7 ms·
The most terrifying fact about blockchains is rogue AIs you can't switch off
- lxgr 6y ago> Viruses and #malware have for decades been evolving sophisticated techniques to hide, spread, mutate, and evade. This sounds as if malware is somehow writing itself. Also, I doubt that a rogue strong AI would struggle with opening a regular online bank or brokerage account.
- qayxc 6y ago> Also, I doubt that a rogue strong AI would struggle with opening a regular online bank or brokerage account. I very much doubt disembodied strong AI is possible in the first place. If nature and physical reality in general is anything to go by, intelligence and agency correlate strongly with physical interaction with the environment (e.g. plants are less "intelligent" than most animals). Even though there's an argument to be made that such interactions can be simulated, research has shown that optimisation algorithms tend to exploit the imperfections of the simulation instead of developing generalised solutions or just become instances of Clever Hans [1]. I'm puzzled how some ML/AI researchers come to the conclusion that an algorithm without access to external information and with no means of manipulating its environment can do _anything_ harmful at all (aside from wasting processing cycles or bandwidth). Malware has explicitly specified functionality (e.g. delete or encrypt files, etc.) that didn't just "evolve" out of nowhere and requires very specific target environments (OS, APIs, access rights, etc.). [1] https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/31/this-clever-ai-hid-data-from-its-creators-to-cheat-at-its-appointed-task/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/31/this-clever-ai-hid-data-fr...
- chrisco255 6y agoBitcoin is a paperclip optimizer as it is. It will consume all the world's computation to solve for SHA256 hashes. Eventually we will colonize Mars, not because it is easy, but because it's cheaper to cool Bitcoin mining nodes on a frigid desert planet than on Earth.
- akvadrako 6y agoIs it? The atmosphere is thin so convection won't work well. And water is mostly what we use for conduction on earth, which mars doesn't have much of. I think deep in the ocean or on antarctica makes more sense.
- chrisco255 6y agoAverage temperature on Mars is -60C. You won't need water for liquid cooling. Standard metal heat sinks would work fine at temps that low.
- eimrine 6y agoThere is another reason which makes mining bitcoins on Mars impossible. Too big lag, up to tens of minutes. It is OK for regular using but not OK for mining.
- rachelbythebay 6y agoWhat if you build that into the protocol? Having to set up on Mars in order to double-spend something would make it rather difficult for most people.
- Ekaros 6y agoBitcoin getting even more fun. Interplanetary competition which one is the longer chain...
- akvadrako 6y agoYou still need to dissipate the heat. Metal is fine for moving the heat, but the specific heat of water is what makes it so effective. On Mars you just have rocks.
- chrisco255 6y agoWhen it is -60C you don't need to spend much energy dissipating heat. It likes to dissipate itself. But yes, heat sinks plus fans will absolutely do in -60C.
- azinman2 6y agoThis is such garbage it makes me wish HN had a down vote for links. It’s just idea/word soup with zero disregard for executing anything in real life. These things can stay on because of solar & off grid energy? As if we needed those to keep electricity running 24/7? The whole thing shows me how disconnected “AI/blockchain true believers” are from reality… hello we’re still working on basic planning, and you’re worried about “rogue AI running on blockchains?”
- eimrine 6y agoThe point is that there are no power to stop Bitcoin unless human extinction.
- SideburnsOfDoom 6y agoNonsense.
- eimrine 6y agoI do not see any refutation neither from you nor from others.
- SideburnsOfDoom 6y agoI'm not refuting gibberish, I am laughing at it.
- myWindoonn 6y agoWe don't have to have Bitcoin. Its existence is a choice that humans make. We could remunerate everybody who bought in with an amnesty program which allows folks to get rid of BTC for cash, and then switch off all nodes. In general, rogue AIs will not be more capable or powerful than humans. Assuming otherwise is religious FUD, and the burden of proof is on the religious believer to show why their AI god is inevitable.
- 6y ago
- SideburnsOfDoom 6y agoThe statement "The most terrifying fact about blockchains is rogue AIs you can't switch off" is absurd on the face of it, but as you dig into it, the laughability of it just grows. Stay off twitter when you're high, kids. Actually terrifying things about blockchains: The environmental cost of the proof of work; the sheer quantity of grift and fraud on them; the way that supposedly clever people get swept up in evangelising this useless thing. The oxygen that it's sucking out of the room by people wasting time and effort and publicity on it. And not "oh no, what if we forget how to turn off computers" plus "what if AI, but not anything like the AI that we have".
- eimrine 6y agoBitcoin is like coronavirus, it will not disappear until ALL running instances disappear.
- SideburnsOfDoom 6y agoSo? they'll all be turned off after people lose interest.
- eimrine 6y agoIt's like saying we're going to suffocate right now because all the oxygen molecules will run away a mile away. Possible, but too little of probability.
- SideburnsOfDoom 6y agoYou are a gibberish merchant. Turning of computers that are no longer required are are merely costing electricity is normal procedure. Your oxygen analogy is loony.
- eimrine 6y agoPeople will NEVER lose interest in a trustless ledger, because it is impossible having 100% citizens who trust banks and govts and feel free with giant fees while sending money abroad. My oxygen analogy is not so crazy, there was some deathes like this under certain circumstances.
- idlewords 6y agoThis is like saying that the great risk of malware is it can amass unbounded cloud resources. In reality, both the cloud and the blockchain are embedded in human systems that can exercise out of band control if things get too dumb. And the blockchain has the unparalleled advantage of having no practical use beyond financial speculation, so it can be turned off at will. On top of this, a rogue AI is by definition hyperintelligent and therefore unlikely to come within a country mile of cryptocurrency.
- hyko 6y agoThis is just a Buzzword intersection. For one thing, if blockchain-powered-rogue-AIs existed they would be hopelessly underpowered compared to ones running on AWS, because blockchains aren’t just magic fairy dust that make all things possible; they are meant to provide decentralisation at the cost of enormous and verifiably wasted effort. Perhaps the OP was thinking of quantum computing; might be worth adding that in there somewhere.
- azinman2 6y agoAlso cloud-based fake news disinformation social media viral crypto-cyber warfare hacking of mobile devices on and off device with singularity deep transformer convolutional attention-based recurrent neural networks YouTube Facebook Instagram Apple Twitter Microsoft Google.
- myWindoonn 6y agoThe most terrifying fact about forests is rogue badgers you can't switch off. Yeah, badgers are not fun to encounter, but (a) we consider them an acceptable cost of having forests, and (b) they're an essential and natural part of forests, connected to all of the other mammals and the plants which live there.
- joshka 6y agoSo..., Crypto Singularity?