4 ms·

I can't believe there are people genuinely afraid of a hypothetical powerful malevolent AI, yet seemingly not that concerned by actual climate change.

lern_too_spel 8y ago
Who says you can only worry about one thing?
- coldtea 8y ago
  Anybody who understands opportunity costs...
  - lern_too_spel 8y ago
    That's reductionist to the point of absurdity. You might be able to only focus on one thing at a time, but a day is long, and you need to worry about multiple things in a day to merely survive. In your free time, it is possible to worry about poverty, climate change, superintelligence, and many other things. The reason that rich people worry about superintelligence is that it could bring the same uncaring devastation to the rich as climate change brings to the poor.
    - coldtea 8y ago
      >The reason that rich people worry about superintelligence is that it could bring the same uncaring devastation to the rich as climate change brings to the poor. The problem with this is that I believe one is a genuine threat, the other is a fad.
      - lern_too_spel 8y ago
        > the other is a fad. In what way? Do you not believe that superintelligence is possible, or do you believe that any superintelligence will automatically care about the well-being of humans? Both beliefs seem naive to me and to many luminaries in the field: https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~russell/research/future/ https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~russell/research/future/.
        coldtea 8y ago
        >Do you not believe that super-intelligence is possible I don't believe super-intelligence is possible. I don't believe we're anywhere near modeling intelligence, and even if we did I don't believe intelligence will "exponentially increase" given more computing power (the same way there's a limit to speeding up barely- or non-parallelizable programs).
        lern_too_spel 8y ago
        > I don't believe super-intelligence is possible. The fact that organizations outperform individuals at many tasks shows that superintelligence is possible. If you can dramatically increase the communication bandwidth of an organization through computerization, you will trivially achieve superintelligence over organizations. Exponential increasing intelligence is not necessary for bad outcomes.
        coldtea 8y ago
        >The fact that organizations outperform individuals at many tasks shows that superintelligence is possible. That's a little hand wavy example. Besides, organizations lose out to individuals all the time where intelligence matters -- e.g. that's why the stupidity of bureaucracy, or the army, and "design by committee" is a thing. Also teams of 5-10 do often do better than teams of 100 or 200 (even in programming), except of course in labor intensive tasks (of course an army of 1000 will defeat 10 people, except if among the ten is Chuck Norris).
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
jimbokun 8y ago
Who are the people who both predict super human intelligent AI and do not believe in human caused climate change?
- ForHackernews 8y ago
  I didn't say they didn't believe in it, I said they were less concerned about it. https://www.effectivealtruism.org/articles/introduction-to-effective-altruism/ https://www.effectivealtruism.org/articles/introduction-to-e... > Climate change and nuclear war are well-known threats to the long-term survival of our species. Many researchers believe that risks from emerging technologies, such as advanced artificial intelligence and designed pathogens, may be even more worrying. ... > First, you need to consider which problem you should focus on. Some of the most promising problems appear to be safely developing artificial intelligence, improving biosecurity policy, or working toward the end of factory farming.
sampo 8y ago
> I can't believe there are people genuinely afraid of a hypothetical powerful malevolent AI I don't think even the AI doomsayers, deep down, actually believe what they preach. It's just a way to signal that one is clever and informed of new tech. If they actually believed what they say, they'd be worried of being targeted by violent protestors, like drug testing companies and crop breeding companies have to be.

lern_too_spel 8y ago

Who says you can only worry about one thing?

coldtea 8y ago
Anybody who understands opportunity costs...
- lern_too_spel 8y ago
  That's reductionist to the point of absurdity. You might be able to only focus on one thing at a time, but a day is long, and you need to worry about multiple things in a day to merely survive. In your free time, it is possible to worry about poverty, climate change, superintelligence, and many other things. The reason that rich people worry about superintelligence is that it could bring the same uncaring devastation to the rich as climate change brings to the poor.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >The reason that rich people worry about superintelligence is that it could bring the same uncaring devastation to the rich as climate change brings to the poor. The problem with this is that I believe one is a genuine threat, the other is a fad.
    - lern_too_spel 8y ago
      > the other is a fad. In what way? Do you not believe that superintelligence is possible, or do you believe that any superintelligence will automatically care about the well-being of humans? Both beliefs seem naive to me and to many luminaries in the field: https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~russell/research/future/ https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~russell/research/future/.
      - coldtea 8y ago
        >Do you not believe that super-intelligence is possible I don't believe super-intelligence is possible. I don't believe we're anywhere near modeling intelligence, and even if we did I don't believe intelligence will "exponentially increase" given more computing power (the same way there's a limit to speeding up barely- or non-parallelizable programs).
        lern_too_spel 8y ago
        > I don't believe super-intelligence is possible. The fact that organizations outperform individuals at many tasks shows that superintelligence is possible. If you can dramatically increase the communication bandwidth of an organization through computerization, you will trivially achieve superintelligence over organizations. Exponential increasing intelligence is not necessary for bad outcomes.
        coldtea 8y ago
        >The fact that organizations outperform individuals at many tasks shows that superintelligence is possible. That's a little hand wavy example. Besides, organizations lose out to individuals all the time where intelligence matters -- e.g. that's why the stupidity of bureaucracy, or the army, and "design by committee" is a thing. Also teams of 5-10 do often do better than teams of 100 or 200 (even in programming), except of course in labor intensive tasks (of course an army of 1000 will defeat 10 people, except if among the ten is Chuck Norris).
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

jimbokun 8y ago

Who are the people who both predict super human intelligent AI and do not believe in human caused climate change?

ForHackernews 8y ago
I didn't say they didn't believe in it, I said they were less concerned about it. https://www.effectivealtruism.org/articles/introduction-to-effective-altruism/ https://www.effectivealtruism.org/articles/introduction-to-e... > Climate change and nuclear war are well-known threats to the long-term survival of our species. Many researchers believe that risks from emerging technologies, such as advanced artificial intelligence and designed pathogens, may be even more worrying. ... > First, you need to consider which problem you should focus on. Some of the most promising problems appear to be safely developing artificial intelligence, improving biosecurity policy, or working toward the end of factory farming.

sampo 8y ago

> I can't believe there are people genuinely afraid of a hypothetical powerful malevolent AI I don't think even the AI doomsayers, deep down, actually believe what they preach. It's just a way to signal that one is clever and informed of new tech. If they actually believed what they say, they'd be worried of being targeted by violent protestors, like drug testing companies and crop breeding companies have to be.