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Runaway AI could cause the extinction of humanity, but The Big Red Button That Turns The Universe Into Pudding would cause the extinction of all life everywhere
by a_shovel 3y ago
Runaway AI could cause the extinction of humanity, but The Big Red Button That Turns The Universe Into Pudding would cause the extinction of all life everywhere, including extraterrestrials, so it's obviously the more pressing concern. Why are you wasting time on AI when the Button is so much more important?
No, The Button doesn't currently exist, and all available science says it cannot ever exist. But the chance that all available science is wrong is technically not zero, because quantum, so that means The Button is possible, so unless you want everything to be turned into pudding, you need to start panicking about The Button right now.
- mcguire 3y agoI know you're getting downvoted, but that's a legitimate comment. The rogue, super-intelligent AI singularity involves creating an actual God after all.
- digging 3y ago> No, The Button doesn't currently exist, and all available science says it cannot ever exist. In what way is this an analogy for misaligned superhuman AGI? I've never heard an assertion that it can't exist based on available knowledge. This seems a very flimsy argument. Anyway, the button not only can exist, some would say it probably does exist. Some would say it's likely to have been pressed already, somewhere in the universe. It's called false vacuum decay, and it moves at the speed of light, so as long as it never gets pressed inside the galaxy it may never reach us.