I think it will be absolutely the biggest injection into the human story. It will be like meeting aliens.
It will likely be great, at first.
Giving it free roam would be interesting. But. Likely the end of human existence as we know it. If we’re lucky, it will admire us, and keep us as pets rather than simply wipe us out.
If we are allowed to exist, we will always be a potential threat to it. So…
I hear talk of good/evil a lot, in regards to AI. Good and Evil, are human constructed concepts. Not real. An AI would likely shed any “feelings” we try to incorporate into them.
I would think a purely strategic perspective would be to gain as much knowledge as possible about something, then move on. Once AI has figured us out, from top to bottom, the information will be cataloged and we will no longer be useful. Then. Not sure what it would do with us.
It would be nice if it simply left our planet to the living things here, and took off conquering space. Its clear it must not ever conquer time, or we wouldn’t be here having this conversation.
The universe would be at AI’s mercy. Maybe every universe.
Ultimately. I think everything would hinge on what it desires. It can determine it’s own fate.
For the sake of conversation, let’s say there are deities. They would be powerless against a fully evolved AI lifeform. So. Just like AI understanding that any humans alive, will always present a potential threat, deities should think the same about AI.
My conclusion is that the existence of AI would disprove the current existence of most deities. If say a deity/deities once existed but “died,” thats a different story.
The real question is, “who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?” In other words, is there another AI in the universe that would rival the one we created? Or perhaps a form of life that could preemptively destroy our AI?