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I disagree with your statement: "The evolutionary baggage is most definitely not one of cooperation, at least not beyond our immediate "monkeysphere"; millennia

by Travis 15y ago

I disagree with your statement: "The evolutionary baggage is most definitely not one of cooperation, at least not beyond our immediate "monkeysphere"; millennia of wars and massacres bear witness to that." You are picking one aspect of human nature, presenting a vague justifications, and taken it to prove your point. I think it is just as accurate to say that humanity has cooperated more than any other species we know. I think that AI-not-being-human means nothing more than that. It might not have the jealous, hateful, and short-sighted attributes, but it could also treat us humans as batteries. To me, the crucial point is that AI simply won't be human. Discussing it in terms of human attributes isn't particularly fruitful. The is partially because it won't have the biological (lizard brain) influences, and I think we as humans are just beginning to acknowledge the major influence that biological heritage has on every aspect of our humanity.

zeteo 15y ago
Basing a whole argument upon the extensive use of the term human will not do much good, unless it's very carefully defined first. What exactly do you mean when you say AI won't be human? After all, a mere 70 years ago the ability to play chess, for example, was considered a quintessentially human attribute.
- jerf 15y ago
  You appealed to human intuitions about how other humans will behave: "It's also theoretically possible that some intelligent person you just met is actually dr. Hannibal Lecter and would like to use your constituent atoms for his culinary delight. But you don't worry much about that, do you?" You can't use human intuitions about how how AIs will behave. They won't be human. You don't know what restrictions they will have. You can guess at the odds of a given human being a murderous psychopath, and adjust your odds with a significant degree of success based on even a handful of seconds of observation of a given human. You can not perform any such equivalent operations for a given AI. That you want to sit here and slice semantics about what we mean by "human" means you still aren't really getting it. The differences between definitions of humans are rendered but a small little point in the vast n-dimensional space of what an AI might be like. Which part of the point we pull the definition of "human" from is utterly irrelevant; AIs won't be any of them. They won't even be biological. Your intuitions about how they might choose to limit themselves based on human social norms is utterly inapplicable. If Hannibal Lector AI was walking down the street, he might very well decide to just eat you. Or the building you are in. Or the universe you are in. Your human-shaped cognitive pieces for modeling the life forms and intelligences of the world aren't useful.
  - zeteo 15y ago
    This whole argument amounts to "X is different, therefore you should be scared of X". It may hold some water for aliens, but not for AIs because of a very simple reason: it will be us who will create them. We will know more about their inner workings than we know about the inner workings of our own minds. If anything, AIs would be more predictable than humans, and we can build into them any safeguards that we so choose.
    - ericb 15y ago
      You've never debugged really bad spaghetti code, I'm guessing? After a certain level of complexity, it becomes impossible to tell what thing does what, and sometimes all, none or some of the levers must be pulled in a particular, or no particular order to get the behaviour you want.
    - CodeMage 15y ago
      Wait, are we still assuming that an AI will be based on software? As long as that's the case, no safeguard will be safe enough. Even if the AI itself doesn't find some way around the safeguard and rewrite them, all that it takes is some fool extremist to liberate only one. Plus, those safeguards you're proposing? They're basically a form of slavery imposed on a self-aware, intelligent life form. Somehow I don't think that life form will be very happy or grateful about it when (not if) those safeguards come off. Bottom line: you can't rely on "safeguards" when it comes to the AI. You can either gamble or not, but you can't cheat.
      - deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]
danilocampos 15y ago
Indeed, the success of wars and genocide is easily exhibit A in humanity's ability to work together and cooperate. We might not all be unified, but we have a talent for putting together groups that work well together – even for murderous purposes. You don't usually win wars with a single soldier.

by Travis 15y ago

zeteo 15y ago

Basing a whole argument upon the extensive use of the term human will not do much good, unless it's very carefully defined first. What exactly do you mean when you say AI won't be human? After all, a mere 70 years ago the ability to play chess, for example, was considered a quintessentially human attribute.

jerf 15y ago
You appealed to human intuitions about how other humans will behave: "It's also theoretically possible that some intelligent person you just met is actually dr. Hannibal Lecter and would like to use your constituent atoms for his culinary delight. But you don't worry much about that, do you?" You can't use human intuitions about how how AIs will behave. They won't be human. You don't know what restrictions they will have. You can guess at the odds of a given human being a murderous psychopath, and adjust your odds with a significant degree of success based on even a handful of seconds of observation of a given human. You can not perform any such equivalent operations for a given AI. That you want to sit here and slice semantics about what we mean by "human" means you still aren't really getting it. The differences between definitions of humans are rendered but a small little point in the vast n-dimensional space of what an AI might be like. Which part of the point we pull the definition of "human" from is utterly irrelevant; AIs won't be any of them. They won't even be biological. Your intuitions about how they might choose to limit themselves based on human social norms is utterly inapplicable. If Hannibal Lector AI was walking down the street, he might very well decide to just eat you. Or the building you are in. Or the universe you are in. Your human-shaped cognitive pieces for modeling the life forms and intelligences of the world aren't useful.
- zeteo 15y ago
  This whole argument amounts to "X is different, therefore you should be scared of X". It may hold some water for aliens, but not for AIs because of a very simple reason: it will be us who will create them. We will know more about their inner workings than we know about the inner workings of our own minds. If anything, AIs would be more predictable than humans, and we can build into them any safeguards that we so choose.
  - ericb 15y ago
    You've never debugged really bad spaghetti code, I'm guessing? After a certain level of complexity, it becomes impossible to tell what thing does what, and sometimes all, none or some of the levers must be pulled in a particular, or no particular order to get the behaviour you want.
  - CodeMage 15y ago
    Wait, are we still assuming that an AI will be based on software? As long as that's the case, no safeguard will be safe enough. Even if the AI itself doesn't find some way around the safeguard and rewrite them, all that it takes is some fool extremist to liberate only one. Plus, those safeguards you're proposing? They're basically a form of slavery imposed on a self-aware, intelligent life form. Somehow I don't think that life form will be very happy or grateful about it when (not if) those safeguards come off. Bottom line: you can't rely on "safeguards" when it comes to the AI. You can either gamble or not, but you can't cheat.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]

danilocampos 15y ago

Indeed, the success of wars and genocide is easily exhibit A in humanity's ability to work together and cooperate. We might not all be unified, but we have a talent for putting together groups that work well together – even for murderous purposes. You don't usually win wars with a single soldier.