5 ms·
Paper clip optimizers always need a secondary (and often dubious) physical element to pose an actual threat, like grey goo or nanomachines or strange matter.
by c_crank 3y ago
Paper clip optimizers always need a secondary (and often dubious) physical element to pose an actual threat, like grey goo or nanomachines or strange matter.
- NoRelToEmber 3y agoOr a genetics lab hooked up to a computer...
- sroussey 3y agoThey all are. A quite a bit of AI there too.
- ben_w 3y agoThe secondary element can be humans. Even if it only gets as far as running a Ponzi or pyramid scheme — and there are plenty of those where the scheme itself is a small block of text that convinces those reading it to (1) share it, and (2) give money to the person who first showed them this message — still breaks economics bad enough to matter, even if you don't give any credence at all to Yudkowsky etc. Or in a more literal sense of using humans, as each separate component of ordering the creation and delivery of a custom (non-computer) virus has been demonstrated, and the only good news is the bio-labs say no to printing the D/RNA for dangerous viruses and so do the LLMs that most noobs try to use.
- c_crank 3y agoPyramid schemes are a nuisance. Covid-19 should have been a wake up call that most bio labs ought to be closely re-examined or closed down, regardless of whether an AI happens to be abusing them. The bio-lab scenario is the only one I see as being an actually plausible concern, though.
- haswell 3y agoI think paper clip optimizers are already here in the form of advertising and engagement algorithms, and the physical element is us.
- mistermann 3y agoSee also, plausibly: - military industrial complexes - questionably Democratic democracies, riddled by deception and lobbying - a financial system that doesn't seem to be particularly constrained by the political system - yet another major war underway, and another one on deck - an epistemic & trust crisis - major political polarization - global cost of living crises And we accomplished all of this in record time, with dumb computers! Did I miss anything or is everything else more or less a-ok?
- midhhhthrow 3y agoI agree with most of these but the cause isn’t computers. Computers are just another thing to add to the list
- mistermann 3y agoWhen you say "the cause isn’t computers", do you mean that within the complex causality that underlies it, computers are nowhere to be found?
- Thiez 3y agoIf you look deeply enough into the 'complex causality' you'll find anything you want. It doesn't mean much by itself.
- mistermann 3y agoYou may, but not me. Though, I suspect you are like most people in that if you gaze into the unknown (which is what we are dealing with here), you will see what you want to see. You see, the actual causality is unknowable, so your mind has generated a simulation of what "the" casualty is. This is clearly obvious, is it not?
- Thiez 3y ago