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Along similar lines, since AI is considered to be potentially dangerous, by figures from Elon Musk to Stephen Hawking, I would rather our civilization never ope

Along similar lines, since AI is considered to be potentially dangerous, by figures from Elon Musk to Stephen Hawking, I would rather our civilization never open this pandora's box. We can solve Earth's problems and even spread to the stars without AI. We can invent fusion reactors and thus nearly free energy without AI. We can engineer biological immortality into our very genes without AI. Why risk playing with a loaded gun?

pgodzin 11y ago
Because it can make like infinitely easier. Save an entire population from having to work half their lives just to provide for their family. Why force people into work when we can build the technology that could do it instead? I'm obviously skipping over the societal effects of that, but if it can be done, it is worth trying.
togelius 11y ago
So how exactly would we go about to make sure that no-one does research on AI? Which particular kinds of research would we ban? And how would we enforce it?
throwaway999888 11y ago
I agree. We have a come a long way already, and I would personally prefer that we do our best to not screw up what we already have. That includes global warming, unleashing Strong AI, and so on. It might suck to actually have to work, even as much as 40 hours a week or more in this day and age and with the productivity increases we've seen. But I don't think work itself is that horrible that I would bet my leisure on some AI that consumes the known Universe making and collecting stamps.
- pgodzin 11y ago
  Your work may not be that horrible, but I'm sure there are a ton of people with either dangerous or incredibly monotonous jobs that could be automated would disagree with you.
  - throwaway999888 11y ago
    I don't believe that you would need Strong AI to automate away dangerous parts of jobs. Or the monotonous parts.
monk_e_boy 11y ago
But strong AI may figure out how to save us. One argument says AI may become smarter than us and decide to kill us all, either on purpose or by accident. But why not consider that the AI may be kind, it may help us and give us things. After all, smart humans are generally kind. Most of us wouldn't think to kill a dolphin, why would an AI think to kill a human or a dolphin?
- jodrellblank 11y ago
  After all, smart humans are generally kind. ?? Smart humans drive cars which splat thousands of insects on their windshields. Smart humans buy clothes imported from third world child working sweatshops, and food from slaughtered pigs and cows and chickens farmed in unpleasant conditions. Smart humans flush their excrement into the rivers they take drinking water from, and the oceans they fish food from, the same places they dump their unwanted plastic. Smart humans dig oil up, convert it into disposable plastic, and then bury it and build homes on top. Smart humans fight other humans to the death for oil instead of funding renewable energy, smart humans bitch at other humans over anything they have impassioned disagreements about. Smart humans are generally kind: a) to other humans, b) who they care about (or share some world view with). To quote WaitButWhy.com: if there are two guinea pigs, one normal one and one with the mind of a tarantula, I would feel much less comfortable holding the latter guinea pig, even if I knew neither would hurt me. Now imagine that you made a spider much, much smarter—so much so that it far surpassed human intelligence? Would it then become familiar to us and feel human emotions like empathy and humor and love? No, it wouldn’t, because there’s no reason becoming smarter would make it more human—it would be incredibly smart but also still fundamentally a spider in its core inner workings. I find this unbelievably creepy. I would not want to spend time with a superintelligent spider. Would you?? When we’re talking about ASI, the same concept applies—it would become superintelligent, but it would be no more human than your laptop is. It would be totally alien to us—in fact, by not being biology at all, it would be more alien than the smart tarantula. By making AI either good or evil, movies constantly anthropomorphize AI, which makes it less creepy than it really would be. This leaves us with a false comfort when we think about human-level or superhuman-level AI. - http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-2.html http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolu...
mattthebaker 11y ago
If you don't, someone else will. Why risk permanent climate damage from an unlimited heat source I.e. Fusion? Why risk severe overpopulation due to immortality? There are many shades of gray between machine learning and sky net. There is a lot for civilization to gain in between.
gnaritas 11y ago
It's not something we're going to be able to avoid; once we figure out how brains work and how to emulate them in software, you're never going to prevent people from building them, how are you going to know what I'm programming? It's not really feasible to halt technological progress, you simply have to learn to deal with the consequences.

pgodzin 11y ago

Because it can make like infinitely easier. Save an entire population from having to work half their lives just to provide for their family. Why force people into work when we can build the technology that could do it instead? I'm obviously skipping over the societal effects of that, but if it can be done, it is worth trying.

togelius 11y ago

So how exactly would we go about to make sure that no-one does research on AI? Which particular kinds of research would we ban? And how would we enforce it?

throwaway999888 11y ago

I agree. We have a come a long way already, and I would personally prefer that we do our best to not screw up what we already have. That includes global warming, unleashing Strong AI, and so on. It might suck to actually have to work, even as much as 40 hours a week or more in this day and age and with the productivity increases we've seen. But I don't think work itself is that horrible that I would bet my leisure on some AI that consumes the known Universe making and collecting stamps.

pgodzin 11y ago
Your work may not be that horrible, but I'm sure there are a ton of people with either dangerous or incredibly monotonous jobs that could be automated would disagree with you.
- throwaway999888 11y ago
  I don't believe that you would need Strong AI to automate away dangerous parts of jobs. Or the monotonous parts.

monk_e_boy 11y ago

But strong AI may figure out how to save us. One argument says AI may become smarter than us and decide to kill us all, either on purpose or by accident. But why not consider that the AI may be kind, it may help us and give us things. After all, smart humans are generally kind. Most of us wouldn't think to kill a dolphin, why would an AI think to kill a human or a dolphin?

jodrellblank 11y ago
After all, smart humans are generally kind. ?? Smart humans drive cars which splat thousands of insects on their windshields. Smart humans buy clothes imported from third world child working sweatshops, and food from slaughtered pigs and cows and chickens farmed in unpleasant conditions. Smart humans flush their excrement into the rivers they take drinking water from, and the oceans they fish food from, the same places they dump their unwanted plastic. Smart humans dig oil up, convert it into disposable plastic, and then bury it and build homes on top. Smart humans fight other humans to the death for oil instead of funding renewable energy, smart humans bitch at other humans over anything they have impassioned disagreements about. Smart humans are generally kind: a) to other humans, b) who they care about (or share some world view with). To quote WaitButWhy.com: if there are two guinea pigs, one normal one and one with the mind of a tarantula, I would feel much less comfortable holding the latter guinea pig, even if I knew neither would hurt me. Now imagine that you made a spider much, much smarter—so much so that it far surpassed human intelligence? Would it then become familiar to us and feel human emotions like empathy and humor and love? No, it wouldn’t, because there’s no reason becoming smarter would make it more human—it would be incredibly smart but also still fundamentally a spider in its core inner workings. I find this unbelievably creepy. I would not want to spend time with a superintelligent spider. Would you?? When we’re talking about ASI, the same concept applies—it would become superintelligent, but it would be no more human than your laptop is. It would be totally alien to us—in fact, by not being biology at all, it would be more alien than the smart tarantula. By making AI either good or evil, movies constantly anthropomorphize AI, which makes it less creepy than it really would be. This leaves us with a false comfort when we think about human-level or superhuman-level AI. - http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-2.html http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolu...

mattthebaker 11y ago

If you don't, someone else will. Why risk permanent climate damage from an unlimited heat source I.e. Fusion? Why risk severe overpopulation due to immortality? There are many shades of gray between machine learning and sky net. There is a lot for civilization to gain in between.

gnaritas 11y ago

It's not something we're going to be able to avoid; once we figure out how brains work and how to emulate them in software, you're never going to prevent people from building them, how are you going to know what I'm programming? It's not really feasible to halt technological progress, you simply have to learn to deal with the consequences.