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This is a 'reasonable response' to the current AI wave by people that subscribe to the Effective Altruism/LessWrong/AI-Doomer mythos. If AGI is created and the

by ozr 3y ago

This is a 'reasonable response' to the current AI wave by people that subscribe to the Effective Altruism/LessWrong/AI-Doomer mythos. If AGI is created and then removes the need for any human to work, UBI (or the like) would be essential. You'd want to avoid abuse, so you also need to uniquely verify each person receiving it. I don't think the people involved in this are ignorant to the concerns, they just see it as inevitable based on their ideas about the future. > The orb was necessary, the website continued, because of Worldcoin’s commitment to fairness: each person should get his or her allotted share of the digital currency—and no more. To ensure there was no double-dipping, the chrome orb would scan participants’ irises and several other biometric data points and then, using a proprietary algorithm that the company was still developing, cryptographically confirm that they were human and unique in Worldcoin’s database. > “I’ve been very interested in things like universal basic income and what’s going to happen to global wealth redistribution,” Sam Altman, Worldcoin’s cofounder and the former President of Silicon Valley accelerator Y Combinator, told Bloomberg, which first reported on the company last summer. Worldcoin was intended, he explained, to answer the question “Is there a way we can use technology to do that at a global scale?” A common response from Altman when asked about the benefits of AGI is "I think eliminating poverty is good". This is what he's talking about. Of course, this redistribution doesn't apply to him, early employees, or investors: > Others took issue with the company’s purported focus on fairness given that 20% of the coins had already been allocated: 10% to Worldcoin’s full-time employees, and another 10% to investors, like Andreessen Horowitz. https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/04/06/1048981/worldcoin-cryptocurrency-biometrics-web3/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/04/06/1048981/worldcoi...

dgs_sgd 3y ago
If the need for UBI due to AGI arises then wouldn’t biometric proof of personhood be dead in the water? Spoofing irises seems well within the realm of a sophisticated AI.
- ozr 3y ago
  Any sufficiently AI would be under the control of some trustworthy entity. Preferably one. It's too dangerous otherwise. (I don't agree with this, but it's a common perspective amongst this crowd).
- neolefty 3y ago
  And using biometrics is itself a hack to circumvent the vagaries of government ID systems. So you'd be hacking around a hack. It makes me think at some point we'll be back to inventing government-issued IDs. Or um using the ones we have.
realce 3y ago
> If AGI is created and then removes the need for any human to work, UBI (or the like) would be essential. Only if you think that capitalism and magic generative machines are compatible in any way. The need for UBI would only make sense if only certain classes of individuals can utilize AGI and others need to purchase their produce. How does such a world make sense, and why would anyone want to live in it? If a post-scarcity machine exists, why would tokens of scarcity need to exist - money - alongside it? Sounds like serfdom on easy-mode.
- ozr 3y ago
  > The need for UBI would only make sense if only certain classes of individuals can utilize AGI and others need to purchase their produce. This is part of that mindset. The idea of AGI being freely available is horrifying to x-riskers. The idea of it not existing is also just not possible. So they want to see it in the hands of as few people as possible.
- potatototoo99 3y ago
  UBI and machines doing a lot of work does not mean post-scarcity. UBI is just that - basic; and I don't think anyone believes it will be quick to get to a point where machines have eliminated ALL jobs.
kmeisthax 3y ago
Governments already have systems to identify who is a citizen. You can't Sybil attack birth certificates and naturalization paperwork because they're issued by a trustworthy entity[0]. Worldcoin is trying to reinvent ID cards for the sake of... IDK, becoming some kind of ancap alternative to a state bureaucracy? Also, not everyone is going to accept UBI as a substitute for labor. We already see artists complaining specifically that AI art takes away the fun part of the job. The entire LessWrong/EA memeplex[1] assumes that the benefits of AI will be so obvious that humanity will tolerate the imposition of a new technological priesthood responsible for aligning AI to humanity's collective interests. Worship us and we will make Star Trek a documentary. This is like if you took all the worst parts of Christianity and all the worst parts of authoritarian Soviet Communism and mashed them up in a blender. [0] Bracing for the inevitable UHM ACKTUALLY comments about ballot stuffing in third world countries [1] Short for MEME comPLEX. A series of ideas that tend to be adopted together because they are self-reinforcing.
- neolefty 3y ago
  The ideal government would be the ideal partner — unfortunately the governments of the world are far from ideal. So I can understand why you'd want to circumvent them. But in the end, we do need government, and circumventing them just means eventually needing to re-create them. Which leads to the question: Do we fix the governments we have, or create new ones? It seems analagous to the rewrite-from-scratch fallacy. In the end, I can't see any way around fixing the world's governments. Educating the electorate, structural reform, all of it. So yeah. Currency and UBI seem like functions of governments to me too.
- onetokeoverthe 3y ago
  [dead]
throwanem 3y ago
> You'd want to avoid abuse Why? What you're describing is a post-scarcity world. In that context, what does "abuse" even mean?
- ozr 3y ago
  It's not post-scarcity, it's post-labor. Which is a prerequisite for post-scarcity, but not sufficient. Resources, even allocated optimally by a superintelligence, are still constrained based on the number of people living and the material contained on Earth. (And, to be clear: I'm sharing their perspective, not mine).
  - throwanem 3y ago
    Okay, but in that case "avoiding abuse" is no longer a problem for humans to solve, which is probably good in that it frees up time to try to figure out what to do when the paperclip maximizer no longer demurs from numbering hemoglobin molecules among its accessible resources.
    - ozr 3y ago
      There’s a spectrum of possibilities. What if GPT-10 obviates 80% of jobs and can’t automatically identify every human uniquely? This covers that step in the process.
- Asraelite 3y ago
  AGI does not necessarily mean a post-scarcity world right away. You could have AI doing all jobs and doing them better than humans would, but still using finite resources and producing finite products.
  - throwanem 3y ago
    I'm not convinced that manufacturing on the scale required for a post-human-labor world to be possible doesn't imply post-scarcity.
ASalazarMX 3y ago
Every ecoin created lets a small cabal amass the numerous low-hanging fruit before making it publicly available. If any of those ecoins became the World Currency(TM), that small cabal would be the new world elite, having created their immense fortune out of thin air. No ecoin will become trustworthy unless it assures every adopter gets the same initial opportunity. Satoshi Nakamoto made a compromise by mining a fortune of easy bitcoin, then not touching it. A weak compromise, because the moment they use some of those coins, bitcoin will have one of its greatest crisis of trust.

by ozr 3y ago

dgs_sgd 3y ago

If the need for UBI due to AGI arises then wouldn’t biometric proof of personhood be dead in the water? Spoofing irises seems well within the realm of a sophisticated AI.

ozr 3y ago
Any sufficiently AI would be under the control of some trustworthy entity. Preferably one. It's too dangerous otherwise. (I don't agree with this, but it's a common perspective amongst this crowd).
neolefty 3y ago
And using biometrics is itself a hack to circumvent the vagaries of government ID systems. So you'd be hacking around a hack. It makes me think at some point we'll be back to inventing government-issued IDs. Or um using the ones we have.

realce 3y ago

> If AGI is created and then removes the need for any human to work, UBI (or the like) would be essential. Only if you think that capitalism and magic generative machines are compatible in any way. The need for UBI would only make sense if only certain classes of individuals can utilize AGI and others need to purchase their produce. How does such a world make sense, and why would anyone want to live in it? If a post-scarcity machine exists, why would tokens of scarcity need to exist - money - alongside it? Sounds like serfdom on easy-mode.

ozr 3y ago
> The need for UBI would only make sense if only certain classes of individuals can utilize AGI and others need to purchase their produce. This is part of that mindset. The idea of AGI being freely available is horrifying to x-riskers. The idea of it not existing is also just not possible. So they want to see it in the hands of as few people as possible.
potatototoo99 3y ago
UBI and machines doing a lot of work does not mean post-scarcity. UBI is just that - basic; and I don't think anyone believes it will be quick to get to a point where machines have eliminated ALL jobs.

kmeisthax 3y ago

Governments already have systems to identify who is a citizen. You can't Sybil attack birth certificates and naturalization paperwork because they're issued by a trustworthy entity[0]. Worldcoin is trying to reinvent ID cards for the sake of... IDK, becoming some kind of ancap alternative to a state bureaucracy? Also, not everyone is going to accept UBI as a substitute for labor. We already see artists complaining specifically that AI art takes away the fun part of the job. The entire LessWrong/EA memeplex[1] assumes that the benefits of AI will be so obvious that humanity will tolerate the imposition of a new technological priesthood responsible for aligning AI to humanity's collective interests. Worship us and we will make Star Trek a documentary. This is like if you took all the worst parts of Christianity and all the worst parts of authoritarian Soviet Communism and mashed them up in a blender. [0] Bracing for the inevitable UHM ACKTUALLY comments about ballot stuffing in third world countries [1] Short for MEME comPLEX. A series of ideas that tend to be adopted together because they are self-reinforcing.

neolefty 3y ago
The ideal government would be the ideal partner — unfortunately the governments of the world are far from ideal. So I can understand why you'd want to circumvent them. But in the end, we do need government, and circumventing them just means eventually needing to re-create them. Which leads to the question: Do we fix the governments we have, or create new ones? It seems analagous to the rewrite-from-scratch fallacy. In the end, I can't see any way around fixing the world's governments. Educating the electorate, structural reform, all of it. So yeah. Currency and UBI seem like functions of governments to me too.
onetokeoverthe 3y ago
[dead]

throwanem 3y ago

> You'd want to avoid abuse Why? What you're describing is a post-scarcity world. In that context, what does "abuse" even mean?

ozr 3y ago
It's not post-scarcity, it's post-labor. Which is a prerequisite for post-scarcity, but not sufficient. Resources, even allocated optimally by a superintelligence, are still constrained based on the number of people living and the material contained on Earth. (And, to be clear: I'm sharing their perspective, not mine).
- throwanem 3y ago
  Okay, but in that case "avoiding abuse" is no longer a problem for humans to solve, which is probably good in that it frees up time to try to figure out what to do when the paperclip maximizer no longer demurs from numbering hemoglobin molecules among its accessible resources.
  - ozr 3y ago
    There’s a spectrum of possibilities. What if GPT-10 obviates 80% of jobs and can’t automatically identify every human uniquely? This covers that step in the process.
Asraelite 3y ago
AGI does not necessarily mean a post-scarcity world right away. You could have AI doing all jobs and doing them better than humans would, but still using finite resources and producing finite products.
- throwanem 3y ago
  I'm not convinced that manufacturing on the scale required for a post-human-labor world to be possible doesn't imply post-scarcity.

ASalazarMX 3y ago

Every ecoin created lets a small cabal amass the numerous low-hanging fruit before making it publicly available. If any of those ecoins became the World Currency(TM), that small cabal would be the new world elite, having created their immense fortune out of thin air. No ecoin will become trustworthy unless it assures every adopter gets the same initial opportunity. Satoshi Nakamoto made a compromise by mining a fortune of easy bitcoin, then not touching it. A weak compromise, because the moment they use some of those coins, bitcoin will have one of its greatest crisis of trust.