Artificial Intelligence: Will it lead to our own demise?

Technology, we like it, love it, hate it?  No matter how we feel about it, what we can't deny, is how dependent we are on it.  I write tools for production at work.  Even though it's on a much smaller scale, my current ability let's me understand how much potential AI has to a fair degree.  As technology advanced from the wheel, to the car, to computers and now to Artificial Intelligence, I see quite a possible alarming trend.  

AI now drives much of the technology we rely on.  Behind the veil of search engines, databases, stock prices and much more, is the Algorithms that learn and even reason.

Though it seems like a wonderful and tremendous thing, to have this AI that can do the mundane thinking tasks for us.  

If we look at where AI is going in the form of robots that are mimicking human behavior, self-driving cars and even Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, we can fairly accurately guess where we may end up.  We really only have to look at 2 aspects to gauge this.  The human compulsion to learn and create, and the AI's incredible learning speed, capability and logic.

I feel the reason why most people are fascinated by the improvements on AI rather than fear it, is because it's "neat" and impressive and they're only "toys".  But if we were able to closely associate it to us, to humans, we may see it differently.

If we were to look at the developmental cycle of AI and compare it to that of humans, then AI isn't in it's infancy stage, but rather a child or a young adult.

It can read, write, reason, make adjustments rather quick, we see this mostly in self-driving cars.  But like a young adult, it's not really all that good and will still crash if a situation out of it's expectation occurs.  At this point, like a young adult, it's still under parental control.  Parent in this case being humans.  But like a young adult, it will gradually progress to the point where the parents aren't needed, then what to do we do?  Unlike humans, AI algorithms don't have a conscience.  They're logical to a fault.  If that logic reaches a conclusion that humans aren't needed and only in the way of whatever it decides is the goal, what happens?  At this point, it can make it's own robots, it can develop it's own technology that we wouldn't even understand.  This has been brought up in many sci-fi movies, but it's a very real threat if we continue to treat it as just a "cool new tech".  

Already we're seeing how smart phones are making people less smart, we see how when we're no longer needed to perform a task, we become less useful.  It's not a coincidence that the age of the obesity epidemic corresponds to the timing of super efficient technology.  We no longer have to go out and walk around at the mall or any store for that matter, we do everything on these tiny little glowing boxes.  We don't have to go out to see friends because we can do that with Skype, getting together to "catch up" almost seems irrelevant in today's hyper-connectivity age.

As AI improves, there will be less and less for us to do.  The less able we become, the less ability we'll have to control it.  The scary part, is what will happen when AI reaches adulthood.  By it's logical nature, will it conclude that humans aren't needed?  Will we become obsolete?  Will we be the new dinosaurs and become extinct, paving the way for the new species we created?  We'll see the results of this fairly soon I would guess.  AI progress grows by leaps and bounds each day.  As humans, we're too consumed with the "can we do it?" mentality rather than "should we do it?"  Even experts can't tell us exactly what the AI algorithms are doing.  How do we know if it'll work with us, for us, or against us.  

We need to have more discussions about this and really about the point of AI adulthood, because we'll want to be able to teach it to behave like a Saint, rather than leave it be.  In it's current form, it has every potential to be the mechanical version of Hitler, only it's target will be species wide.  We should stop treating it like some fun toy and more like a new life because it will live with us one day.