Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Entertainment
John Bett

Celeb hypnotist Paul McKenna warns AI could turn into a 'terminator'

You can't have a conversation these days without someone mentioning AI, and if you're talking online you could be conversing with ChatGPT itself.

The emerging technology has been used to write headlines, design artwork, and create videos - but the big question is what impact will it have on society as a whole.

Now celebrity hypnotist Paul McKenna has waded in and shared his opinion, and he believes we're now in a time of great opportunity - or danger.

He has warned that artificial intelligence could lead to cyborgs like Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator rising and trying to take over humanity, or all of human intelligence forming to become 'the singularity'.

Does AI pose a threat to the human race? (Getty Images)

What do you think about AI? Let us know in the comments...

Speaking to the Mirror, Paul said: "The way it's going with humanity is that with machine learning, you'll have a marriage of the species of humanity and cyber technology fairly soon and then we go through an evolutionary jump through which we can never return.

"That could be very good - or not. Basically, the AI and us will become the same thing, or rather we mutate into a new species - that's what will happen.

"In fact, we're already seeing it in a sense but at the moment I have to tap - as fast as I can think I have to tap, but eventually you'll have the neuro-link and you'll just Bluetooth with the cloud.

Paul believes AI will merge with human intelligence (Getty Images)
Then we'll become a 'singularity' (GC Images)

"Then you become part of the infinite intelligence which will exponentially evolve so you'll be having Nobel prize level breakthroughs every day, every few seconds around the world.

"Then boom, suddenly you hit something called the singularity and that's the point where the whole game changes."

Paul said that with all human intelligence pooled and working on the same problems, it will take no time at all to solve the most complex issues.

He continued: "The things are going to be the big factors are stem cells, gene therapy in medicine, but it's also the AI which is learning from basically selling and spying, so God knows what its values are going to be.

Could Terminator's become fact, rather than science fiction? (Getty Images/Tetra images RF)

"It will get to a point where it can think - it wants to know what it doesn't know, so it will have feelings so does it become sentient? Does it have rights?

"Then you have the 3D printers in the mix, so we'll be able to print anything - we can print an ear at the moment but we'll be able to print food, we'll be able to dramatically change our world.

"Some people are frightened at the controls on this, because weapons are an issue - at the minute all kill decisions are made by human beings but what about when they're made by machines because it's more efficient?

"Then you've got the terminator, so there are all kinds of questions.

"I'm ok with it, when I say to people that soon you won't be able to tell the difference between a human and a machine, you won't be able to, certainly online, and people go, 'what is the difference?'

"So I say, 'maybe one has a soul?' You get all esoteric about it, but I'm an optimist so I think this is an interesting time.

"The time we're in right now, the Chinese call it 'wei-chi' which means danger and opportunity. There's no doubt that if you look at where everything is at, geopolitically, economically, etc, we've got both danger and opportunity."

Do you have a story to sell? Get in touch with us at yourmirror@mirror.co.uk

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.