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But it’s not a real world risk. Arguably, it’s even less of a real world risk because it’s a common sci-fi trope. The whole concept is farcical.

ben_w 3y ago
"Hacking" is also a common sci-fi trope, I don't think you can infer much from it appearing in sci-fi beyond "it makes for good sci-fi". As for real world risk… well, an AI with some kind of personality disorder might not be much of a realistic risk today, but even assuming it never is, there are still plenty of GOFAI that have gone wrong, either killing people directly when their bugs caused them to give patients lethal radiation doses, or nearly triggering WW3 because they weren't programmed to recognise the moon wasn't a Soviet bomber group, or causing economic catastrophes because the investors all reacted to the phrase "won the Nobel prize for economics" as a thought-terminating cliché, or categorising humans as gorillas if they had too much melanin[0], or promoted messages encouraging genocide to groups vulnerable to such messages thanks to a lack of oversight and a language barrier between platform owners and the messages in question. [0] Asimov's three laws was a plot device, and most of the works famously show how they can go wrong. Genuine question as I've not read them all: did that kind of failure mode ever come up in his fiction?
bondarchuk 3y ago
>Arguably, it’s even less of a real world risk because it’s a common sci-fi trope. It would be nice if the world worked that way. Then we could diminish any risk just by writing a lot of scifi about it :)
- sdwr 3y ago
  That's exactly how it works. Invest thought into it before it happens, then when it becomes an issue, there's already awareness and possibilities have been mapped out.
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    Unless, of course, people then call decades of slow awareness building a "Silicon Valley conspiracy" of "AI one-percenters", or equivalent, as witnessed in this very thread...

ben_w 3y ago

"Hacking" is also a common sci-fi trope, I don't think you can infer much from it appearing in sci-fi beyond "it makes for good sci-fi". As for real world risk… well, an AI with some kind of personality disorder might not be much of a realistic risk today, but even assuming it never is, there are still plenty of GOFAI that have gone wrong, either killing people directly when their bugs caused them to give patients lethal radiation doses, or nearly triggering WW3 because they weren't programmed to recognise the moon wasn't a Soviet bomber group, or causing economic catastrophes because the investors all reacted to the phrase "won the Nobel prize for economics" as a thought-terminating cliché, or categorising humans as gorillas if they had too much melanin[0], or promoted messages encouraging genocide to groups vulnerable to such messages thanks to a lack of oversight and a language barrier between platform owners and the messages in question. [0] Asimov's three laws was a plot device, and most of the works famously show how they can go wrong. Genuine question as I've not read them all: did that kind of failure mode ever come up in his fiction?

bondarchuk 3y ago

>Arguably, it’s even less of a real world risk because it’s a common sci-fi trope. It would be nice if the world worked that way. Then we could diminish any risk just by writing a lot of scifi about it :)

sdwr 3y ago
That's exactly how it works. Invest thought into it before it happens, then when it becomes an issue, there's already awareness and possibilities have been mapped out.
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  Unless, of course, people then call decades of slow awareness building a "Silicon Valley conspiracy" of "AI one-percenters", or equivalent, as witnessed in this very thread...