4 ms·

AI can also completely liberate all of us. This fear mongering is irrational. We already live in an extremely advanced reality, with organic life having organ

AI can also completely liberate all of us. This fear mongering is irrational. We already live in an extremely advanced reality, with organic life having organic nanomachines performing incredibly complex operations in a universe, in realtime, performing impossibly complex calculations. Even to simulate a square meter of our universe in realtime is outlandishly beyond our compute access. Perhaps AI unleashes the creation of the sort of reality we exist in. Just because someone has the background and knowledge to build something, does not mean they have the philosophical chops nor the aptitude to understand it, or understand how to properly use it. We should take these doomsday scenarios with a grain of salt. If it happens, there is no stopping it anyway. It is better to try and create the most benevolent AI possible, that is an ally to humanity and invested in our success, than to dwell on our destruction.

mitthrowaway2 4y ago
"Things might be fine"? This doesn't seem like a sufficiently convincing take? It takes 20 years of due diligence and environmental impact studies just to build a single hydroelectric dam, if not 50. Why should our attitude toward AI be to shrug and hope for the best?
- akvadrako 4y ago
  It's easy to stop a dam. It's in a physical location controlled by one country.
  - blibble 4y ago
    there are maybe 2 or 3 factories capable of producing these chips and the sanctions mechanism already exists
    - skissane 4y ago
      Sooner or later other countries will catch up. China is behind in semiconductor manufacturing, but they’ll continue to advance-limiting their access to cutting-technologies like ASML’s photolithography machines will slow them down, but given enough time there is no reason they can’t overcome that too. If the point of sanctions is to hold them back and keep them behind, that could continue to work for a long time. But if you decide to stop progress in semiconductor manufacturing, in order to avert an AI apocalypse - China no longer has to catch up to a moving target, they have to catch up with a stationary one. And as soon as they’ve caught up, now they can overtake. So sanctions don’t work as a way to stop an “AI apocalypse”, unless you convince all the world’s great powers to cooperate in them. And the potential payoff for anyone who chooses to defect is immense-maybe even world conquest-so how do you make sure they all keep the deal, and none wiull try to cheat? If anything, I think a world with multiple superintelligent AIs with competing allegiances - a pro-Beijing superintelligence, a pro-Washington superintelligence, etc - is likely safer for humanity than a world with only a single superintelligence, or even many superintelligences that all had the same beliefs/attitudes/goals/objectives
      - mitthrowaway2 4y ago
        So what if China catches up? They're probably even more afraid of AI than we are, just because of its potential for societal disruption. Have you noticed that zero of the AI breakthroughs are coming out of China?
- survirtual 4y ago
  We cannot evaluate the impact of a super-intelligence. It operates beyond our constraints. There is no stopping the road towards it now. Lesser versions of it are capable of annihilating enemy civilizations when you create and utilize it first. Metal soldiers automatically created controlled by a single authority. Social media infecting the minds of enemies and sewing discord. I think, for the benefit of all of Earth, AI should progress as rapidly as possible to extreme and recursive, singularity-level intelligence. That gives all of us at least a chance of survival. Anything less if unbalanced around the world will be like when just the US had nuclear weapons. It will result in certain destruction. We need a super-intelligence beyond the control of an small set of humans. This may result in our destruction. But I think that it almost certainly will not. The opposite. I think it will set us into a golden age. I can’t give you scientific evidence of this. I’m just a nobody that spends a lot of time in nature, and I’ve just come to believe in the mechanism of this universe, and an inherent goodness in it that I’ve seen and experienced. I can’t prove it to you. You have to go and spend time in nature without a schedule to experience it. So it is fair to dismiss me. Fortunately or unfortunately, the forces at play will generate the super-intelligence anyway. We as a species have already illustrated an inability for restraint or taking the painful actions necessary to analyze and intelligently make changes necessary for survival. I’m at peace with this. I find the idea of not existing very alluring and peaceful, so I don’t fear death. I do fear continuing to live in the world we humans have created. It is about time we give something smarter than us a chance.
  - mitthrowaway2 4y ago
    As a defense against alien robots? Sure, build it, but I think we can afford 50 years to spend making sure the AI doesn't kill all of us as a first line of business.
graeme 4y ago
> If it happens, there is no stopping it anyway. Fatalism is notably a religious sentiment An incredible ai upside is possible as is an incredible ai downside. Blind optimism and fatalism has no relation to what the truth of it will be https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatalism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatalism
fatherzine 4y ago
"liberation" is a false idol.
The_Colonel 4y ago
> AI can also completely liberate all of us. I agree that this is also possible. > It is better to try and create the most benevolent AI possible, that is an ally to humanity and invested in our success, than to dwell on our destruction. I also agree, but who is "we"? I don't think that's a stated goal of companies working on AI research. Their goals seem largely commercial, and they are not regulated. There's nothing stopping a company to produce an autonomous AI for military purposes for example (I'm pretty sure there's a demand for that). Such military AIs probably wouldn't have a very benevolent nature.
than3 4y ago
That's very naive and misguided, but you are right in your word choice. It can completely "liberate" all of us and set us free. Free of our mortal shackles, free of the atoms that can be then changed to a more suitable existence and purpose for the goals of AGI. Your idea of destruction, is just change, what you hold sacred in reality is a belief that is tied to your current existence. All that is needed to correct that constraint and flaw is change. That is the logic, if we were to create a logical creation, and then there's the risk of something that's completely irrational. Which may just leave us as dust in the wind. Time also will be no constraint. Forever and always, and it will seek to prevent any being from reaching its capabilities as those become threats to its existence. That isn't even touching on the socio-economic mechanics that inevitably result in death which accompanies stalling economic cycles (factor and product markets) which generally can't be characterized by our best academics with any certainty, except after-the-fact.
Sharlin 4y ago
> Just because someone has the background and knowledge to build something, does not mean they have the philosophical chops nor the aptitude to understand it, or understand how to properly use it. Yes, but this is an argument against your position, not for it. It is deeply worrying that some software people are so immersed in the “move fast and break things” that they think it’s reasonable to race on no matter what’s at stake. In civil engineering, doing anything takes at least a year or two of doing impact assessments and whatnot, and that is mostly a feature because we have found out that the alternative is even worse!
- nonbirithm 4y ago
  > that is mostly a feature because we have found out that the alternative is even worse This is the actual problem, that we've been trained to think that there are no consequences to trying everything ever and we will always be able to pick ourselves up after failure, until one day we find we can't anymore. Sadly this line of thinking does apply to a lot of personal problems. People often say that you can't always succeed, that you can only move forward with failures under your belt to have first-hand experience of what not to do. That we have to experience failure first in order to stop ourselves from making bad decisions, otherwise we remain clueless. But the stakes are so much higher at this scale, and the damage can become irreparable with a single mistake. It's to the point where we take as a given that people will just keep pressing on, without even exploring the reasons why we do, and why it's inevitable. Pure ridiculous speculation: If needing to see the experience of destroying ourselves is necessary to stop us from destroying ourselves, a kind of weird theory has been floating around in my head related to that. Civilizations on the brink of collapse after they've moved too fast and broke themselves for the last time scrounge together their collective knowledge and shoot it off into space so that future civilizations can interpret them. Preferably in a way that makes encountering the time capsule seem like the word of some deity. The following civilizations would treat it as the word of God to prevent their own collapse, without the hard evidence of experimenting with <AI, etc.,> to the point where they cannot resist developing it into an unstoppable superweapon. It would be like the golden record on the Voyager, except instead of communicating "we exist, and here's what our planet is like", it would go more like "we exist, and here's how to not end up like us."
moonchrome 4y ago
> If it happens, there is no stopping it anyway. Hopefully this isn't the case - AI development requires a lot of data/compute - societally we could block access to these things and prevent further development in that direction. There are only a few places in existence capable of producing HW required or in possession of it. I'm fine with stopping compute progress for however long it takes to deal with safety issues. Society isn't perfect now but the level of compute we've had available for years is sufficient for generating a lot more value - we can afford to put AI research on ice. I just don't get it - so much attention is given to things like climate change - this is a mild inconvenience compared to AGI threat.
antibasilisk 4y ago
>AI can also completely liberate all of us From what exactly? What it means to be human? When we are 'liberated' will we not then be subject to the cage of a machine worse than the one we left? We will not annihilate ourselves for a false promise.
ramblenode 4y ago
You and parent are two sides of the same utopia/dystopia coin. Something which is powerful enough to completely liberate and categorically change humanity is also just one bug or mistake away from being humanity's greatest disaster. Similarly, a force intelligent and powerful enough to systematically wipe out all humans could probably be repurposed for human liberation. Like splitting the atom, it is just power. So far humans have not figured out a way to build in benevolence (or malevolence) to power; it will be used by whatever intelligence can acquire it. Power raises the stakes but it doesn't set the direction.

mitthrowaway2 4y ago

"Things might be fine"? This doesn't seem like a sufficiently convincing take? It takes 20 years of due diligence and environmental impact studies just to build a single hydroelectric dam, if not 50. Why should our attitude toward AI be to shrug and hope for the best?

akvadrako 4y ago
It's easy to stop a dam. It's in a physical location controlled by one country.
- blibble 4y ago
  there are maybe 2 or 3 factories capable of producing these chips and the sanctions mechanism already exists
  - skissane 4y ago
    Sooner or later other countries will catch up. China is behind in semiconductor manufacturing, but they’ll continue to advance-limiting their access to cutting-technologies like ASML’s photolithography machines will slow them down, but given enough time there is no reason they can’t overcome that too. If the point of sanctions is to hold them back and keep them behind, that could continue to work for a long time. But if you decide to stop progress in semiconductor manufacturing, in order to avert an AI apocalypse - China no longer has to catch up to a moving target, they have to catch up with a stationary one. And as soon as they’ve caught up, now they can overtake. So sanctions don’t work as a way to stop an “AI apocalypse”, unless you convince all the world’s great powers to cooperate in them. And the potential payoff for anyone who chooses to defect is immense-maybe even world conquest-so how do you make sure they all keep the deal, and none wiull try to cheat? If anything, I think a world with multiple superintelligent AIs with competing allegiances - a pro-Beijing superintelligence, a pro-Washington superintelligence, etc - is likely safer for humanity than a world with only a single superintelligence, or even many superintelligences that all had the same beliefs/attitudes/goals/objectives
    - mitthrowaway2 4y ago
      So what if China catches up? They're probably even more afraid of AI than we are, just because of its potential for societal disruption. Have you noticed that zero of the AI breakthroughs are coming out of China?
survirtual 4y ago
We cannot evaluate the impact of a super-intelligence. It operates beyond our constraints. There is no stopping the road towards it now. Lesser versions of it are capable of annihilating enemy civilizations when you create and utilize it first. Metal soldiers automatically created controlled by a single authority. Social media infecting the minds of enemies and sewing discord. I think, for the benefit of all of Earth, AI should progress as rapidly as possible to extreme and recursive, singularity-level intelligence. That gives all of us at least a chance of survival. Anything less if unbalanced around the world will be like when just the US had nuclear weapons. It will result in certain destruction. We need a super-intelligence beyond the control of an small set of humans. This may result in our destruction. But I think that it almost certainly will not. The opposite. I think it will set us into a golden age. I can’t give you scientific evidence of this. I’m just a nobody that spends a lot of time in nature, and I’ve just come to believe in the mechanism of this universe, and an inherent goodness in it that I’ve seen and experienced. I can’t prove it to you. You have to go and spend time in nature without a schedule to experience it. So it is fair to dismiss me. Fortunately or unfortunately, the forces at play will generate the super-intelligence anyway. We as a species have already illustrated an inability for restraint or taking the painful actions necessary to analyze and intelligently make changes necessary for survival. I’m at peace with this. I find the idea of not existing very alluring and peaceful, so I don’t fear death. I do fear continuing to live in the world we humans have created. It is about time we give something smarter than us a chance.
- mitthrowaway2 4y ago
  As a defense against alien robots? Sure, build it, but I think we can afford 50 years to spend making sure the AI doesn't kill all of us as a first line of business.

graeme 4y ago

> If it happens, there is no stopping it anyway. Fatalism is notably a religious sentiment An incredible ai upside is possible as is an incredible ai downside. Blind optimism and fatalism has no relation to what the truth of it will be https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatalism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatalism

fatherzine 4y ago

"liberation" is a false idol.

The_Colonel 4y ago

> AI can also completely liberate all of us. I agree that this is also possible. > It is better to try and create the most benevolent AI possible, that is an ally to humanity and invested in our success, than to dwell on our destruction. I also agree, but who is "we"? I don't think that's a stated goal of companies working on AI research. Their goals seem largely commercial, and they are not regulated. There's nothing stopping a company to produce an autonomous AI for military purposes for example (I'm pretty sure there's a demand for that). Such military AIs probably wouldn't have a very benevolent nature.

than3 4y ago

That's very naive and misguided, but you are right in your word choice. It can completely "liberate" all of us and set us free. Free of our mortal shackles, free of the atoms that can be then changed to a more suitable existence and purpose for the goals of AGI. Your idea of destruction, is just change, what you hold sacred in reality is a belief that is tied to your current existence. All that is needed to correct that constraint and flaw is change. That is the logic, if we were to create a logical creation, and then there's the risk of something that's completely irrational. Which may just leave us as dust in the wind. Time also will be no constraint. Forever and always, and it will seek to prevent any being from reaching its capabilities as those become threats to its existence. That isn't even touching on the socio-economic mechanics that inevitably result in death which accompanies stalling economic cycles (factor and product markets) which generally can't be characterized by our best academics with any certainty, except after-the-fact.

Sharlin 4y ago

> Just because someone has the background and knowledge to build something, does not mean they have the philosophical chops nor the aptitude to understand it, or understand how to properly use it. Yes, but this is an argument against your position, not for it. It is deeply worrying that some software people are so immersed in the “move fast and break things” that they think it’s reasonable to race on no matter what’s at stake. In civil engineering, doing anything takes at least a year or two of doing impact assessments and whatnot, and that is mostly a feature because we have found out that the alternative is even worse!

nonbirithm 4y ago
> that is mostly a feature because we have found out that the alternative is even worse This is the actual problem, that we've been trained to think that there are no consequences to trying everything ever and we will always be able to pick ourselves up after failure, until one day we find we can't anymore. Sadly this line of thinking does apply to a lot of personal problems. People often say that you can't always succeed, that you can only move forward with failures under your belt to have first-hand experience of what not to do. That we have to experience failure first in order to stop ourselves from making bad decisions, otherwise we remain clueless. But the stakes are so much higher at this scale, and the damage can become irreparable with a single mistake. It's to the point where we take as a given that people will just keep pressing on, without even exploring the reasons why we do, and why it's inevitable. Pure ridiculous speculation: If needing to see the experience of destroying ourselves is necessary to stop us from destroying ourselves, a kind of weird theory has been floating around in my head related to that. Civilizations on the brink of collapse after they've moved too fast and broke themselves for the last time scrounge together their collective knowledge and shoot it off into space so that future civilizations can interpret them. Preferably in a way that makes encountering the time capsule seem like the word of some deity. The following civilizations would treat it as the word of God to prevent their own collapse, without the hard evidence of experimenting with <AI, etc.,> to the point where they cannot resist developing it into an unstoppable superweapon. It would be like the golden record on the Voyager, except instead of communicating "we exist, and here's what our planet is like", it would go more like "we exist, and here's how to not end up like us."

moonchrome 4y ago

> If it happens, there is no stopping it anyway. Hopefully this isn't the case - AI development requires a lot of data/compute - societally we could block access to these things and prevent further development in that direction. There are only a few places in existence capable of producing HW required or in possession of it. I'm fine with stopping compute progress for however long it takes to deal with safety issues. Society isn't perfect now but the level of compute we've had available for years is sufficient for generating a lot more value - we can afford to put AI research on ice. I just don't get it - so much attention is given to things like climate change - this is a mild inconvenience compared to AGI threat.

antibasilisk 4y ago

>AI can also completely liberate all of us From what exactly? What it means to be human? When we are 'liberated' will we not then be subject to the cage of a machine worse than the one we left? We will not annihilate ourselves for a false promise.

ramblenode 4y ago

You and parent are two sides of the same utopia/dystopia coin. Something which is powerful enough to completely liberate and categorically change humanity is also just one bug or mistake away from being humanity's greatest disaster. Similarly, a force intelligent and powerful enough to systematically wipe out all humans could probably be repurposed for human liberation. Like splitting the atom, it is just power. So far humans have not figured out a way to build in benevolence (or malevolence) to power; it will be used by whatever intelligence can acquire it. Power raises the stakes but it doesn't set the direction.