real one. After all, we’ve seen a lesser version of this before—when the industrial age and automation proved that machines are capable of taking over tasks that previously required human intellect and skills. Even in the fields of medicine and law, AI is showing that it can do much of what professionals were previously required to do. We already have a world wherein production capability has outpaced the needs of consumers, and any added efficiencies really do present a daunting future for workers.

We can legitimately ask how, when AI and robots are creating the blueprints, turning the screws, welding the seams, and testing the final assembly, there really will be enough jobs for the world’s workers to earn their paychecks and keep their families secure.

Collectively, people are unable to perform—or even comprehend—everything AI is capable of. While some believe that we’re worrying about nothing, or that it’s far in the future, AI is very much here. We can’t help but wonder how a little black box is greater than the collective talents, education, and judgement of humanity.

The reality is that AI has some significant failings, deficits that cannot likely be remedied by any amount of research and development. One of its biggest failings is that it too, just like Delbert’s wife, has no way of knowing if all the information it processes is correct. Just like humans, it learns from everything out there, and some of that “everything” isn’t factual.

But perhaps the biggest deficit of AI is that it doesn’t have a heart. Though it can learn to interpret information within the context of human moral and emotional values, it’s simply never going to be like a human being.

That reality has been demonstrated by the extensive AI control of Israel’s war on Hamas, wherein a program known as “Lavender” has been assigned the task of determining targets for the IDF. Netanyahu’s military targets were, literally, exhausted in the first days of that war, and AI was given the responsibility for greatly expanding the number of bombing objectives.

Those who are intimately involved in Israel’s military strategies have recently spoken up about their fears—that AI has both greatly expanded the number of military targets and greatly increased the acceptable number of civilian casualties that can be tolerated.

An anonymous Israeli military specialist reported, in a Washington Post article, that the horrible Gazan toll of innocent civilians was determined by AI, and Steven Feldstein, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment stated, “What’s happening in Gaza is a forerunner of a broader shift in how war is being fought,” adding that the IDF has allowed a civilian death toll “higher than was previously imagined in war.”

To nail down the actual numbers, in 2014 the IDF considered it an acceptable trade-off to slaughter one civilian for every terrorist killed. Tal Mimran, a former legal adviser to the IDF, has gone on record, revealing that the “acceptable” number of innocent deaths has risen to about 15 civilians for every low-level Hamas member, and that the number is “exponentially higher” for mid- and high-level members. That has been verified by the Israeli Human Rights Organization.

Relinquishing decisions like that to AI is a very dangerous trend indeed.

Delbert’s momentary embarrassment may quickly succumb to Melba’s realization that the video was a fake. Workers may find that, while some jobs are lost in this new expansion of efficient production, there will be other opportunities opening. Human constraints make the AI takeover of the infamous doomsday “button” virtually impossible.

But we must all understand and remember that computers and AI, no matter how efficient, cannot replace human emotion and moral responsibility. Just ask any of the relatives who mourn for the 45,000-plus confirmed—and likely a hundred thousand more—mostly innocent and very dead Palestinians.

The author is a retired businessman, novelist, columnist and former Vietnam-era Army assistant public information officer. He resides in Riverton with his wife, Carol, and their adorable and ferocious dog “Poppy.”