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We have only our history, where we dominated and decimated other close species (Homo Neanderthals) thanks to our intelligence, and literally caused the next ext

We have only our history, where we dominated and decimated other close species (Homo Neanderthals) thanks to our intelligence, and literally caused the next extinction event on this planet where >95% of all species already disappeared. On top of that, think about how we treat animals where we have billions of intelligent animals (cows, pigs) that we breed to butcher and eat. Just because they are tasty, and we tell ourselves they are less worthy because of their lesser intelligence and consciousness. I sure hope that AI doesn't behave like us. I have no idea what will happen and what the odds are, but I do think it's the most dangerous experiment we have ever run.

hammyhavoc 3y ago
Our own history does not include any AGI. Likening AI to predators in an ecosystem is bizarre and irrelevant.
- haswell 3y ago
  This is not about likening AI to predators, it’s about the fact that AI is and will be created by and in the image of the most dominant predator in the history of biological life. To whatever degree AI is embedded with the properties of our species, it carries the risks of repeating our worst behaviors, and has the potential to do so far more potently than we ever could due to the absence of biological constraints.
  - hammyhavoc 3y ago
    Will it? So when this hypothetical AGI with sentience emerges, it's going to think like a human being? Why would it with so much knowledge? Most negative aspects of humanity come from a lack of knowledge.
    - haswell 3y ago
      No, I’m not claiming it will think like a human being, but that human thinking (despite the blind spots we know we have) is what we’ll try to replicate, and this will lead us to create something dangerous. What you’re hinting at presupposes that an AGI will interpret knowledge in a way that is compatible with human values, and that we understand human values well enough to codify them into whatever it is that we manage to build. I’m sure we’ll try. But it is this assumption that is at the center of the issue IMO, because assuming the machines will think like us is to assume we understand how we think. What is far more likely is that it will appear to have human properties because we baked the appearance of human-ness into the code (see LLMs), but like the hallucinations and “lies” these LLMs are happy to spit out, an apparently human AGI will just get some things fundamentally wrong. And when getting things wrong can have consequences in the physical world, they’re no longer just relatively harmless hallucinations. Imagine an AGI with the temperament of Microsoft Tay.
      - hammyhavoc 3y ago
        IMO, we are more likely to stumble across a completely new form of intelligence than we are to successfully recreate something akin to human intelligence. However, I think actual brain cells in a petri dish learning and playing Pong is a far greater concern than a hypothetical AGI. Well, they don't hallucinate or lie, that's a human-centric concept that we've misapplied. An LLM is just a next word prediction engine. It's more accurately described as incorrect in its output based on the data it has available to it, skewing the probability calculation. It didn't lie nor hallucinate. Lying assumes intent and planning, it is incapable of either, it's an LLM. But calling it "wrong" kills the hype cycle, and you're on HN, a Y Combinator platform. A lot of folks here are invested in LLMs or selling something utilizing them as it's hot right now.
        haswell 3y ago
        > IMO, we are more likely to stumble across a completely new form of intelligence than we are to successfully recreate something akin to human intelligence This is predicated on the assumption that we’ll eventually hit a hard wall that prevents progress or that we’ll stop trying. This doesn’t seem likely. We just can’t estimate the timescale for progress. > It didn't lie nor hallucinate. Lying assumes intent and planning, it is incapable of either This is why I used quotes around “lie”, but again I’d argue that this underscores my point. It doesn’t matter whether the LLM is actually lying or hallucinating in the human sense if someone believes what it says. If I read what it says, believe it, and take some action based on that, the end result is the same and potentially harmful. Likewise, an “AGI” doesn’t need to actually be smarter than humans and its mistakes need not be attributed to intent or planning to cause real harm in the world. If a robot kills a human, we won’t be picking nits about whether or not the kind of “intent” it employs is the same kind humans assume they have. A smarter AGI just poses bigger problems if such a thing can ever be achieved. And this is all assuming we’re talking about the development of benevolent general purpose intelligence, which is certainly not the only kind of research that is happening right now.
- lukevp 3y ago
  I think you missed their point. From a cow’s perspective, they are imprisoned, enslaved, and killed for their flesh. They live a horrific existence and probably would think we are all Nazis if they had enough reasoning to realize what was happening to them and their families. It doesn’t really matter to them that a human out there is consuming them and has some higher purpose and goals (besides just eating them to survive). An AGI could have any number of goals that are not related to dominating, enslaving and slaughtering us, where it could still be easier and more convenient to do so, so they do it. The side effects on the world caused by intelligent life with agency are unpredictable. If they become smarter than us, and have robotics, what if they decide animal life isn’t necessary anymore? Or that our pollution causes solar energy capture to be affected, and the quickest way to stop it is to kill everyone? Maybe it’s better to demolish a city for a solar farm because it’s already got so much concrete and electrical infrastructure and is cheaper/faster than building new. Who knows what their goals will be and how they’ll seek to accomplish them? All we know is that we don’t have much consideration for the “lesser” beings on our planet, and how things are from their perspective.
  - hammyhavoc 3y ago
    I understood the point just fine, but the hypothetical AGI does not exist, and any hypothetical AGI is unlike anything else in history. An AGI has never existed before in history. Why would a hypothetical AGI behave anything like a human? Complete sci-fi.
    - DennisP 3y ago
      An AI that doesn't behave at all like a human could well be worse. Humans tend to place at least some value on human life; an AI might just see humans as weird chemical reactions that are less useful than whatever else the AI wants to do with the raw material.
      - hammyhavoc 3y ago
        This is assuming a hypothetical AGI even understands what a human being is. If it has no body, can it ever understand what the world is? Even if you put it into a robot, it cannot understand mortality because it is effectively immortal and can be brought back online at any time. Erasure is mitigated by duplication of the data set, ensuring it can always repair itself. In the same breath, if a hypothetical omniscient ever-present god were to exist, how would we as physical lifeforms ever truly understand that? We can know of it, but we cannot truly understand it because we haven't had that experience of another plain of existence. All compelling ideas, but mercifully well within the realms of sci-fi.
- broast 3y ago
  Our cells built our bodies and brain as an AI to navigate the macro realm!
Lacerda69 3y ago
>we dominated and decimated other close species (Homo Neanderthals) thanks to our intelligence it's a nice homo sapiens supremacy narrative but the truth is much more complicated. we existed at least 4/5 thousand years together and a lot of mixing and mingling has been going on.
- haswell 3y ago
  > we existed at least 4/5 thousand years together and a lot of mixing and mingling has been going on. This sounds strikingly similar to how I imagine our first encounters with advanced AI will unfold.
jvanderbot 3y ago
It's anthropomorphic to the extreme to assume that computer programs will assume all of our evolutionary, biological characteristics

hammyhavoc 3y ago

Our own history does not include any AGI. Likening AI to predators in an ecosystem is bizarre and irrelevant.

haswell 3y ago
This is not about likening AI to predators, it’s about the fact that AI is and will be created by and in the image of the most dominant predator in the history of biological life. To whatever degree AI is embedded with the properties of our species, it carries the risks of repeating our worst behaviors, and has the potential to do so far more potently than we ever could due to the absence of biological constraints.
- hammyhavoc 3y ago
  Will it? So when this hypothetical AGI with sentience emerges, it's going to think like a human being? Why would it with so much knowledge? Most negative aspects of humanity come from a lack of knowledge.
  - haswell 3y ago
    No, I’m not claiming it will think like a human being, but that human thinking (despite the blind spots we know we have) is what we’ll try to replicate, and this will lead us to create something dangerous. What you’re hinting at presupposes that an AGI will interpret knowledge in a way that is compatible with human values, and that we understand human values well enough to codify them into whatever it is that we manage to build. I’m sure we’ll try. But it is this assumption that is at the center of the issue IMO, because assuming the machines will think like us is to assume we understand how we think. What is far more likely is that it will appear to have human properties because we baked the appearance of human-ness into the code (see LLMs), but like the hallucinations and “lies” these LLMs are happy to spit out, an apparently human AGI will just get some things fundamentally wrong. And when getting things wrong can have consequences in the physical world, they’re no longer just relatively harmless hallucinations. Imagine an AGI with the temperament of Microsoft Tay.
    - hammyhavoc 3y ago
      IMO, we are more likely to stumble across a completely new form of intelligence than we are to successfully recreate something akin to human intelligence. However, I think actual brain cells in a petri dish learning and playing Pong is a far greater concern than a hypothetical AGI. Well, they don't hallucinate or lie, that's a human-centric concept that we've misapplied. An LLM is just a next word prediction engine. It's more accurately described as incorrect in its output based on the data it has available to it, skewing the probability calculation. It didn't lie nor hallucinate. Lying assumes intent and planning, it is incapable of either, it's an LLM. But calling it "wrong" kills the hype cycle, and you're on HN, a Y Combinator platform. A lot of folks here are invested in LLMs or selling something utilizing them as it's hot right now.
      - haswell 3y ago
        > IMO, we are more likely to stumble across a completely new form of intelligence than we are to successfully recreate something akin to human intelligence This is predicated on the assumption that we’ll eventually hit a hard wall that prevents progress or that we’ll stop trying. This doesn’t seem likely. We just can’t estimate the timescale for progress. > It didn't lie nor hallucinate. Lying assumes intent and planning, it is incapable of either This is why I used quotes around “lie”, but again I’d argue that this underscores my point. It doesn’t matter whether the LLM is actually lying or hallucinating in the human sense if someone believes what it says. If I read what it says, believe it, and take some action based on that, the end result is the same and potentially harmful. Likewise, an “AGI” doesn’t need to actually be smarter than humans and its mistakes need not be attributed to intent or planning to cause real harm in the world. If a robot kills a human, we won’t be picking nits about whether or not the kind of “intent” it employs is the same kind humans assume they have. A smarter AGI just poses bigger problems if such a thing can ever be achieved. And this is all assuming we’re talking about the development of benevolent general purpose intelligence, which is certainly not the only kind of research that is happening right now.
lukevp 3y ago
I think you missed their point. From a cow’s perspective, they are imprisoned, enslaved, and killed for their flesh. They live a horrific existence and probably would think we are all Nazis if they had enough reasoning to realize what was happening to them and their families. It doesn’t really matter to them that a human out there is consuming them and has some higher purpose and goals (besides just eating them to survive). An AGI could have any number of goals that are not related to dominating, enslaving and slaughtering us, where it could still be easier and more convenient to do so, so they do it. The side effects on the world caused by intelligent life with agency are unpredictable. If they become smarter than us, and have robotics, what if they decide animal life isn’t necessary anymore? Or that our pollution causes solar energy capture to be affected, and the quickest way to stop it is to kill everyone? Maybe it’s better to demolish a city for a solar farm because it’s already got so much concrete and electrical infrastructure and is cheaper/faster than building new. Who knows what their goals will be and how they’ll seek to accomplish them? All we know is that we don’t have much consideration for the “lesser” beings on our planet, and how things are from their perspective.
- hammyhavoc 3y ago
  I understood the point just fine, but the hypothetical AGI does not exist, and any hypothetical AGI is unlike anything else in history. An AGI has never existed before in history. Why would a hypothetical AGI behave anything like a human? Complete sci-fi.
  - DennisP 3y ago
    An AI that doesn't behave at all like a human could well be worse. Humans tend to place at least some value on human life; an AI might just see humans as weird chemical reactions that are less useful than whatever else the AI wants to do with the raw material.
    - hammyhavoc 3y ago
      This is assuming a hypothetical AGI even understands what a human being is. If it has no body, can it ever understand what the world is? Even if you put it into a robot, it cannot understand mortality because it is effectively immortal and can be brought back online at any time. Erasure is mitigated by duplication of the data set, ensuring it can always repair itself. In the same breath, if a hypothetical omniscient ever-present god were to exist, how would we as physical lifeforms ever truly understand that? We can know of it, but we cannot truly understand it because we haven't had that experience of another plain of existence. All compelling ideas, but mercifully well within the realms of sci-fi.
broast 3y ago
Our cells built our bodies and brain as an AI to navigate the macro realm!

Lacerda69 3y ago

>we dominated and decimated other close species (Homo Neanderthals) thanks to our intelligence it's a nice homo sapiens supremacy narrative but the truth is much more complicated. we existed at least 4/5 thousand years together and a lot of mixing and mingling has been going on.

haswell 3y ago
> we existed at least 4/5 thousand years together and a lot of mixing and mingling has been going on. This sounds strikingly similar to how I imagine our first encounters with advanced AI will unfold.

jvanderbot 3y ago

It's anthropomorphic to the extreme to assume that computer programs will assume all of our evolutionary, biological characteristics