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Your existentially risky AI is imaginary, it might not exist. Who would check an imaginary gun on a table?
by RandomLensman 3y ago
Your existentially risky AI is imaginary, it might not exist. Who would check an imaginary gun on a table?
- hackinthebochs 3y agoYes, AGI doesn't exist. That doesn't mean we should be blind to the possibility. Part of the danger is someone developing AGI by accident without sufficient guardrails in place. This isn't farfetched, much of technological progress happened before we had the theory in place to understand it. It is far more dangerous to act too late than to act too soon.
- RandomLensman 3y agoThere is an infinity of hypothetical dangers. Then at the very least there should be a clear and public discussion as to why the AI danger is more relevant than others than we do not do much about (some not even being hypothetical). That is not happening.
- hackinthebochs 3y agoI'm in favor of public discussions. It's tragic that there is a segment of the relevant powers that are doing their best to shut down any of these kinds of discussions. Thankfully, they seem to be failing. But to answer the question, the danger of AI is uniquely relevant because it is the only danger that may end up being totally out of our control. Nukes, pandemics, climate change, etc. all represent x-risk to various degrees. But we will always be in control of whether they come to fruition. We can pretty much always short circuit any of these processes that is leading to our extinction. A fully formed AGI, i.e. an autonomous superintelligent agent, represents the potential for a total loss of control. With AGI, there is a point past which we cannot go back.
- RandomLensman 3y agoI don't agree with the uniqueness of AI risk. A large asteroid impacting earth is a non-hypothetical existential risk presently out of our control. We do not currently plan on spending trillions to have a comprehensive early detection system and equipment to control that risk. The differentiating thing here is that blocking hypothetical AI risk is cheap, while mitigating real risks is expensive.
- cma 3y agoWe have a decent grasp of the odds of an asteroid extinction event in a way that we don't for AI.
- RandomLensman 3y agoAnd that makes taking that extinction risk everyday better?
- cma 3y agoHow do we not take it every day? We can work on it in the long term and things like developing safe AI may have more impact on mitigating asteroid risk than working on scaling up existing nuclear, rocket, and observation tech to tackle it.
- pixl97 3y agoLets go back in time instead... it's 1400 and you're a native American. I am a fortune teller and I say people in boats bearing shiny metal sticks will eradicate us soon. To the natives that gun would have also been imaginary if you would have brought up the situation to them. I would say that it would believable if they thought the worst possible outcome they could ever have was another tribe of close to the same capabilities attacked. We don't have any historical record if those peoples had discussions about possible scenarios like this. Where there imaginary guns in their future? What we do have records of is another people group showing up with a massive technological and biological disruption that nearly lead to their complete annihilation.
- RandomLensman 3y agoWhat we also have is viruses and bacteria killing people irrespective of those having zero intelligence. We also have smart people being killed by dumb people. And people with sticks killing people with guns. My point is, these stories don't mean anything in relation to AI. Btw., the conquistadors relied heavily on exploiting local politics and locals for conquest, it wasn't just some "magic tech" thing, but old fashioned coalition building with enemies of enemies.