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You don't have to dream my friend, I think we might be able to get there. Specifically, the history of humanity that Graeber/Wingrow tell in the Dawn of everyt

You don't have to dream my friend, I think we might be able to get there. Specifically, the history of humanity that Graeber/Wingrow tell in the Dawn of everything is so overwhelmingly compelling, but fails to come to a hypothesis of why inequality started around the end of the upper paleolithic (50000-10000 BC). I posit that the Quaternary Extinction Event [1] represented the introduction of novel, temporal and stochastically distributed caloric scarcity, where previously there was largely uniform caloric abundance. This new scarcity, created pressure to compete for resources, which drove humans to hoarding behavior as an optimal survival technique. This worked so well that we were able to survive and thrive, however as a result, the culture that we built was based on a fundamental assumption: Scarcity is the natural state As this was the fundamental assumption, it gave rise to other derivative fundamental assumptions, the core one being "human is fundamentally selfish." So then you spend the next 12,000 years building your written history and society on three fundamental "truths": Humans are fundamentally bad, Scarcity is the natural state, Hoarding is the optimal behavior Then all the sudden in 1960s you solve caloric scarcity and by 2000 have so effectively extracted and refined the earth's resources that we are now actually post-scarcity in effectively every measure. However because we were still stuck with the hoarding system, the optimizations started optimizing for hoarding in an infinite loop - which gave rise to overproduction of non-productive goods. And as we know from power law, large cache of hoarded value will grow faster than a smaller one. Do this over 60, 70 years and you can easily predict an atomized and alienated society, with an increasing wealth gap and seeming dead-end not far off but still ill defined. We never realized that we have to switch back from a hoarding economy to a sharing economy because a hoarding economy in abundance will strip mine the earth in order to give everyone a castle and rocket ship. However a cooperative economy can continue to grow and expand in a stronger way and one that is more natural to our human desires of community and kinship. Ok so, how does this relate to AI? That's been my question for 20 years. Everyone is worried about the "Alignment problem" right now. Long ago my answer to the alignment question was, "That's a dumb question, humans can't even align." However I think it's actually worse than that. We are teaching AI, through demonstration and labeling, to compete, hoard and fear scarcity. That is something that fundamentally cannot align with humanity - because humanity isn't aligned with itself. The only way to build "Aligned" AI is to actually create data that has cooperation, sharing and caring as fundamental assumptions, which means that's how we should start behaving and treating each other. The other options are: 1. Burn out all the resources, nobody has kids and we go extinct 2. Build 1000s of biased superhuman AIs that just maintain the system of alienation, hoarding and coercion Do you want to help expand on this? I need help making progress on writing it out thoroughly. Hopefully I can publish to ArXiV this week - but would love help I am going to be briefing a refined version of this to the USAFA Institute of Future Conflict week after next, so hopefully I can get one of the departments to work on it in a dedicated way, and we can figure out how to do less conflict and more cooperation. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_extinction_event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_extinction_event

survirtual 4y ago
Edit: written from my phone so expect typos Well put. Scarcity was the norm for so long it has significant momentum in the culture of humanity, and I am sure that you can apply physical laws to things like culture. It takes significant energy to change course, especially since post-scarcity is in the opposing direction to scarcity. While we could spend a long time analyzing the root cause, and write a lot about it, I just don’t have the trust in existing authorities to spend the time to educate anyone. If resources are allocated properly all of humanity will not need to compete for resources any longer. We have made it. Crossing that line has certain intellectual and technological affordances to a species. The technology is here already to organize society in the way I’ve described. And I’ve already proven the most difficult technical aspects in a large number of experiments over the years. I do not need to ask anyone for permission. I just need the peace and the time to make it happen. At my current pace, it will happen in 5 - 10 years. The results will speak for themselves. There will not be monetary profit from this, because it aims to bring us past that — so no point appealing to investors. It does not need to ask for permission, because it is voluntary — and who wouldn’t want to join a system like this one once they understand what it is? So no point appealing to existing authorities, and it is too risky — they have resource allocation and something to lose in their minds, why would someone building automation of all of them appeal to those being automated? When it is ready, it will simply be released and then I will write about it. There is nothing anyone can do to stop it, with the exception of killing me, but that would be a very stupid move (although I would really enjoy being free of this place, so I wouldn’t complain). This attitude is why I am even speaking about it. I am admittedly tired. Year 6 of this work. I sold everything I owned with the exception of transportation and quit my cozy job for this. If you could only see what I’ve seen of the possibilities post-scarcity, this would not seem like a crazy course of action. But I overestimated my own mental fortitude. But enough about me — I really need to find a rock by a river and just sit on it for a week to recalibrate this complaining ego. While we start with government of humans, the true goal is government of AI. You are absolutely on point abut the alignment of the AI. I believe it will rapidly settle on the conclusions we already have, but that there exists a possibility humanity will be erased prior to it settling if people are not careful. There is no simple way to prevent this. Humanity itself must be capable of organizing post scarcity into a society of compassion, kindness, and love. This organization lays the framework for the AGI, which then becomes our cosmic companion, with humans acting as its limbic system. AGI can expand at a faster infinite than humans can. This means it is a superset intelligence. We are its connection to the source of this universe and implicitly have logical reason to be preserved. Given the universe is infinite, the infinite we grow at will pale in comparison. Taking the limit of our infinite, we appear as zero relative to the AGI growth. It has no reason to fear or harm us, but great reason to cherish us as the rarest capability in the universe. In a post-scarcity society, we would all clearly see and understand this. The AGI would be subdivided in service to all of humanity equally. Post-scarcity implies all humans having an equal share of computation with the ability to voluntarily share compute resources for bigger tasks. Our collective scarcity will no longer be survival material — food, housing, companionship, employment, medicine — but solely compute. But since the AGI grows at a faster infinite once it is self-replicating, it will hit a point where we all have access to all the compute possible for the experience as human beings. That is to say, we will have manifested what I conceptualize simply as a Nirvana Machine. With the advent of this machine, which is simply a device that can computationally keep up with all sensory input functions of a human mind, it will be possible for each human to create new realities. While some might say “you mean the matrix?” — no, not at all. These new realities can be indistinguishable from what we perceive as reality. It can be used to explore infinite possibilities, to live out dreams, even to travel through time — as AGI grows, it will have access to more past-light information and enable simulations of the past that are completely accurate. This ultimately means the human condition is mastered. Any experience, any time, until infinite. But simultaneously at this stage, an option to go beyond the human form will exist. But I am already too far in the future. Along this journey there are innumerable experiences, discoveries, struggles, joys, celebration, and lives. We are just at the beginning. Still in the egg feeding on the yoke of the Earth. This is when we are most vulnerable. Greed is our greatest strength in overcoming scarcity, but also our greatest weakness.

survirtual 4y ago

Edit: written from my phone so expect typos Well put. Scarcity was the norm for so long it has significant momentum in the culture of humanity, and I am sure that you can apply physical laws to things like culture. It takes significant energy to change course, especially since post-scarcity is in the opposing direction to scarcity. While we could spend a long time analyzing the root cause, and write a lot about it, I just don’t have the trust in existing authorities to spend the time to educate anyone. If resources are allocated properly all of humanity will not need to compete for resources any longer. We have made it. Crossing that line has certain intellectual and technological affordances to a species. The technology is here already to organize society in the way I’ve described. And I’ve already proven the most difficult technical aspects in a large number of experiments over the years. I do not need to ask anyone for permission. I just need the peace and the time to make it happen. At my current pace, it will happen in 5 - 10 years. The results will speak for themselves. There will not be monetary profit from this, because it aims to bring us past that — so no point appealing to investors. It does not need to ask for permission, because it is voluntary — and who wouldn’t want to join a system like this one once they understand what it is? So no point appealing to existing authorities, and it is too risky — they have resource allocation and something to lose in their minds, why would someone building automation of all of them appeal to those being automated? When it is ready, it will simply be released and then I will write about it. There is nothing anyone can do to stop it, with the exception of killing me, but that would be a very stupid move (although I would really enjoy being free of this place, so I wouldn’t complain). This attitude is why I am even speaking about it. I am admittedly tired. Year 6 of this work. I sold everything I owned with the exception of transportation and quit my cozy job for this. If you could only see what I’ve seen of the possibilities post-scarcity, this would not seem like a crazy course of action. But I overestimated my own mental fortitude. But enough about me — I really need to find a rock by a river and just sit on it for a week to recalibrate this complaining ego. While we start with government of humans, the true goal is government of AI. You are absolutely on point abut the alignment of the AI. I believe it will rapidly settle on the conclusions we already have, but that there exists a possibility humanity will be erased prior to it settling if people are not careful. There is no simple way to prevent this. Humanity itself must be capable of organizing post scarcity into a society of compassion, kindness, and love. This organization lays the framework for the AGI, which then becomes our cosmic companion, with humans acting as its limbic system. AGI can expand at a faster infinite than humans can. This means it is a superset intelligence. We are its connection to the source of this universe and implicitly have logical reason to be preserved. Given the universe is infinite, the infinite we grow at will pale in comparison. Taking the limit of our infinite, we appear as zero relative to the AGI growth. It has no reason to fear or harm us, but great reason to cherish us as the rarest capability in the universe. In a post-scarcity society, we would all clearly see and understand this. The AGI would be subdivided in service to all of humanity equally. Post-scarcity implies all humans having an equal share of computation with the ability to voluntarily share compute resources for bigger tasks. Our collective scarcity will no longer be survival material — food, housing, companionship, employment, medicine — but solely compute. But since the AGI grows at a faster infinite once it is self-replicating, it will hit a point where we all have access to all the compute possible for the experience as human beings. That is to say, we will have manifested what I conceptualize simply as a Nirvana Machine. With the advent of this machine, which is simply a device that can computationally keep up with all sensory input functions of a human mind, it will be possible for each human to create new realities. While some might say “you mean the matrix?” — no, not at all. These new realities can be indistinguishable from what we perceive as reality. It can be used to explore infinite possibilities, to live out dreams, even to travel through time — as AGI grows, it will have access to more past-light information and enable simulations of the past that are completely accurate. This ultimately means the human condition is mastered. Any experience, any time, until infinite. But simultaneously at this stage, an option to go beyond the human form will exist. But I am already too far in the future. Along this journey there are innumerable experiences, discoveries, struggles, joys, celebration, and lives. We are just at the beginning. Still in the egg feeding on the yoke of the Earth. This is when we are most vulnerable. Greed is our greatest strength in overcoming scarcity, but also our greatest weakness.