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>So we should be worried about a large set of disembodied AIs as well. This is really the central issue and where these AI fears come from. It's tech workers b

>So we should be worried about a large set of disembodied AIs as well. This is really the central issue and where these AI fears come from. It's tech workers being too infatuated with intelligence and mistaking it for power. A society of disembodied AI's is just the platonic fantasy version of a tech company full of nerds, and nerds never have power regardless of how smart they are. Anything that's digital is extremely feeble and runs on a substrate of physical stuff you can just throw out of the window, some AIs in the cloud won't defeat you for the same reason Google won't defeat the US army. The usual retort is something like "but you can't turn the internet off if you wanted to?!" to which the answer is yes you can actually, ask China. Psychologically it's just equivalent to John Perry Barlow style cyberspace escape fantasies.

323 4y ago
> physical stuff you can just throw out of the window This is like the chimps saying "don't worry about these evolving humans, we'll just keep them away from the bananas, look how weak they are".
- Barrin92 4y ago
  but it's not at all like that because we're not AIs, chimps didn't hold any monopoly of force over us, and we're embodied beings. If we had evolved into talking Futurama heads we would indeed have a hard time against our chimp competitors regardless of our intellect. You throw Eliezer Yudkowsky into a cage with a chimp and my money is on the ape.
hirundo 4y ago
Powerless nerds like Musk, Gates, Zuckerberg, Bezos and Schmidt?
- Barrin92 4y ago
  Yes, exactly like them. They have agency to the extent that actual sovereign power lets them do their thing. If Washington decided that Bill Gates is an existential threat to humanity what is he gonna do, ask Clippy for help? He'd join Jack Ma wherever he is within 24 hours. Zuckerberg has dominion over Facebook by virtue of authority granting him that power but (un)surprisingly little power over anything else. just like any AI has control over what it does as long as its useful to its owners. Tech CEOs have been running a little wild in the US so maybe that illusion accounts for the prevalence of these AI theories.
  - burrows 4y ago
    There is no “Washington”. Just a bunch of other humans that Gates may or may not be aligned with.
    - 7373737373 4y ago
      cheers: https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2011/02/money-shot-president-obama-and-americas-tech-giants https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2011/02/money-shot-presi...
  - johnthewise 4y ago
    >If Washington decided that Bill Gates is an existential threat to humanity what is he gonna do, ask Clippy for help? He'd join Jack Ma wherever he is within 24 hours. Why don't these guys ever end up in that situation though? I guess the most compelling explanation is not that a 'actual sovereign power' exists and just let them do things, it's hard to take a stance against them because no single entity actually holds that amount of concentrated power. Back in times, kings were really powerful and had almost that concentrated power, but they still couldn't do everything without risking some other powerful entities ganging up on them. For a strong ai that can actually make money, it would be easy to buy off enough people in washington and other entities that hold power, so that they can't take a stance against you without risking dangerous opposition.

323 4y ago

> physical stuff you can just throw out of the window This is like the chimps saying "don't worry about these evolving humans, we'll just keep them away from the bananas, look how weak they are".

Barrin92 4y ago
but it's not at all like that because we're not AIs, chimps didn't hold any monopoly of force over us, and we're embodied beings. If we had evolved into talking Futurama heads we would indeed have a hard time against our chimp competitors regardless of our intellect. You throw Eliezer Yudkowsky into a cage with a chimp and my money is on the ape.

hirundo 4y ago

Powerless nerds like Musk, Gates, Zuckerberg, Bezos and Schmidt?

Barrin92 4y ago
Yes, exactly like them. They have agency to the extent that actual sovereign power lets them do their thing. If Washington decided that Bill Gates is an existential threat to humanity what is he gonna do, ask Clippy for help? He'd join Jack Ma wherever he is within 24 hours. Zuckerberg has dominion over Facebook by virtue of authority granting him that power but (un)surprisingly little power over anything else. just like any AI has control over what it does as long as its useful to its owners. Tech CEOs have been running a little wild in the US so maybe that illusion accounts for the prevalence of these AI theories.
- burrows 4y ago
  There is no “Washington”. Just a bunch of other humans that Gates may or may not be aligned with.
  - 7373737373 4y ago
    cheers: https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2011/02/money-shot-president-obama-and-americas-tech-giants https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2011/02/money-shot-presi...
- johnthewise 4y ago
  >If Washington decided that Bill Gates is an existential threat to humanity what is he gonna do, ask Clippy for help? He'd join Jack Ma wherever he is within 24 hours. Why don't these guys ever end up in that situation though? I guess the most compelling explanation is not that a 'actual sovereign power' exists and just let them do things, it's hard to take a stance against them because no single entity actually holds that amount of concentrated power. Back in times, kings were really powerful and had almost that concentrated power, but they still couldn't do everything without risking some other powerful entities ganging up on them. For a strong ai that can actually make money, it would be easy to buy off enough people in washington and other entities that hold power, so that they can't take a stance against you without risking dangerous opposition.