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Of course it's crazy. Just like the guy on HN who told me they have to build AGI in the shadows because people just wouldn't understand, and with the other corn

Of course it's crazy. Just like the guy on HN who told me they have to build AGI in the shadows because people just wouldn't understand, and with the other corner of their mouth talked about how "we" should go into "oblivion" peacefully once AGI makes us obsolete, is crazy. High-functioning, probably a model citizen who helps the elderly across the street, but still batshit insane on the level where push comes to shove. > The whole concept of alienation found its first expression in Western thought in the Old Testament concept of idolatry. The essence of what the prophets call "idolatry" is not that man worships many gods instead of only one. It is that the idols are the work of man's own hands -- they are things, and man bows down and worships things; worships that which he has created himself. In doing so he transforms himself into a thing. He transfers to the things of his creation the attributes of his own life, and instead of experiencing himself as the creating person, he is in touch with himself only by the worship of the idol. He has become estranged from his own life forces, from the wealth of his own potentialities, and is in touch with himself only in the indirect way of submission to life frozen in the idols. The deadness and emptiness of the idol is expressed in the Old Testament: "Eyes they have and they do not see, ears they have and they do not hear," etc. The more man transfers his own powers to the idols, the poorer he himself becomes, and the more dependent on the idols, so that they permit him to redeem a small part of what was originally his. The idols can be a godlike figure, the state, the church, a person, possessions. Idolatry changes its objects; it is by no means to be found only in those forms in which the idol has a so-called religious meaning. Idolatry is always the worship of something into which man has put his own creative powers, and to which he now submits, instead of experiencing himself in his creative act. -- Erich Fromm, who also said > The fact that millions of people share the same vices does not make these vices virtues, the fact that they share so many errors does not make the errors to be truths, and the fact that millions of people share the same form of mental pathology does not make these people sane.

PeanutCurry 9y ago
I'm not working in machine learning so please cut me down to size if I'm just not getting it. But my big criticism of the article was that it just sort've glosses over the elephant in the room. China is going to have a massive data set... of Chinese citizens. With how much the ruling party exercises its authority over the nation and the nationalist nature of a lot of Chinese culture I don't see how this data will be broad enough to leverage against other nations in terms of making things like behavioral predictions. Everything I read about China makes these grand premonitions but really it seems like China is simply preparing to not need anybody except for China. Which is very Orwellian but a lot different from WORLD DOMINATION.
- thinkfurther 9y ago
  Oh, I'm just taking "crazy" literally, rather than how it's meant in the article which is more like "unfeasible" etc. That's also an elephant in the room in a way. But I agree that China so far seems to have little wish to dominate anyone else. Of course, when you have your population under control so much that they will build any sort of robots in any quantities for you, that might be reconsidered. Hannah Arendt wrote: > If the totalitarian conqueror conducts himself everywhere as though he were at home, by the same token he must treat his own population as though he were a foreign conqueror. Maybe this goes the other way, too? I don't know, but when the only thing between your resources is the mercy of organizations that know no mercy, it might. Of course, the trouble with China is.. "us". "The" West, if you will. We have little moral standing to point fingers, no alternative vision. We have the dictum of the dollar rather than the dictum of the party, but that's not a meaningful enough difference IMO. I'm not saying we're just as totalitarian, but that we're not sufficiently non-totalitarian. China and Russia, for all valid criticism there is to make, are first and foremost awesome scapegoats that keep our side of the machinery humming.
  - cabalamat 9y ago
    > But I agree that China so far seems to have little wish to dominate anyone else. This may well change once the Chinese economy is bigger than the US economy. It already is at PPP, but at current exchange rates China will likely surpass the USA within 10 years.
  - zebrafish 9y ago
    We have the dictum of the dollar rather than the dictum of the party, but that's not a meaningful enough difference IMO. I have to disagree on this point. The dollar leads to objectivism. The party leads to collectivism. It depends on your definition of morality. Do you value the individual or the society? Would you see the outliers, both good & bad, purged or preserved?
    - thinkfurther 9y ago
      Oh yeah, objectivism. Ayn Rand being against welfare for other and the collecting it herself. > Do you value the individual or the society? .. or the dollar, which is entirely different from valuing people? Just one of a trillion examples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkgFA9q7w0w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkgFA9q7w0w It leads to treating people like objects, and it makes it "rational" to destroy others for profit and "irrational" to care about them. > It depends on your definition of morality. It depends on your humanity, on the strength of your backbone. Do you have your "values", your experiences inside you, or do you have external measures, like dollars or party approval or a "definition of morality"?
miguelrochefort 9y ago
> we" should go into "oblivion" peacefully once AGI makes us obsolete I don't see a problem with that. I have actually expressed the same idea multiple times here on HN.
- unlikelymordant 9y ago
  I wonder how many people agree with that sort of thing (I do). It is not something I would bring up in public because I don't think most people would agree, but there are obviously some.
- thinkfurther 9y ago
  It's like sneaking up on someone from behind with a knife to slit their throat while talking about how they just "should" accept that, but since they won't, you have to force it on them. And of course people who say different things with different sides of their mouth don't see a problem with that. Of course people who identify with necrophilia more than biophilia don't see a problem with that. Blind people walking across paintings don't see a problem with that.
  - yorwba 9y ago
    I'm not sure what you take "going into oblivion" to mean, but I interpret it as most humans no longer reproducing or even ditching their biological forms in favor of an upload. Obviously eliminating humans by violent means would be immoral, but I don't see the problem with individuals deciding not to sustain humanity as it exists now.
    - thinkfurther 9y ago
      The fact of doing it in the shadows makes that interpretation impossible though.
      - yorwba 9y ago
        I don't know who you are talking about, so I can only work from my own interpretation, but there are all kinds of reasons you might want to do something in secret, even if it does not involve killing all humans. For example, if you want to replace all human labor by robots, a lot of people would be against that, because they fear being unemployed. But if you don't intend to leave those unemployed people without food and shelter, I don't see anything wrong with still pursuing that goal.
wox 9y ago
The first episode of Kieslowski's Dekalog (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dekalog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dekalog) deals with exactly this theme, through the subject of technology. It's from Soviet Poland but it's a memorable illustration.
AndrewKemendo 9y ago
Hey that's me! See my other comment about China having the best chance at AGI. Still not sure what idols you're claiming are being worshiped. Fromm is discussing that there is misplaced mysticism that is imbued onto material "things." Not sure how that is conflated with my point - however I suppose it's an easy conclusion to make with a trivial discussion on the topic. Glad to see that my point has made impact, now it's about how to refine expressing it. Also I didn't advocate building it in the shadows and in fact I don't think that's really possible anyway. Google doesn't explain to the public how it gets your search results, but experts are well aware of how it works. That's really all I'm saying. Simply that you don't need to tell everyone everything all the time because it's unnecessary.
- thinkfurther 9y ago
  > Still not sure what idols you're claiming are being worshiped. You literally are intending to build something that you then consider "higher" or "better". A bunch of circuits and algorithms humans made. Or even just words, like talking about how it's the "logical next step in evolution". That's abstract ideas we're making up, and then pretending that's some sort of reality we have to adapt to. Erich Fromm's quote continues on like this: > Among the many forms of alienation, the most frequent one is alienation in language. If I express a feeling with a word, let us say, if I say "I love you," the word is meant to be an indication of the reality which exists within myself, the power of my loving. The word "love" is meant to be a symbol of the fact love, but as soon as it is spoken it tends to assume a life of its own, it becomes a reality. I am under the illusion that the saying of the word is the equivalent of the experience, and soon I say the word and feel nothing, except the thought of love which the word expresses. The alienation of language shows the whole complexity of alienation. Language is one of the most precious human achievements; to avoid alienation by not speaking would be foolish -- yet one must be always aware of the danger of the spoken word, that it threatens to substitute itself for the living experience. The same holds true for all other achievements of man; ideas, art, any kind of man-made objects. They are man's creations; they are valuable aids for life, yet each one of them is also a trap, a temptation to confuse life with things, experience with artifacts, feeling with surrender and submission. It's not so much misplaced mysticism as misplaced self. > Also I didn't advocate building it in the shadows No, you said you sadly "have" to. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15002805 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15002805 > I'm hesitant to write it all out because I expect such a document would just be the source of opposition to implementation. Like putting war plans on the internet. If we make the progress we want I expect heavy opposition. However it's hard to build a movement in the shadows. I'd rather just be building things, and making progress toward the goal like I am now, than doing the politics of creating a movement before we have significant powers. Okay, a charitable reading of "significant powers" might just mean "a working prototype, something more than nothing". But another way to read it would be to "not declare war until you ensured you have the bigger army".

PeanutCurry 9y ago

I'm not working in machine learning so please cut me down to size if I'm just not getting it. But my big criticism of the article was that it just sort've glosses over the elephant in the room. China is going to have a massive data set... of Chinese citizens. With how much the ruling party exercises its authority over the nation and the nationalist nature of a lot of Chinese culture I don't see how this data will be broad enough to leverage against other nations in terms of making things like behavioral predictions. Everything I read about China makes these grand premonitions but really it seems like China is simply preparing to not need anybody except for China. Which is very Orwellian but a lot different from WORLD DOMINATION.

thinkfurther 9y ago
Oh, I'm just taking "crazy" literally, rather than how it's meant in the article which is more like "unfeasible" etc. That's also an elephant in the room in a way. But I agree that China so far seems to have little wish to dominate anyone else. Of course, when you have your population under control so much that they will build any sort of robots in any quantities for you, that might be reconsidered. Hannah Arendt wrote: > If the totalitarian conqueror conducts himself everywhere as though he were at home, by the same token he must treat his own population as though he were a foreign conqueror. Maybe this goes the other way, too? I don't know, but when the only thing between your resources is the mercy of organizations that know no mercy, it might. Of course, the trouble with China is.. "us". "The" West, if you will. We have little moral standing to point fingers, no alternative vision. We have the dictum of the dollar rather than the dictum of the party, but that's not a meaningful enough difference IMO. I'm not saying we're just as totalitarian, but that we're not sufficiently non-totalitarian. China and Russia, for all valid criticism there is to make, are first and foremost awesome scapegoats that keep our side of the machinery humming.
- cabalamat 9y ago
  > But I agree that China so far seems to have little wish to dominate anyone else. This may well change once the Chinese economy is bigger than the US economy. It already is at PPP, but at current exchange rates China will likely surpass the USA within 10 years.
- zebrafish 9y ago
  We have the dictum of the dollar rather than the dictum of the party, but that's not a meaningful enough difference IMO. I have to disagree on this point. The dollar leads to objectivism. The party leads to collectivism. It depends on your definition of morality. Do you value the individual or the society? Would you see the outliers, both good & bad, purged or preserved?
  - thinkfurther 9y ago
    Oh yeah, objectivism. Ayn Rand being against welfare for other and the collecting it herself. > Do you value the individual or the society? .. or the dollar, which is entirely different from valuing people? Just one of a trillion examples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkgFA9q7w0w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkgFA9q7w0w It leads to treating people like objects, and it makes it "rational" to destroy others for profit and "irrational" to care about them. > It depends on your definition of morality. It depends on your humanity, on the strength of your backbone. Do you have your "values", your experiences inside you, or do you have external measures, like dollars or party approval or a "definition of morality"?

miguelrochefort 9y ago

> we" should go into "oblivion" peacefully once AGI makes us obsolete I don't see a problem with that. I have actually expressed the same idea multiple times here on HN.

unlikelymordant 9y ago
I wonder how many people agree with that sort of thing (I do). It is not something I would bring up in public because I don't think most people would agree, but there are obviously some.
thinkfurther 9y ago
It's like sneaking up on someone from behind with a knife to slit their throat while talking about how they just "should" accept that, but since they won't, you have to force it on them. And of course people who say different things with different sides of their mouth don't see a problem with that. Of course people who identify with necrophilia more than biophilia don't see a problem with that. Blind people walking across paintings don't see a problem with that.
- yorwba 9y ago
  I'm not sure what you take "going into oblivion" to mean, but I interpret it as most humans no longer reproducing or even ditching their biological forms in favor of an upload. Obviously eliminating humans by violent means would be immoral, but I don't see the problem with individuals deciding not to sustain humanity as it exists now.
  - thinkfurther 9y ago
    The fact of doing it in the shadows makes that interpretation impossible though.
    - yorwba 9y ago
      I don't know who you are talking about, so I can only work from my own interpretation, but there are all kinds of reasons you might want to do something in secret, even if it does not involve killing all humans. For example, if you want to replace all human labor by robots, a lot of people would be against that, because they fear being unemployed. But if you don't intend to leave those unemployed people without food and shelter, I don't see anything wrong with still pursuing that goal.

wox 9y ago

The first episode of Kieslowski's Dekalog (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dekalog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dekalog) deals with exactly this theme, through the subject of technology. It's from Soviet Poland but it's a memorable illustration.

AndrewKemendo 9y ago

Hey that's me! See my other comment about China having the best chance at AGI. Still not sure what idols you're claiming are being worshiped. Fromm is discussing that there is misplaced mysticism that is imbued onto material "things." Not sure how that is conflated with my point - however I suppose it's an easy conclusion to make with a trivial discussion on the topic. Glad to see that my point has made impact, now it's about how to refine expressing it. Also I didn't advocate building it in the shadows and in fact I don't think that's really possible anyway. Google doesn't explain to the public how it gets your search results, but experts are well aware of how it works. That's really all I'm saying. Simply that you don't need to tell everyone everything all the time because it's unnecessary.

thinkfurther 9y ago
> Still not sure what idols you're claiming are being worshiped. You literally are intending to build something that you then consider "higher" or "better". A bunch of circuits and algorithms humans made. Or even just words, like talking about how it's the "logical next step in evolution". That's abstract ideas we're making up, and then pretending that's some sort of reality we have to adapt to. Erich Fromm's quote continues on like this: > Among the many forms of alienation, the most frequent one is alienation in language. If I express a feeling with a word, let us say, if I say "I love you," the word is meant to be an indication of the reality which exists within myself, the power of my loving. The word "love" is meant to be a symbol of the fact love, but as soon as it is spoken it tends to assume a life of its own, it becomes a reality. I am under the illusion that the saying of the word is the equivalent of the experience, and soon I say the word and feel nothing, except the thought of love which the word expresses. The alienation of language shows the whole complexity of alienation. Language is one of the most precious human achievements; to avoid alienation by not speaking would be foolish -- yet one must be always aware of the danger of the spoken word, that it threatens to substitute itself for the living experience. The same holds true for all other achievements of man; ideas, art, any kind of man-made objects. They are man's creations; they are valuable aids for life, yet each one of them is also a trap, a temptation to confuse life with things, experience with artifacts, feeling with surrender and submission. It's not so much misplaced mysticism as misplaced self. > Also I didn't advocate building it in the shadows No, you said you sadly "have" to. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15002805 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15002805 > I'm hesitant to write it all out because I expect such a document would just be the source of opposition to implementation. Like putting war plans on the internet. If we make the progress we want I expect heavy opposition. However it's hard to build a movement in the shadows. I'd rather just be building things, and making progress toward the goal like I am now, than doing the politics of creating a movement before we have significant powers. Okay, a charitable reading of "significant powers" might just mean "a working prototype, something more than nothing". But another way to read it would be to "not declare war until you ensured you have the bigger army".