5 ms·

It is depressing. I think that this might just be the whole picture. Look, I spent a long while studying evolutionary biology in school (detour into pre-med) an

by alumic 3y ago

It is depressing. I think that this might just be the whole picture. Look, I spent a long while studying evolutionary biology in school (detour into pre-med) and came away with a fairly bleak picture of our place in the universe. I use "worth" in precisely that context. Nature gives us a world in which "he who does not work, does not eat" is a rule of law. Human beings--especially modern ones--assign worth quite differently, and I think that you and I would agree that morally, the way we refer to "worth" in our modern context is the correct framing. But you cannot deny your own biology, no matter how much the modern world insists that you can. You are evaluated according to nature's standards of "worth," (the worth that it imposes onto our psyche) and then secondarily, according to our own set of invented standards. So yes, it is deeply sad. No one will care about the out-of-work tradesperson. I promise I'm not a luddite. Just stopping for a moment to smell the roses.

RandomLensman 3y ago
A rich person not working is worthless? Historically, humans have not acted that way, nor have such persons had nothing to eat. Wealth can substitute for work.
- rjsw 3y ago
  Apex predators never have to "work" particularly hard.
  - bbor 3y ago
    It’s too late to argue philosophy but I can argue some biology. Based on my extensive experience watching the nature show on the Samsung TV service, cheetahs, lions, and gorillas all have a very hard time getting enough to eat. The fact that they spend most of the day lazing around is more about recovery time and calorie expenditure than it is about leisure.
  - RandomLensman 3y ago
    I'd also say viruses don't work very hard (maybe phages a little bit) and they are quite successful.
    - ben_w 3y ago
      I've not given this much thought before, but right now I think viruses do about as much work as their chemistry is physically capable of? (High school middling grades in chemistry and biology, so I may be way off).
      - RandomLensman 3y ago
        Most their work is getting others to do their work for them.
        ben_w 3y ago
        Yes, indeed, but I still think they're "working hard"? Perhaps it's just a linguistics game though, what counts as "working" and what counts as "hard"?
        RandomLensman 3y ago
        I find it tough to describe something not really even living in some ways as "working".
        ben_w 3y ago
        Really? Huh. I do that all the time. My oven, my phone, even my travel pass would get that word (though I'd mean it in a different sense)…
        RandomLensman 3y ago
        Yes, but as you say, not in the meaning we discussed here.
djokkataja 3y ago
> Nature gives us a world in which "he who does not work, does not eat" is a rule of law. Which is why no child has ever survived until adulthood. And TBH I find this an appropriate metaphor because the promise of AGI is that every adult human will be infantile by comparison--but there are also potential technologies that could allow humans to ... "upgrade" themselves and become a mature ... whatever. Sadly brain-computer-interfaces seem like a technology that works best when enabled by AI (to help with interpreting brain signals), so it seems quite unlikely that any biological humans are going to keep up with AI over the medium term.
- Nevermark 3y ago
  > but there are also potential technologies that could allow humans to ... "upgrade" themselves I hope so. But transforming ourselves into GAI to keep up (while maintaining continuity of memories, etc.) is going to be a much more expensive proposition than simply making more GAI hardware from scratch. So economically, where are humans going to earn that additional value, needed to account for the extra cost? When the premise of upgrading ourselves is our native biology isn't keeping up and so not actually needed?
  - djokkataja 3y ago
    Given that there's no well-defined "unit of intelligence", I see no reason to believe that all AGI (or GAI, to use your acronym) entities will be identical. I also don't think it's plausible to assume that any GAI entity will be literally omniscient; uncertainty remains a reasonable, deep, persistent factor for all entities that don't severely violate physics as we presently understand it. The additional value that humans present would thus be a diversity factor. Much as it might be economically beneficial to cut down the entire Amazon, there's also significant economic benefits in keeping it intact and finding out what kinds of crazy biological stuff comes out of there. And over the long run, we get way more economic benefit from finding crazy things in there than in chopping it all down. There are all kinds of ways to explore uncertain dimensions, but looking at whatever the universe has already managed remains a consistent source of value. > But transforming ourselves into GAI to keep up (while maintaining continuity of memories, etc.) is going to be a much more expensive proposition than simply making more GAI hardware from scratch. It's basically a fixed cost because of how slowly the human population grows (if it even continues to grow). Synthetic GAI entities will be able to use vastly more resources than humans presently do, because they'll be able to create more of themselves as quickly as resources become available, and they won't be stuck operating at a fixed clock speed. It's also probably going to be much easier for them to make use of off-world resources. So the total population of GAI entities could plausibly explode compared with the total human population. It comes down to timing: if there's technology available for humans to become less ... biological, and it seems very desirable to lots of people, but it's really expensive and there aren't that many GAI entities yet, that might be less pleasant. But if that kind of tech depends sufficiently on AI developments that there's some significant lag time between a GAI population explosion and that kind of human-upgrading tech showing up, the cost of making it available to whatever humans want it might be a drop in the bucket from a total economic perspective. To be clear, I don't see biological humans "keeping up" over the long term. If we take AGI and BCIs and various Ship of Theseus questions seriously, there could be some significant blurring of lines between "human" and "AI." And if we combine that with GAIs originating from humans, the concept of "keeping up" seems to become less meaningful. Who's keeping up with who? Lastly, I'm suspicious that GAI entities won't be purely economically motivated, because I don't see any reason that they'll be "purely" anything at all. There is no magical "essence d'intelligence"; instead there's staggering layers of complexity. And every plausible AI safety approach I've seen so far involves training AIs to be inclined towards beneficial acts and away from harmful acts because there's no way to program conceptually pure "motivations" into them.
bbor 3y ago
Hey thanks for the thoughtful response. I still disagree of course, but we’re really arguing about the very fundamental worldview divide between progressives and conservatives, so that’s no surprise lol. I’d summarize my retort simply: > Nature gives us a world Humanity makes its own world, especially now. Nature is red in tooth and claw, and rarely compatible with our priorities without some cajoling. More than that, nature isn’t simple; there is no fundamental set of survival of the fittest laws that govern all animals, just the accidental beauty of natural selection. > you cannot deny your biology I ply my biology with a deluge of narcotics and antidepressants and, someday, anti-aging drugs. All my homies hate biology
- bbor 3y ago
  I can’t edit so I’ll reply. I’m cribbing my opinion from this: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/nature-2 https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/nature-2

by alumic 3y ago

RandomLensman 3y ago

A rich person not working is worthless? Historically, humans have not acted that way, nor have such persons had nothing to eat. Wealth can substitute for work.

rjsw 3y ago
Apex predators never have to "work" particularly hard.
- bbor 3y ago
  It’s too late to argue philosophy but I can argue some biology. Based on my extensive experience watching the nature show on the Samsung TV service, cheetahs, lions, and gorillas all have a very hard time getting enough to eat. The fact that they spend most of the day lazing around is more about recovery time and calorie expenditure than it is about leisure.
- RandomLensman 3y ago
  I'd also say viruses don't work very hard (maybe phages a little bit) and they are quite successful.
  - ben_w 3y ago
    I've not given this much thought before, but right now I think viruses do about as much work as their chemistry is physically capable of? (High school middling grades in chemistry and biology, so I may be way off).
    - RandomLensman 3y ago
      Most their work is getting others to do their work for them.
      - ben_w 3y ago
        Yes, indeed, but I still think they're "working hard"? Perhaps it's just a linguistics game though, what counts as "working" and what counts as "hard"?
        RandomLensman 3y ago
        I find it tough to describe something not really even living in some ways as "working".
        ben_w 3y ago
        Really? Huh. I do that all the time. My oven, my phone, even my travel pass would get that word (though I'd mean it in a different sense)…
        RandomLensman 3y ago
        Yes, but as you say, not in the meaning we discussed here.

djokkataja 3y ago

> Nature gives us a world in which "he who does not work, does not eat" is a rule of law. Which is why no child has ever survived until adulthood. And TBH I find this an appropriate metaphor because the promise of AGI is that every adult human will be infantile by comparison--but there are also potential technologies that could allow humans to ... "upgrade" themselves and become a mature ... whatever. Sadly brain-computer-interfaces seem like a technology that works best when enabled by AI (to help with interpreting brain signals), so it seems quite unlikely that any biological humans are going to keep up with AI over the medium term.

Nevermark 3y ago
> but there are also potential technologies that could allow humans to ... "upgrade" themselves I hope so. But transforming ourselves into GAI to keep up (while maintaining continuity of memories, etc.) is going to be a much more expensive proposition than simply making more GAI hardware from scratch. So economically, where are humans going to earn that additional value, needed to account for the extra cost? When the premise of upgrading ourselves is our native biology isn't keeping up and so not actually needed?
- djokkataja 3y ago
  Given that there's no well-defined "unit of intelligence", I see no reason to believe that all AGI (or GAI, to use your acronym) entities will be identical. I also don't think it's plausible to assume that any GAI entity will be literally omniscient; uncertainty remains a reasonable, deep, persistent factor for all entities that don't severely violate physics as we presently understand it. The additional value that humans present would thus be a diversity factor. Much as it might be economically beneficial to cut down the entire Amazon, there's also significant economic benefits in keeping it intact and finding out what kinds of crazy biological stuff comes out of there. And over the long run, we get way more economic benefit from finding crazy things in there than in chopping it all down. There are all kinds of ways to explore uncertain dimensions, but looking at whatever the universe has already managed remains a consistent source of value. > But transforming ourselves into GAI to keep up (while maintaining continuity of memories, etc.) is going to be a much more expensive proposition than simply making more GAI hardware from scratch. It's basically a fixed cost because of how slowly the human population grows (if it even continues to grow). Synthetic GAI entities will be able to use vastly more resources than humans presently do, because they'll be able to create more of themselves as quickly as resources become available, and they won't be stuck operating at a fixed clock speed. It's also probably going to be much easier for them to make use of off-world resources. So the total population of GAI entities could plausibly explode compared with the total human population. It comes down to timing: if there's technology available for humans to become less ... biological, and it seems very desirable to lots of people, but it's really expensive and there aren't that many GAI entities yet, that might be less pleasant. But if that kind of tech depends sufficiently on AI developments that there's some significant lag time between a GAI population explosion and that kind of human-upgrading tech showing up, the cost of making it available to whatever humans want it might be a drop in the bucket from a total economic perspective. To be clear, I don't see biological humans "keeping up" over the long term. If we take AGI and BCIs and various Ship of Theseus questions seriously, there could be some significant blurring of lines between "human" and "AI." And if we combine that with GAIs originating from humans, the concept of "keeping up" seems to become less meaningful. Who's keeping up with who? Lastly, I'm suspicious that GAI entities won't be purely economically motivated, because I don't see any reason that they'll be "purely" anything at all. There is no magical "essence d'intelligence"; instead there's staggering layers of complexity. And every plausible AI safety approach I've seen so far involves training AIs to be inclined towards beneficial acts and away from harmful acts because there's no way to program conceptually pure "motivations" into them.

bbor 3y ago

Hey thanks for the thoughtful response. I still disagree of course, but we’re really arguing about the very fundamental worldview divide between progressives and conservatives, so that’s no surprise lol. I’d summarize my retort simply: > Nature gives us a world Humanity makes its own world, especially now. Nature is red in tooth and claw, and rarely compatible with our priorities without some cajoling. More than that, nature isn’t simple; there is no fundamental set of survival of the fittest laws that govern all animals, just the accidental beauty of natural selection. > you cannot deny your biology I ply my biology with a deluge of narcotics and antidepressants and, someday, anti-aging drugs. All my homies hate biology

bbor 3y ago
I can’t edit so I’ll reply. I’m cribbing my opinion from this: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/nature-2 https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/nature-2