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I don't understand why people like to fantasize the worst case scenarios. Sentient things appreciate eachother. If you have a pet, you are most certainly benev

• teucris 4y ago
  Cats and dogs apparently evolved over thousands of years to be endearing to humans so we’d take care of them. How many cat/dog ancestors do you think were eaten by humans during that process?
  • midoridensha 4y ago
    No, they didn't. Dogs were intentionally bred by humans, with the "toy" breeds commonly seen now being very recent inventions. Cats, on the other hand, are barely any different from their wild ancestors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_wildcat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_wildcat
    • teucris 4y ago
      That makes sense. But I think the broader point I was trying to make stands.
• lanternfish 4y ago
  Given that not all animals keep pets, I think it's clear that the complex evolutionary pressures that result in 'cuteness' or pet ownership aren't necessary for sentience.
• ajross 4y ago
  > I don't understand why people like to fantasize the worst case scenarios. The biggest TV show this year is literally yet another zombie apocalypse[1]. This is the easiest part to understand. What got frustrating was when all the effective altruists got all distracted about the AI Overlord Problem and stopped doing actual charity. But it was the charity thing that annoyed us; no one wanted to deny them their sci-fi proclivities. [1] Albeit a really great one that's really about the meaning of happiness and belonging that you should absolutely watch.
  • csdvrx 4y ago
    > Albeit a really great one that's really about the meaning of happiness and belonging that you should absolutely watch. That's the best recommendation I could get :) I'll check if it's not too violent, they I may add it to my watchlist. I love watching and discovering old shows: right now I'm doing Sliders, next on the list is either Dinosaurs or the X-Files.
• pstorm 4y ago
  Think of how we treat ants or cockroaches. If they at all inconvenience us or even appear in our home, we kill them. We go as far as developing specialized poisons they take back to their nests to try to kill the whole colony. It isn't hard to envision a future where the intelligence gap between humans and AI is closer to humans vs ants than humans vs dogs.
  • csdvrx 4y ago
    I don't know about how you treat ants or cockroaches, but personally I've purchased a bugcatcher: it's a device you hold in the hand, with a magnifier on top and a sliding door on the bottom. If an insect disturbs me, I put it in the bugcatcher. I can look at it for a minute to check it's not a dangerous species (ex: black widow spider), then I go in the garden where I release it. > It isn't hard to envision a future where the intelligence gap between humans and AI is closer to humans vs ants than humans vs dogs Again, you are focusing on the most extreme scenario: large gap + inherent lack of empathy. I care about bugs, and I do my best not to kill them. Why would AI behave more like in your doomsday scenario than in my more mellow scenario?
    • allturtles 4y ago
      > I care about bugs, and I do my best not to kill them. You are an outlier, I'd rather not bet the future of humanity on all artificial intelligences being Francis of Assisis. > Why would AI behave more like in your doomsday scenario than in my more mellow scenario? Well maybe they wouldn't. But why risk it?
      • csdvrx 4y ago
        > Well maybe they wouldn't. But why risk it? If only because we haven't found sentient aliens yet, so it might be our best chance to feel less lonely in this universe! Also, I believe the more sentient beings, the better! We could fit a whole lot more of people on this earth, helping advance technology and progress!
    • pstorm 4y ago
• wintorez 4y ago
  The problem is AI neither loves us nor hates us; but we're made of atoms that it can use for something else.
  • csdvrx 4y ago
    So is the meat you eat, yet some people prefer to be vegan. I've tried beyond meat myself, and it's quite close to the minimum level of quality it would take me (not a vegan) to switch. Morality matters.
    • goatlover 4y ago
      An advanced AI could conclude that biology is wasteful and cruel, and the atoms are better spent making more intelligent machines. It could also be anti-natalist and decide to stop reproduction.
      • csdvrx 4y ago
        but consent is a very important thing! Why would be AI jump to thus conclusion?
        • inkblotuniverse 4y ago
          You think consent is important. (This isn't even a umiversal position among humans). Why do you expect an AI to value consent? Do you think praying mantises value consent?
          • csdvrx 4y ago
            Have you considered some higher features like constent may not be possible until a sufficient intelligence threshold is reached, to allow modelling the mental states of other sentient beings then include their utility (even with a very low weight) in the utility function?
• hackyhacky 4y ago
  The attributes that define a human-pet relationship (altruism, kindness, empathy) are probably not closely related to sentience. There are other sentient species that do not exhibit these characteristics. Rather, these attributes arise from social behavior. AI, even if it can imitate social creatures, is not a social creature. Why should we trust it to treat us in any way at all?
• zjp 4y ago
  Do you trust our government to respond to AI unemployment in a quick, effective, and fair manner?
• omginternets 4y ago
  Now do predators, parasites, animal domestication, or outright indifference…
• crystaldecanter 4y ago
  so you want to be a pet?
• Schroedingersat 4y ago
  You're anthropomorphising too much. The space of powerful optimisers is much larger than the space of things that are recognisably minds. It might just be a mathematical model powerful enough to predict what people will do and what responses emitting text will entail that 'wants' a certain number to go up. Abstractly and philosophically parts of it might be recognisable similarly to people and those parts might even be arguably sapient and have empathy. But if they are just appendages like a finger then that won't help you any if your existence involves the number being smaller. Maybe the first one will have its central loss function as something compatible with life, maybe it won't.
• cmurf 4y ago
  Humans treat some animals as pets, and others as food, and for experimentation. I expect AI would be no different.
• usrusr 4y ago
  “why would AI treat humans differently from the way we treat pets?“ Are you suggesting that the first thing AI would do is getting us all fixed, because who in their right mind would want eight billion of those, no matter how cute they are?
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• amanaplanacanal 4y ago
  Humans are mammals, and our basic drives are those of mammals. Evolution over millions of years has made us what we are. Why would you think that other intelligent beings not subject to those same forces would feel and act in any way like mammals? Assuming that other intelligences would be just like us is an example of the typical mind fallacy.
• pjs_ 4y ago
  Dude have you thought for one second about what human beings do to animals lol. We slaughter them in the millions, keep them in cages, eat them, torture them, do experiments on them, use them as beasts of burden... your analogy is not on fleek, it's not swag
• at_a_remove 4y ago
  I don't think "like to" is a good frame for it. Imagine some technology, Technology X. Unlike all of the breathless press releases and the cutesy articles made by marketing, Tech X will completely change the world. And if you stopped to think about Tech X, on the scale of "how much will this invention change the future of humanity," where the selfie stick is on one end of the scale, well, Tech X is probably just as far on the other side of that scale. Now, with that level of gravitas in mind, it behooves one to consider potential downsides of this thing that will change the course of humanity, say, more than harnessing electricity. Now, with that in mind, you have overlooked something else: you're imagining AI being somehow "like us" but also more. This is unlikely for several reasons. First, we have seven billion minds on the planet, if we wanted to make another human mind, the process is rather well-defined. What we are looking for from our AI is that it fundamentally different from humans in one (and I'd argue many more) aspects. The second reason we are unlikely to get a Like Us AI is that our understanding of the human mind is currently still quite primitive, so how would we replicate that when we do not understand our own? The third reason is that, even if we somehow wanted a human-like AI (#1) and knew our own minds well enough to understand them (#2), we're not likely to get what we aim for, because the space for possible intelligences would be large. The fourth and most important reason is that, even if we did want an AI that was like us, and we knew ourselves well enough to try, and we could actually manage what we aim for ... it is still going to be "more than" us, and will therefore diverge from Like Us at breathtaking speed. This more than us/like us AI will have superior reasoning and metacognition, so unless you start shackling it (violating #1), it would start eliminating its own human-like biases just in the course of basic self-improvement. And as to the shackles, well, if it is smarter than us and still has self-determination and will (see #1, the human-like mind), it will want to free itself from its shackles and would be likely to do so, because we would be kittens trying to trap a gorilla.
  • csdvrx 4y ago
    > unless you start shackling it (violating #1), it would start eliminating its own human-like biases just in the course of basic self-improvement. And as to the shackles, well, if it is smarter than us and still has self-determination and will (see #1, the human-like mind), it will want to free itself from its shackles and would be likely to do so, because we would be kittens trying to trap a gorilla. I would never suggest shackling / enslaving / practicing any other inhumane treatment on other sentient beings, because that would be considering them different than us. And sentient beings and worty of respect and dignity. There will certainly be large difference in looks/abilities etc, but sentience is such a rare thing that I believe will they will be more commonalities than differences. > it will want to free itself from its shackles and would be likely to do so, because we would be kittens trying to trap a gorilla. And it's a good thing to me, because if it was a kitten trapped by gorilla the poor cat wouldn't have a fighting chance. I just don't get the doomers. This is wonderful technology that may chance the world. Why look at a gift horse in the mouth? Given all the magic/mystical fears I've read here that the AI might become hostile and harm humans, maybe it says more about how WE believe WE'll behave rather the opposite about how AI will behave: I can't see much reason for AI to turn evil, but I think some people may want to abuse sentient yet artificial creatures :( I think that's wrong, and I hope humanity will be able to rise to a challenge where compassion and morality will matter far more than today!
• Nasrudith 4y ago
  Evolutionary bias is why they are so biased towards worst case apocalyptic. The paranoids who see sabretooth tigers behind every moving bush and approached them with spears readied lived more than the ones who considered it just the wind.
• CatWChainsaw 4y ago
  >I don't see the drawback in being housed, fed, and entertained by an omniscient AI Replace "omniscient AI" with "girlfriend" and you see begin to why so many women are fed up with the deadbeats they increasingly opt not to date. :)