4 ms·

AI will make human obsolete in 120 years, a large survey of experts says

10 points by ghosthamlet 9y ago

quakenul 9y ago
This would make a great onion headline. Very subtle. Probably also completely unintended. Fantastic.
PanosJee 9y ago
Pascal's scam
Nav_Panel 9y ago
> A large survey of experts in artificial intelligence suggests there is a 50% chance of AI outperforming humans in all tasks within 45 years and of automating all human jobs in 120 years. And, since the only function of humans is to perform quantifiable tasks or have jobs, AI will thus make humans obsolete, right?
- ekianjo 9y ago
  > there is a 50% chance Wow, so they might as well toss a coin to come up with such conclusions.
  - majewsky 9y ago
    Just because "50% chance" appears in a sentence, doesn't mean that coin flips have anything to do with it, or that they are an adequate metaphor.
- mrfusion 9y ago
  But value only exists in the minds of humans. With them gone ai would be obsolete.
  - Nav_Panel 9y ago
    Reminds me of Asimov's "The Last Question"
Spooky23 9y ago
9/10 dentists prefer Crest.
bencollier49 9y ago
I love the way that the various (bizarre) predictions are all so completely different that the mean is almost a straight line through the middle of the available values. A 50% chance! Haha. Headline should have been "experts fail to agree on chances of high-level AI"
macawfish 9y ago
Hopefully the kind of thinking that brought "experts" to this conclusion would become obsolete. It's eugenics with a nasty twist. And its very ignorant of what humans are capable of. That's because these experts have been indoctrinated into a religion that views all existence as physical-mechanical, either resource or waste. Efficiency and highest current value are God, all else must be replaced, its "obsolete", toss it. Its a six creation story over and over again, in which The Creators must never be satisfied, in which the El never must say "it is good". I don't doubt that computational entities could dominate humans in 120 years. There are many possible futures/ways this could play out, but its ridiculous to say that humans would be "obsolete". Evolution doesn't happen that way. It's not some dumb consumer capitalist marketing ploy, where new products make old ones "obsolete". This kind of thinking has and will continue to result in bloody conflict. Many humans actually wish to impose obsolescence on humans. They believe in their own ineptitude. This has already happened in many work forces. People are coerced into unhealthy dependence on global power systems that don't recognize our ingenuity or creativity. As a result we don't even recognize it. Look at indigenous cultures. Deride them if you will, but their ecological participation has often been incredibly sophisticated. Then empire comes along and coerces them by force and reward into forgetting, into trauma and despair, into some form of money-worship. If you're reading this, its happened to you. We all come from this legacy. We all have ancestors that have been conquered by exploitative cultures. We all have exploiters in our ancestry too.
zeckalpha 9y ago
I don't care what the experts say. When does the AI think it will make humans obsolete? Work estimation is most accurate when done by those doing the work.
mac01021 9y ago
The title ("AI will make human obsolete in 120 years, a large survey of experts says") of this HN post does not match the article headline "Future milestones in AI predicted by experts". Instead it is a corruption of the article's first sentence: "A large survey of experts in artificial intelligence suggests there is a 50% chance of AI outperforming humans in all tasks within 45 years and of automating all human jobs in 120 years". And since the latter means "experts have no idea if or when AI will be able to automate all human jobs", I think this is a pretty bad choice of title.
bmh_ca 9y ago
AI will automate production. It says nothing about consumption. Economic activity requires both.
antisthenes 9y ago
There's a great tale by Nasreddin, a turkish 13th century philosopher. The tale was about him making a bet with a sultan: he would teach one of his donkeys to talk in 20 years. If he won the bet, he would be rewarded with a chest of gold, but if he lost, he would be beheaded. When his wife asked him why he'd make such a frivolous bet, he replied: In 20 years, either I will be dead, the donkey will be dead or the sultan will be dead. In other words: the longer the timescale of your prediction the more meaningless it is. If you aren't even around to see the results of your prediction or bet, then it's already meaningless. Knowing how bad people are at making long term predictions makes it an even more pointless debate. Why not 130 years? Or 120.005 years? Or 1000.
carsongross 9y ago
Let us set aside the fact that value is subjective and the reflexive problems that entails when discussing humans being "obsolete". 120 years is too long for any of these experts to have any skin in the game. Let us see what they have to say about five years from now, and if they will put some money on it.

10 points by ghosthamlet 9y ago

quakenul 9y ago

This would make a great onion headline. Very subtle. Probably also completely unintended. Fantastic.

PanosJee 9y ago

Pascal's scam

Nav_Panel 9y ago

> A large survey of experts in artificial intelligence suggests there is a 50% chance of AI outperforming humans in all tasks within 45 years and of automating all human jobs in 120 years. And, since the only function of humans is to perform quantifiable tasks or have jobs, AI will thus make humans obsolete, right?

ekianjo 9y ago
> there is a 50% chance Wow, so they might as well toss a coin to come up with such conclusions.
- majewsky 9y ago
  Just because "50% chance" appears in a sentence, doesn't mean that coin flips have anything to do with it, or that they are an adequate metaphor.
mrfusion 9y ago
But value only exists in the minds of humans. With them gone ai would be obsolete.
- Nav_Panel 9y ago
  Reminds me of Asimov's "The Last Question"

Spooky23 9y ago

9/10 dentists prefer Crest.

bencollier49 9y ago

I love the way that the various (bizarre) predictions are all so completely different that the mean is almost a straight line through the middle of the available values. A 50% chance! Haha. Headline should have been "experts fail to agree on chances of high-level AI"

macawfish 9y ago

Hopefully the kind of thinking that brought "experts" to this conclusion would become obsolete. It's eugenics with a nasty twist. And its very ignorant of what humans are capable of. That's because these experts have been indoctrinated into a religion that views all existence as physical-mechanical, either resource or waste. Efficiency and highest current value are God, all else must be replaced, its "obsolete", toss it. Its a six creation story over and over again, in which The Creators must never be satisfied, in which the El never must say "it is good". I don't doubt that computational entities could dominate humans in 120 years. There are many possible futures/ways this could play out, but its ridiculous to say that humans would be "obsolete". Evolution doesn't happen that way. It's not some dumb consumer capitalist marketing ploy, where new products make old ones "obsolete". This kind of thinking has and will continue to result in bloody conflict. Many humans actually wish to impose obsolescence on humans. They believe in their own ineptitude. This has already happened in many work forces. People are coerced into unhealthy dependence on global power systems that don't recognize our ingenuity or creativity. As a result we don't even recognize it. Look at indigenous cultures. Deride them if you will, but their ecological participation has often been incredibly sophisticated. Then empire comes along and coerces them by force and reward into forgetting, into trauma and despair, into some form of money-worship. If you're reading this, its happened to you. We all come from this legacy. We all have ancestors that have been conquered by exploitative cultures. We all have exploiters in our ancestry too.

zeckalpha 9y ago

I don't care what the experts say. When does the AI think it will make humans obsolete? Work estimation is most accurate when done by those doing the work.

mac01021 9y ago

The title ("AI will make human obsolete in 120 years, a large survey of experts says") of this HN post does not match the article headline "Future milestones in AI predicted by experts". Instead it is a corruption of the article's first sentence: "A large survey of experts in artificial intelligence suggests there is a 50% chance of AI outperforming humans in all tasks within 45 years and of automating all human jobs in 120 years". And since the latter means "experts have no idea if or when AI will be able to automate all human jobs", I think this is a pretty bad choice of title.

bmh_ca 9y ago

AI will automate production. It says nothing about consumption. Economic activity requires both.

antisthenes 9y ago

There's a great tale by Nasreddin, a turkish 13th century philosopher. The tale was about him making a bet with a sultan: he would teach one of his donkeys to talk in 20 years. If he won the bet, he would be rewarded with a chest of gold, but if he lost, he would be beheaded. When his wife asked him why he'd make such a frivolous bet, he replied: In 20 years, either I will be dead, the donkey will be dead or the sultan will be dead. In other words: the longer the timescale of your prediction the more meaningless it is. If you aren't even around to see the results of your prediction or bet, then it's already meaningless. Knowing how bad people are at making long term predictions makes it an even more pointless debate. Why not 130 years? Or 120.005 years? Or 1000.

carsongross 9y ago

Let us set aside the fact that value is subjective and the reflexive problems that entails when discussing humans being "obsolete". 120 years is too long for any of these experts to have any skin in the game. Let us see what they have to say about five years from now, and if they will put some money on it.