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I can't but help muse that advent of 'natural intelligence' (humans) proved to be harmful for nature. If I think further, the rise of AI may be disastrous for

by achow 10y ago

I can't but help muse that advent of 'natural intelligence' (humans) proved to be harmful for nature. If I think further, the rise of AI may be disastrous for human existence but may be good for nature, after all if AI becomes intelligent in absolute sense then it would see sense in not continuing on the path of destruction. The irony in above scenario is immense - artificial intelligence may be the ultimate savior of the nature from the hands of natural intelligence.

grondilu 10y ago
> if AI becomes intelligent in absolute sense then it would see sense in not continuing on the path of destruction. Although it's clear that humans have caused a lot of extinctions, it's not clear to me that overall they did not create much more than they destroyed. Also, it's not clear to me why AI would attribute more value to creation over destruction, to life over death. An intelligent artificial being can modify itself as it pleases, and as such there would be no point for it to keep emotions and feelings like pain, fear, contempt or desire. I don't see why it would care about anything. Death, its or others, would be meaningless to it.
- feelix 10y ago
  >it's not clear to me that overall they did not create much more than they destroyed. Can you elaborate on this? In terms of nature, what would you think humans have created more than destroyed?
  - grondilu 10y ago
    I was precisely thinking of non-natural things they created. OP did not specify a reason why natural things should be more valuable than others. So if we consider all things humans did, regarding nature or not, it's not clear to me they destroyed more than they created.
  - zdkl 10y ago
    Order? We reverse entropy so as to accomodate our consciousness and experience of a confusing universe. We extract, collect, curate, assemble for the sake of learning and understanding. That's got to count for something. But maybe that's too abstract to count as creation.
- peterwwillis 10y ago
  An AI is essentially a program, and it does what it was programmed for. If we created a program with the intention of it mimicing a human mind, sure, we could get into a pretty sticky wicket pretty fast. But so far all the AIs are designed to do specific tasks, and a human has to actually use them, much like any other tool we have. We have lots of dangerous tools, but it's only with things that have the possibility of intelligence attributed to them that we get really scared of the unknown possibilities (which, btw, is what we fear most - the unknown). The biggest danger with AI is what humans do with them, not what they're going to do on their own,
  - grondilu 10y ago
    > If we created a program with the intention of it mimicing a human mind It seems to me that people underestimate the desire we have of creating a machine that would be just like us. Once it's done, and I believe it will, "normal" humans will be relegated to the same status as other great apes, and the concerns I was talking about will apply. And even if we don't create such machines, the knowledge we'll gain from artificial scientists will allow us to fully understand biology so we'll modify our bodies first to do obvious things like curing diseases and ageing, but then to improve ourselves in various ways. And the same concerns about self-modifying intelligent agents will again apply.
    - peterwwillis 10y ago
      First off, why do you think you could predict what this supposedly superior brain would think, or conclude? And second, assuming it did think we were just another great ape, why wouldn't it do what we do - when we're not controlled by superstition, and the imagination that causes us to poach them for arbitrary, illogical uses. Often, our imagination far succeeds our actual reach. The fear of us creating something that will eventually control us is purely an irrational fear, and is actually a good indicator that an actual artificial intelligence would not seek to do harm - because it would not be irrational. There is absolutely no evidence that anything other than our own nature will be a threat to us. The possibility of us eventually building an AI that is both as stupid, irrationally fearful, self-serving, and potentially harmful as Donald Trump, is, at least currently, much less of a threat than Donald Trump himself. The biggest fear I have is that half of our country is insane enough to let him get this far. That's way scarier than a super-intelligent piece of software. At least the software won't intentionally upgrade its software in a way that would implode it. We should also be worried about global hunger, rising sea levels, depleted ozone layer, toxic air & water, overfishing of oceans, clearing of forests, diminishing biodiversity, overpopulation, global economic crises, cyber war, and eventually, the sun blowing up. All of those I think are more realistic things to warn the populus about than a freaking AI mind gone cray.
sbov 10y ago
Why would AI necessarily view humans, and the things we do, as separate from nature rather than a part of it? If they do become super intelligent they might find our constructs quaint, and view them like a bee hive - a part of nature - rather than how we view them - as apart from nature.
ten4 10y ago
I think the key point is that our species has been shaped by genetic adaptations to live in stable groups of humans. We have innate empathy; we automatically ponder about correction signals from other humans and correct our behaviors accordingly; and collaboration simply makes sense to us because it helps to protect and improve our own fragile lives. The scary prediction about AI is that it might be feasible, if not easy, to build an AI that is simply programmed to maximize certain reward signals (e.g. to clean the floor) without respecting limitations that lead to a stable coexistence with humans and other AIs. I think a main problem might be that a super-intelligence would not necessarily need to care about collaboration. If the SI can figure out ways to simply synthesize everything it needs from existing matter, then collaboration with us would not make sense. The floor cleaning AI might figure out ways to remove absolutely everything from all floors on planet Earth (including humans), because that is perfectly consistent with its goals and it also maximizes its reward signals. That would certainly not make our planet prettier than we are able to shape it. This is comparable, but not the same as corruption in powerful organizations such as BP. They can make their own rules about cleaning up the Deepwater Horizon oil spill because there are few correction signals coming from above. If you are at the top, you can play by your own rules. In case of human organizations, there are still limitations though. There is still a need for collaboration, for example dependence on the medical industry in case the CEO gets sick. Also BP cannot afford to scare away all they customers and workers, at least until BP is fully automated and can synthesize everything it needs.
vidarh 10y ago
Or an AI might decide its best avenue is to convert every shred of matter available to it to augment its capacity.
- koonsolo 10y ago
  If there are going to be multiple AI's, this is the AI that is going to win.
Houshalter 10y ago
> if AI becomes intelligent in absolute sense then it would see sense in not continuing on the path of destruction. Theres no universal law that says nature is valuable. The AI won't care about nature unless it is programmed to. And being non biological, it will depend on nature a lot less than humans do. I imagine AIs will try to make maximal use of resources. This could mean covering the Earth in solar panels to absorb the most energy possible, to run as many AI minds as possible. Or it could mean turning the mass of the Earth into a Dyson swarm, to maximize the energy captured from the sun. God help whatever remains on the Earth when it does this.
- achow 10y ago
  I imagine an 'absolute' AI would be something like Buddha. It would transcend programs. It would absolutely strive to exist harmoniously with nature, would not stretch for things that are not needed, would not propagate (multiply) for the sake of increasing its kind..etc. This makes me think why we cannot think that ultimate AI would be very difficult to distinguish from todays concepts of Messiah & God.
ramblerman 10y ago
This is such wild and rampant speculation I'm not sure it warrants even philosophy. We have no idea what it will think, nor that there is an absolute moral compass by which our planet has value or meaning.

by achow 10y ago

grondilu 10y ago

> if AI becomes intelligent in absolute sense then it would see sense in not continuing on the path of destruction. Although it's clear that humans have caused a lot of extinctions, it's not clear to me that overall they did not create much more than they destroyed. Also, it's not clear to me why AI would attribute more value to creation over destruction, to life over death. An intelligent artificial being can modify itself as it pleases, and as such there would be no point for it to keep emotions and feelings like pain, fear, contempt or desire. I don't see why it would care about anything. Death, its or others, would be meaningless to it.

feelix 10y ago
>it's not clear to me that overall they did not create much more than they destroyed. Can you elaborate on this? In terms of nature, what would you think humans have created more than destroyed?
- grondilu 10y ago
  I was precisely thinking of non-natural things they created. OP did not specify a reason why natural things should be more valuable than others. So if we consider all things humans did, regarding nature or not, it's not clear to me they destroyed more than they created.
- zdkl 10y ago
  Order? We reverse entropy so as to accomodate our consciousness and experience of a confusing universe. We extract, collect, curate, assemble for the sake of learning and understanding. That's got to count for something. But maybe that's too abstract to count as creation.
peterwwillis 10y ago
An AI is essentially a program, and it does what it was programmed for. If we created a program with the intention of it mimicing a human mind, sure, we could get into a pretty sticky wicket pretty fast. But so far all the AIs are designed to do specific tasks, and a human has to actually use them, much like any other tool we have. We have lots of dangerous tools, but it's only with things that have the possibility of intelligence attributed to them that we get really scared of the unknown possibilities (which, btw, is what we fear most - the unknown). The biggest danger with AI is what humans do with them, not what they're going to do on their own,
- grondilu 10y ago
  > If we created a program with the intention of it mimicing a human mind It seems to me that people underestimate the desire we have of creating a machine that would be just like us. Once it's done, and I believe it will, "normal" humans will be relegated to the same status as other great apes, and the concerns I was talking about will apply. And even if we don't create such machines, the knowledge we'll gain from artificial scientists will allow us to fully understand biology so we'll modify our bodies first to do obvious things like curing diseases and ageing, but then to improve ourselves in various ways. And the same concerns about self-modifying intelligent agents will again apply.
  - peterwwillis 10y ago
    First off, why do you think you could predict what this supposedly superior brain would think, or conclude? And second, assuming it did think we were just another great ape, why wouldn't it do what we do - when we're not controlled by superstition, and the imagination that causes us to poach them for arbitrary, illogical uses. Often, our imagination far succeeds our actual reach. The fear of us creating something that will eventually control us is purely an irrational fear, and is actually a good indicator that an actual artificial intelligence would not seek to do harm - because it would not be irrational. There is absolutely no evidence that anything other than our own nature will be a threat to us. The possibility of us eventually building an AI that is both as stupid, irrationally fearful, self-serving, and potentially harmful as Donald Trump, is, at least currently, much less of a threat than Donald Trump himself. The biggest fear I have is that half of our country is insane enough to let him get this far. That's way scarier than a super-intelligent piece of software. At least the software won't intentionally upgrade its software in a way that would implode it. We should also be worried about global hunger, rising sea levels, depleted ozone layer, toxic air & water, overfishing of oceans, clearing of forests, diminishing biodiversity, overpopulation, global economic crises, cyber war, and eventually, the sun blowing up. All of those I think are more realistic things to warn the populus about than a freaking AI mind gone cray.

sbov 10y ago

Why would AI necessarily view humans, and the things we do, as separate from nature rather than a part of it? If they do become super intelligent they might find our constructs quaint, and view them like a bee hive - a part of nature - rather than how we view them - as apart from nature.

ten4 10y ago

I think the key point is that our species has been shaped by genetic adaptations to live in stable groups of humans. We have innate empathy; we automatically ponder about correction signals from other humans and correct our behaviors accordingly; and collaboration simply makes sense to us because it helps to protect and improve our own fragile lives. The scary prediction about AI is that it might be feasible, if not easy, to build an AI that is simply programmed to maximize certain reward signals (e.g. to clean the floor) without respecting limitations that lead to a stable coexistence with humans and other AIs. I think a main problem might be that a super-intelligence would not necessarily need to care about collaboration. If the SI can figure out ways to simply synthesize everything it needs from existing matter, then collaboration with us would not make sense. The floor cleaning AI might figure out ways to remove absolutely everything from all floors on planet Earth (including humans), because that is perfectly consistent with its goals and it also maximizes its reward signals. That would certainly not make our planet prettier than we are able to shape it. This is comparable, but not the same as corruption in powerful organizations such as BP. They can make their own rules about cleaning up the Deepwater Horizon oil spill because there are few correction signals coming from above. If you are at the top, you can play by your own rules. In case of human organizations, there are still limitations though. There is still a need for collaboration, for example dependence on the medical industry in case the CEO gets sick. Also BP cannot afford to scare away all they customers and workers, at least until BP is fully automated and can synthesize everything it needs.

vidarh 10y ago

Or an AI might decide its best avenue is to convert every shred of matter available to it to augment its capacity.

koonsolo 10y ago
If there are going to be multiple AI's, this is the AI that is going to win.

Houshalter 10y ago

> if AI becomes intelligent in absolute sense then it would see sense in not continuing on the path of destruction. Theres no universal law that says nature is valuable. The AI won't care about nature unless it is programmed to. And being non biological, it will depend on nature a lot less than humans do. I imagine AIs will try to make maximal use of resources. This could mean covering the Earth in solar panels to absorb the most energy possible, to run as many AI minds as possible. Or it could mean turning the mass of the Earth into a Dyson swarm, to maximize the energy captured from the sun. God help whatever remains on the Earth when it does this.

achow 10y ago
I imagine an 'absolute' AI would be something like Buddha. It would transcend programs. It would absolutely strive to exist harmoniously with nature, would not stretch for things that are not needed, would not propagate (multiply) for the sake of increasing its kind..etc. This makes me think why we cannot think that ultimate AI would be very difficult to distinguish from todays concepts of Messiah & God.

ramblerman 10y ago

This is such wild and rampant speculation I'm not sure it warrants even philosophy. We have no idea what it will think, nor that there is an absolute moral compass by which our planet has value or meaning.