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A seed AI is probably right around the corner, but just like the seed RNA life was a long way off from general life -- both in terms of time and resources requi

A seed AI is probably right around the corner, but just like the seed RNA life was a long way off from general life -- both in terms of time and resources required to evolve into complexity, the appearance of superintelligent AI will be constrained by the amount of resources we allocate to it. There is some danger of machines writing then spreading their own worms to usurp computation resources or ransomware to force humans to build them more, but there will be key steps along the way where there will be a human decision to both use and to allow AI to grow into something we do or do not want. It won't be something that springs up on us.

gfodor 9y ago
how can you, possibly, know this? conjectures about AI takeoff are just conjectures, but you claim to know that it "won't be something that springs up on us."
- pixl97 9y ago
  >conjectures about AI takeoff are just conjectures, That's not actually true. It has happened, or I should say it is happening right now on Earth. For around 63 million years in the dominion of mammals there was not an intelligence explosion. And then, quite surprisingly if you look at the history of evolution, the line that would become Homo sapiens rapidly diverged from the rest of its family. As its intelligence increased it rapidly started rendering all large life on Earth extinct to become an apex predator that all other significantly sized life on the planet lives at its will. This take off was so rapid and complete that Homo sapiens was not only able to conquer every biome on the planet, it was able to leave the planet itself. Massive alterations to biosphere occurred as its numbers swelled to over 5 billion. Almost every waterway on Earth has had significant alterations occur do to human development. Land use and forestation on the planet rapidly changed, with a majority of the changes occurring in a 300 year period. So, Intelligence Explosions are not conjectures, we are in the middle of our own. Furthermore it seems unlikely that human design is the pinnacle of intelligence. Unfortunately we are left with a lot of questions, and fewer answers than we would like at this point. Just defining levels of intelligence at this point seems to be a debate that leads to arguments and heightened emotions.

gfodor 9y ago

how can you, possibly, know this? conjectures about AI takeoff are just conjectures, but you claim to know that it "won't be something that springs up on us."

pixl97 9y ago
>conjectures about AI takeoff are just conjectures, That's not actually true. It has happened, or I should say it is happening right now on Earth. For around 63 million years in the dominion of mammals there was not an intelligence explosion. And then, quite surprisingly if you look at the history of evolution, the line that would become Homo sapiens rapidly diverged from the rest of its family. As its intelligence increased it rapidly started rendering all large life on Earth extinct to become an apex predator that all other significantly sized life on the planet lives at its will. This take off was so rapid and complete that Homo sapiens was not only able to conquer every biome on the planet, it was able to leave the planet itself. Massive alterations to biosphere occurred as its numbers swelled to over 5 billion. Almost every waterway on Earth has had significant alterations occur do to human development. Land use and forestation on the planet rapidly changed, with a majority of the changes occurring in a 300 year period. So, Intelligence Explosions are not conjectures, we are in the middle of our own. Furthermore it seems unlikely that human design is the pinnacle of intelligence. Unfortunately we are left with a lot of questions, and fewer answers than we would like at this point. Just defining levels of intelligence at this point seems to be a debate that leads to arguments and heightened emotions.