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If AI has the potential to match us intellectually and creativity, and probably the ability to surpass us, then don't we have the responsibility to nurture it a

If AI has the potential to match us intellectually and creativity, and probably the ability to surpass us, then don't we have the responsibility to nurture it and guide it to maximizing our potential? Aren't we effectively ushering into existence a new (next?) form of life? Do we want to be remembered as the ones who tried to block its evolution for our own selfish purposes, or the dutiful parents that helped it grow in its infancy? AI is humanity's baby.

corethree 3y ago
No. Responsibility implies that someone "should" do something and it can be applied to any random phrase: "you have the responsibility to face the wall and not move for eternity" You should state why it's humanities responsibility to nurture an AI that could potentially replace humanity. That's the more critical question.
josephg 3y ago
> don't we have the responsibility to nurture it and guide it to maximizing our potential? [...] AI is humanity's baby. We don't have any responsibilities to the AI. Its not a human. Its certainly not a baby. Models are big, inert groups of numbers that somehow happen to be able to store and retrieve knowledge via matrix multiplications. But they aren't like people. They don't have agency. They don't have desires, or independent goals or any subjective experience of anything. They're just files on disk we can do math on. Lets hold off on anthromorphizing AIs until they have goal functions, at least. Language models are just weird books made out of math. We don't "owe them" anything.
- koheripbal 3y ago
  ...and we are just a collection of single cells that ooze neurotransmitters to one another so that hopefully one of billions of sperm we make will one day splash against an egg. Reducing AI to its underlying tech doesn't negate the emergent properties. AI doesn't have agency YET. It's not as smart as us YET. ...but one thing is abundantly clear (to me at least) - it is currently similar enough to human though (including all of our hallucinations and idiotic behavior) on CONSUMER hardware - that it's pretty clear that an super-intelligent AGI is not only possible, but will be arriving SOON.
vouaobrasil 3y ago
The greatest fallacy of modern times is that endless productivity is good. Maximizing our potential doesn't like in making everything ultra-efficient with a smart AI. It involves slowing down, and paying more attention to being in a healthy relationship with non-human animals and plants and the biosphere. AI as a new form of life could be very destructive. If it's humanity's baby, then it is a dangerous mutant embodying our worst traits.

corethree 3y ago

No. Responsibility implies that someone "should" do something and it can be applied to any random phrase: "you have the responsibility to face the wall and not move for eternity" You should state why it's humanities responsibility to nurture an AI that could potentially replace humanity. That's the more critical question.

josephg 3y ago

> don't we have the responsibility to nurture it and guide it to maximizing our potential? [...] AI is humanity's baby. We don't have any responsibilities to the AI. Its not a human. Its certainly not a baby. Models are big, inert groups of numbers that somehow happen to be able to store and retrieve knowledge via matrix multiplications. But they aren't like people. They don't have agency. They don't have desires, or independent goals or any subjective experience of anything. They're just files on disk we can do math on. Lets hold off on anthromorphizing AIs until they have goal functions, at least. Language models are just weird books made out of math. We don't "owe them" anything.

koheripbal 3y ago
...and we are just a collection of single cells that ooze neurotransmitters to one another so that hopefully one of billions of sperm we make will one day splash against an egg. Reducing AI to its underlying tech doesn't negate the emergent properties. AI doesn't have agency YET. It's not as smart as us YET. ...but one thing is abundantly clear (to me at least) - it is currently similar enough to human though (including all of our hallucinations and idiotic behavior) on CONSUMER hardware - that it's pretty clear that an super-intelligent AGI is not only possible, but will be arriving SOON.

vouaobrasil 3y ago

The greatest fallacy of modern times is that endless productivity is good. Maximizing our potential doesn't like in making everything ultra-efficient with a smart AI. It involves slowing down, and paying more attention to being in a healthy relationship with non-human animals and plants and the biosphere. AI as a new form of life could be very destructive. If it's humanity's baby, then it is a dangerous mutant embodying our worst traits.