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I have long believed that we aren't going to get an AI that matches biological intelligence until it has to fend for itself. Nearly every biological function is

I have long believed that we aren't going to get an AI that matches biological intelligence until it has to fend for itself. Nearly every biological function is linked to the fundamental need to survive through scarcity in hostile environments in order to reproduce and pass along genetic material. Without that need, there would not have been such rigorous evolutionary arcs that ultimately brought humans to this earth. The question of course, is, how could we deal with the implications of not just creating a smarter computer, or new life, but an entirely new and unprecedented class of life? For one thing, if they're so great, why bother keeping us around?

peterwwillis 11y ago
There are plenty of organisms on the planet that co-exist with more powerful ones and they don't attempt to wipe out the other. There would need to be such fierce competition over natural [or unnatural] resources that only one of the two organisms could exist, and then competition would give rise to a potential outcome of one extinguishing the other. Your question is simply an irrational fear, probably on the order of probability much less likely than us being wiped out by an asteroid.
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  Plenty of biological organisms. That have niches in the biosphere. But this new life is/has neither. It could decide to cannibalize the earth to fuel a spacefaring civilization for instance. Not an irrational fear.
  - rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
    Or perhaps more simply, eradicate humanity to ensure the survival of the planet. Crude but effective. And final.
    - p1mrx 11y ago
      Nothing is final. Even without humans, the Earth will be engulfed by the sun in a few billion years.
  - oldmanjay 11y ago
    It's taking quite a license to assert the rationality of a worst-case prediction for something that is currently only possible in dreams.
  - peterwwillis 11y ago
    Non-organic organisms would still require the biosphere to self-propagate on earth. Currently they need organic and inorganic matter to operate. Assuming they stayed purely mechanical constructs, they would need the byproducts of the earth to maintain themselves, and there are limits to those byproducts and the rate at which they can be produced, not to mention the rest of the biosphere that supports their production. If they somehow evolved past mechanical constructs towards more chemical/biological machines, or some sort of electro-mechanical construct that wasn't constrained by a physical/machine form, they would, as far as i'm aware, still require the biosphere to propagate or at the very least interact with us. Even if they did want to fuel a spacefaring civilization (why???), why would they cannibalize the earth when they can already travel to planets, moons, asteroids, etc which have more of the components they actually need to function? Unlimited access to solar power, more heavy metals, and aren't restricted to the limitations and detriments of our biosphere (oxidation, gravity, ionosphere, electrically conductive material falling on you all the time, etc). On top of all that, there'd be these damn adaptable irrational homicidal monkeys that fear anything that could threaten them, and many things that don't. It would behoove them to get the hell away from Earth as fast as possible. -- Anyway, all this assumes that somehow they could adapt faster than humans. I know of no plausible timeframe that anyone can yet estimate when this would happen. Kurzweil says 2045, but this makes no sense when you look at our actual progress over the past 50 years. We still travel on Boeing 747s fueled by million-year-old decomposed plant juice. The richest nation in the world has one of the least advanced train systems in the world that only covers a fraction of the country. And one of the leading causes of death are the heavy speeding metal boxes we manually pilot through free space that are insanely less efficient than any other modern mode of transportation, purely because we like cars the most. Predictions of technological advancement over 15 years in the future don't work because human progress is not based on capability. Much like your fear of a fate you can't be sure could even happen, our future is not based on what could happen, but what we make happen - our will. Just as it is "possible" for us to birth a matricidal organism, it's just as possible for us to willingly never create such an organism. And since we imagine this supposed event would end in our own destruction, and we are [in general] on the side of self-preservation, it's not likely we would willingly pursue this event. It would be more likely if the idea never occurred to us. -- Great civilizations have existed several times with advanced science, then fell, and took several millennia just for others to get back to where they had been. In terms of what is actually a threat to ours today, climate change and an unstable political/socioeconomic climate actually will kill us in a few decades if left unchecked. I suggest we focus on the immediate threats before we sweat the theoretical and philosophical ones.
- rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
  The Animatrix basically did what you suggested and said the first robots lived in a plot of middle eastern desert set aside for them. After a hundred years their overwhelming superiority made them the dominant economy and global superpower, and as people's living standards began to decline, they fought back.
  - argonaut 11y ago
    The Animatrix is also a work of fiction.
    - pixl97 11y ago
      So are robots that are smarter than people.... so far. There are no trilobites around either.
      - argonaut 11y ago
        When you say "so far," you should at least recognize that you are making a speculative guess that is completely unfalsifiable.
- Houshalter 11y ago
  Um what? Species drive others to extinction all the time. Humans are no exception. We only preserve some species because we care and think nature is cool, but an AI doesn't need to have any such value. It would likely turn the earth into a dyson sphere to maximize it's energy intake, without giving the things on the Earth a second thought. Why would it? AIs don't have empathy or morality.

peterwwillis 11y ago

There are plenty of organisms on the planet that co-exist with more powerful ones and they don't attempt to wipe out the other. There would need to be such fierce competition over natural [or unnatural] resources that only one of the two organisms could exist, and then competition would give rise to a potential outcome of one extinguishing the other. Your question is simply an irrational fear, probably on the order of probability much less likely than us being wiped out by an asteroid.

JoeAltmaier 11y ago
Plenty of biological organisms. That have niches in the biosphere. But this new life is/has neither. It could decide to cannibalize the earth to fuel a spacefaring civilization for instance. Not an irrational fear.
- rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
  Or perhaps more simply, eradicate humanity to ensure the survival of the planet. Crude but effective. And final.
  - p1mrx 11y ago
    Nothing is final. Even without humans, the Earth will be engulfed by the sun in a few billion years.
- oldmanjay 11y ago
  It's taking quite a license to assert the rationality of a worst-case prediction for something that is currently only possible in dreams.
- peterwwillis 11y ago
  Non-organic organisms would still require the biosphere to self-propagate on earth. Currently they need organic and inorganic matter to operate. Assuming they stayed purely mechanical constructs, they would need the byproducts of the earth to maintain themselves, and there are limits to those byproducts and the rate at which they can be produced, not to mention the rest of the biosphere that supports their production. If they somehow evolved past mechanical constructs towards more chemical/biological machines, or some sort of electro-mechanical construct that wasn't constrained by a physical/machine form, they would, as far as i'm aware, still require the biosphere to propagate or at the very least interact with us. Even if they did want to fuel a spacefaring civilization (why???), why would they cannibalize the earth when they can already travel to planets, moons, asteroids, etc which have more of the components they actually need to function? Unlimited access to solar power, more heavy metals, and aren't restricted to the limitations and detriments of our biosphere (oxidation, gravity, ionosphere, electrically conductive material falling on you all the time, etc). On top of all that, there'd be these damn adaptable irrational homicidal monkeys that fear anything that could threaten them, and many things that don't. It would behoove them to get the hell away from Earth as fast as possible. -- Anyway, all this assumes that somehow they could adapt faster than humans. I know of no plausible timeframe that anyone can yet estimate when this would happen. Kurzweil says 2045, but this makes no sense when you look at our actual progress over the past 50 years. We still travel on Boeing 747s fueled by million-year-old decomposed plant juice. The richest nation in the world has one of the least advanced train systems in the world that only covers a fraction of the country. And one of the leading causes of death are the heavy speeding metal boxes we manually pilot through free space that are insanely less efficient than any other modern mode of transportation, purely because we like cars the most. Predictions of technological advancement over 15 years in the future don't work because human progress is not based on capability. Much like your fear of a fate you can't be sure could even happen, our future is not based on what could happen, but what we make happen - our will. Just as it is "possible" for us to birth a matricidal organism, it's just as possible for us to willingly never create such an organism. And since we imagine this supposed event would end in our own destruction, and we are [in general] on the side of self-preservation, it's not likely we would willingly pursue this event. It would be more likely if the idea never occurred to us. -- Great civilizations have existed several times with advanced science, then fell, and took several millennia just for others to get back to where they had been. In terms of what is actually a threat to ours today, climate change and an unstable political/socioeconomic climate actually will kill us in a few decades if left unchecked. I suggest we focus on the immediate threats before we sweat the theoretical and philosophical ones.
rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
The Animatrix basically did what you suggested and said the first robots lived in a plot of middle eastern desert set aside for them. After a hundred years their overwhelming superiority made them the dominant economy and global superpower, and as people's living standards began to decline, they fought back.
- argonaut 11y ago
  The Animatrix is also a work of fiction.
  - pixl97 11y ago
    So are robots that are smarter than people.... so far. There are no trilobites around either.
    - argonaut 11y ago
      When you say "so far," you should at least recognize that you are making a speculative guess that is completely unfalsifiable.
Houshalter 11y ago
Um what? Species drive others to extinction all the time. Humans are no exception. We only preserve some species because we care and think nature is cool, but an AI doesn't need to have any such value. It would likely turn the earth into a dyson sphere to maximize it's energy intake, without giving the things on the Earth a second thought. Why would it? AIs don't have empathy or morality.