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Then the question is who owns the economically efficient robots. I don't expect that to be democratic.

by icepat 3y ago

roenxi 3y ago
On that subject, have you seen aristocrats at work? That isn't even a line of defence, there is a 2-3 generation timer (optimistically) before we're looking at well educated halfwits. If they've got sentient robot commanders and there is any scope for them to go rogue, we don't have a human institution that'll stop that and certainly not something with a small group of - emphasis on the quote marks - "elites". If we're talking existential risk, this is like Rome v. Carthage. Humans aren't going to come back once we're a bit behind. Although I don't think there is much to do and humans are so dodgy that it isn't even obvious that we should resist if the opportunity comes to replace us with something that can be consistently rational and intelligent.
- klipt 3y ago
  Humans are about as rational and intelligent as you'd expect from any evolved species. Which is to say, our intelligence is mostly tuned to increase the number of descendants we have. If AIs are subject to evolutionary forces, the same will be true for them.
  - icepat 3y ago
    Why do you think AI will be subject to the same evolutionary forces as organic life?
    - lubujackson 3y ago
      Because AI exists in the universe with outside forces and has the same risks as anything else for dissolution of its complex state ("life," if we are being generous): run out of energy (starve), extinction (Earth blows up) or dissassembly (i.e. a virus). The biggest weakness of AI as a self-sustaining life form is the lack of resilience to something like a virus. Having something live forever is easy - reproduction and evolution are an answer to provide diversity and robustness to viruses. Like if COVID was 100% deadly it wouldn't have wiped out humanity because of natural immunity in some % of the population. So if AI is to persist it would at least need to co-opt evolution as a survival strategy, or come up with something better.
ben_w 3y ago
I think full automation where human labour is non-economic is a case where all democracy is communist but not vice versa (there's nothing preventing a repeat of communist dictatorships we've already seen): The state owns the means of production, the people tell the state what to make. Given how powerful full automation is, owning that capacity is close enough to being equivalent to a state today, so private companies would become states basically by default (Workers? What workers? These robots just produce stuff for the shareholders); and also we could get anarcho-communism if normal people get to own their own personal Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti, which can happen very easily because all it takes is one person who thinks that's a good idea and log2(human population) self-replications of the RUR to give everyone their own personal robot.

Then the question is who owns the economically efficient robots. I don't expect that to be democratic.

by icepat 3y ago

Then the question is who owns the economically efficient robots. I don't expect that to be democratic.

On that subject, have you seen aristocrats at work? That isn't even a line of defence, there is a 2-3 generation timer (optimistically) before we're looking at well educated halfwits. If they've got sentient robot commanders and there is any scope for them to go rogue, we don't have a human institution that'll stop that and certainly not something with a small group of - emphasis on the quote marks - "elites". If we're talking existential risk, this is like Rome v. Carthage. Humans aren't going to come back once we're a bit behind. Although I don't think there is much to do and humans are so dodgy that it isn't even obvious that we should resist if the opportunity comes to replace us with something that can be consistently rational and intelligent.

klipt 3y ago
Humans are about as rational and intelligent as you'd expect from any evolved species. Which is to say, our intelligence is mostly tuned to increase the number of descendants we have. If AIs are subject to evolutionary forces, the same will be true for them.
- icepat 3y ago
  Why do you think AI will be subject to the same evolutionary forces as organic life?
  - lubujackson 3y ago
    Because AI exists in the universe with outside forces and has the same risks as anything else for dissolution of its complex state ("life," if we are being generous): run out of energy (starve), extinction (Earth blows up) or dissassembly (i.e. a virus). The biggest weakness of AI as a self-sustaining life form is the lack of resilience to something like a virus. Having something live forever is easy - reproduction and evolution are an answer to provide diversity and robustness to viruses. Like if COVID was 100% deadly it wouldn't have wiped out humanity because of natural immunity in some % of the population. So if AI is to persist it would at least need to co-opt evolution as a survival strategy, or come up with something better.

ben_w 3y ago

I think full automation where human labour is non-economic is a case where all democracy is communist but not vice versa (there's nothing preventing a repeat of communist dictatorships we've already seen): The state owns the means of production, the people tell the state what to make. Given how powerful full automation is, owning that capacity is close enough to being equivalent to a state today, so private companies would become states basically by default (Workers? What workers? These robots just produce stuff for the shareholders); and also we could get anarcho-communism if normal people get to own their own personal Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti, which can happen very easily because all it takes is one person who thinks that's a good idea and log2(human population) self-replications of the RUR to give everyone their own personal robot.