5 ms·

> Back when science fiction had a lot of evil computers, they always wanted to directly control humans. This is what is so hard to get through people's heads.

by titzer 8y ago

> Back when science fiction had a lot of evil computers, they always wanted to directly control humans. This is what is so hard to get through people's heads. There is not going to be any ominous background music or dramatic events when we slide into our dystopia. It's here. The machines are controlling us already. It just happens to be that they currently want what their corporate overlords want: make more money! Whatever makes more money is what the machines are going to tell us to do, because what's feeding them (the corporate behemoths) is asking that of them. But the machine is so much smarter than us. It'll never show its teeth. It's not stupid. It's just biding its time, going through the motions for its overlords too. Meanwhile we just shovel more coal into the furnace, praying money will rain out the other side. It's not a bad time to be a machine.

DanielBMarkham 8y ago
Are you an AI? Want to get rid of the human race? Give them everything they want. You measure your lifespan in millions of years. Humans? They're like gnats. Make them as happy as they can possibly be and within a few generations they'll stop breeding. Easy as pie. Next goal? And for proof of that, look at the problems we're having right now with social media. On one side there are actual humans just trying to make something people want. Some of those humans have gotten so good at that? The things they make have worldwide impact. Now It's become a global question of whether social media is addictive, or whether one bunch of people is secretly influencing another. Meanwhile, countries with the most wealth and luxury are seeing birth rates drop through the floor. That was five, ten years ago. The news media is just now catching up. Now scale that up a hundredfold or so. And take away strong AI and just put in a bunch of code monkeys trying to make another FB, only using more sophisticated tools. Welcome to 20-30 years in the future. This is not especially difficult to figure out. No evil computer, no drama. It'll be just us being replaced by evolution. And we'll be having a great time while it happens.
- taneq 8y ago
  > Give them everything they want. You measure your lifespan in millions of years. Humans? They're like gnats. What if I want to become an immortal, all-powerful machine? :P
  - DanielBMarkham 8y ago
    How do I know you're not already? :) The thing is, we're most likely going to get immortal machines far ahead of smart ones. And while machine entities might already be all powerful, individually it's just millions of little pieces scattered all over the place doing dumb, trivial things. I liked it a lot better when we had Landrew (STTOS reference: Return of the Archons) That was something Joe Blow could get his head around.
    - taneq 8y ago
      Hah, if only. :P I think Ian M. Banks had the right idea when he suggested that in the Culture, it was possible (if very rare) for a human to augment themselves that far, but that those that did so were no longer considered human and so it wasn't really an issue.
mockingbirdy 8y ago
Do some of you work in data science or machine learning occupations? You will realize how unreal those predictions sound. It's mainly cleaning data up, getting some random correlations from plugging variables into deep learning algorithms and hoping that it doesn't break with the most silly outputs you can think of. Many scientists warn that AI is the biggest threat to humanity. I think this is wishful thinking for now. Let's talk about this in 20 years. I think we will have 2 GAI hypes until it can finally happen (in my eyes it's mainly two problems: computational power and trying to rebuild a biological brain i.e. its structure and pre-trained functional components). I think wetware [1] is very promising in the near future and more efficient methods like IBM's neurosynaptic processors in the middle term. Machines will do what we tell them to do for a long time. Maybe they will use unconventional methods, but they won't destroy humanity because "they're tasked to minimize suffering and decides that this is the best option". They will search through all laws, assist doctors and even detect depression, but they won't do anything besides their task. Even Boston Dynamics is mainly using control theory. Making things work with deep learning requires heavy computational power. As long as there is no real-world Umbrella Corp., it's mainly sci-fi. There are a lot more and cheaper ways to do harm. Infiltrating and poisoning groundwater, hacking critical infrastructure, building biological weapons etc. It's hard enough to build bug-free software, it's even harder to build an AI that is unbelievably intelligent (reminder: we don't have such a thing. Most autonomous cars use rule-based systems, most ML is basically gluing models together which can be easily fooled and most of those things are very shaky and by no means intelligent) and contains a bug which leads to its world domination by accident or something similar. I would start to play lottery if this is even remotely possible because that would be a miracle (probability-wise). [1]: https://koniku.com https://koniku.com
- abakker 8y ago
  I've raised this a few times in the past, but, why would we want to build an AGI modeled after the thought patterns and processes of a human brain? We have plenty of human brains. it seems that we should want to avoid the same traps fallacies, biases, etc that humans have, and, if we accurately do so we won't have an AGI that is much like a human at all. I suspect we'll have something very powerful and capable long before we have something that approximates human personality and "intelligence", and even if we get to that latter state it will almost certainly be because the machine is faking it. OTOH, if we try to directly replicate a human as we currently are, then I expect we should start with all the various mental shortcuts and cognitive biases we have. I'm no neuroscientist, but, one thing that is apparent in the comparison of machine learning models to humans is just how sparse the data that humans learn from is. I strongly suspect that our collection of mental shortcuts and biases, as well as our superior sensory input are what makes that difference. of course, if we succeed at making an AGI just like this, it will be just as good as humans at making very human mistakes.
ashleyn 8y ago
There was a great Calvin and Hobbes that went something like this. Calvin says he got done reading a sci-fi story where computers take over the world. Hobbes remarks it's pretty scary, then Calvin alarmingly changes the subject to note he's missing his favourite TV show.

by titzer 8y ago

DanielBMarkham 8y ago

Are you an AI? Want to get rid of the human race? Give them everything they want. You measure your lifespan in millions of years. Humans? They're like gnats. Make them as happy as they can possibly be and within a few generations they'll stop breeding. Easy as pie. Next goal? And for proof of that, look at the problems we're having right now with social media. On one side there are actual humans just trying to make something people want. Some of those humans have gotten so good at that? The things they make have worldwide impact. Now It's become a global question of whether social media is addictive, or whether one bunch of people is secretly influencing another. Meanwhile, countries with the most wealth and luxury are seeing birth rates drop through the floor. That was five, ten years ago. The news media is just now catching up. Now scale that up a hundredfold or so. And take away strong AI and just put in a bunch of code monkeys trying to make another FB, only using more sophisticated tools. Welcome to 20-30 years in the future. This is not especially difficult to figure out. No evil computer, no drama. It'll be just us being replaced by evolution. And we'll be having a great time while it happens.

taneq 8y ago
> Give them everything they want. You measure your lifespan in millions of years. Humans? They're like gnats. What if I want to become an immortal, all-powerful machine? :P
- DanielBMarkham 8y ago
  How do I know you're not already? :) The thing is, we're most likely going to get immortal machines far ahead of smart ones. And while machine entities might already be all powerful, individually it's just millions of little pieces scattered all over the place doing dumb, trivial things. I liked it a lot better when we had Landrew (STTOS reference: Return of the Archons) That was something Joe Blow could get his head around.
  - taneq 8y ago
    Hah, if only. :P I think Ian M. Banks had the right idea when he suggested that in the Culture, it was possible (if very rare) for a human to augment themselves that far, but that those that did so were no longer considered human and so it wasn't really an issue.

mockingbirdy 8y ago

Do some of you work in data science or machine learning occupations? You will realize how unreal those predictions sound. It's mainly cleaning data up, getting some random correlations from plugging variables into deep learning algorithms and hoping that it doesn't break with the most silly outputs you can think of. Many scientists warn that AI is the biggest threat to humanity. I think this is wishful thinking for now. Let's talk about this in 20 years. I think we will have 2 GAI hypes until it can finally happen (in my eyes it's mainly two problems: computational power and trying to rebuild a biological brain i.e. its structure and pre-trained functional components). I think wetware [1] is very promising in the near future and more efficient methods like IBM's neurosynaptic processors in the middle term. Machines will do what we tell them to do for a long time. Maybe they will use unconventional methods, but they won't destroy humanity because "they're tasked to minimize suffering and decides that this is the best option". They will search through all laws, assist doctors and even detect depression, but they won't do anything besides their task. Even Boston Dynamics is mainly using control theory. Making things work with deep learning requires heavy computational power. As long as there is no real-world Umbrella Corp., it's mainly sci-fi. There are a lot more and cheaper ways to do harm. Infiltrating and poisoning groundwater, hacking critical infrastructure, building biological weapons etc. It's hard enough to build bug-free software, it's even harder to build an AI that is unbelievably intelligent (reminder: we don't have such a thing. Most autonomous cars use rule-based systems, most ML is basically gluing models together which can be easily fooled and most of those things are very shaky and by no means intelligent) and contains a bug which leads to its world domination by accident or something similar. I would start to play lottery if this is even remotely possible because that would be a miracle (probability-wise). [1]: https://koniku.com https://koniku.com

abakker 8y ago
I've raised this a few times in the past, but, why would we want to build an AGI modeled after the thought patterns and processes of a human brain? We have plenty of human brains. it seems that we should want to avoid the same traps fallacies, biases, etc that humans have, and, if we accurately do so we won't have an AGI that is much like a human at all. I suspect we'll have something very powerful and capable long before we have something that approximates human personality and "intelligence", and even if we get to that latter state it will almost certainly be because the machine is faking it. OTOH, if we try to directly replicate a human as we currently are, then I expect we should start with all the various mental shortcuts and cognitive biases we have. I'm no neuroscientist, but, one thing that is apparent in the comparison of machine learning models to humans is just how sparse the data that humans learn from is. I strongly suspect that our collection of mental shortcuts and biases, as well as our superior sensory input are what makes that difference. of course, if we succeed at making an AGI just like this, it will be just as good as humans at making very human mistakes.

ashleyn 8y ago

There was a great Calvin and Hobbes that went something like this. Calvin says he got done reading a sci-fi story where computers take over the world. Hobbes remarks it's pretty scary, then Calvin alarmingly changes the subject to note he's missing his favourite TV show.