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Part of me wonders if these people are intentionally framing the debate around ethics and potential risks as longer term extinction level problems to distract f

by antod 3y ago

Part of me wonders if these people are intentionally framing the debate around ethics and potential risks as longer term extinction level problems to distract from the nearer term damage caused by them accelerating the economic inequality of the AI have-nots while they make themselves even richer.

hyperadvanced 3y ago
The more I look at AI, the more I get the feeling that this is true. Spinning an intriguing sci-fi tale of apocalypse and extinction is relatively easy and serves to obfuscate any nearer-term concerns about AI behind a hypothetical that sucks the air out of the room. That said, I don’t think that it’s necessarily disingenuous so much as it is myopic - to them of course AI is exciting, world-changing, and profitable, but they (willfully or not) fail to see the downsides or upsides for anyone else but them. Perhaps in the minds of the ultra-rich AI proponents, solutions to nearer-term effects of their tech are someone else’s problem, but the “existential risks” are “everyone’s” problem.
statuslover9000 3y ago
The short-term effect is a harbinger of the long-term risk, since capitalism doesn’t inherently care for people who don’t provide economic value. Once superintelligent AI arises, none of us will have value within this system. Even the largest current capital holders will have a hard time holding on to it with an enormous intelligence disadvantage. The logical endpoint is the subjugation or elimination of our species, unless we find a new economic system with human value at its core.
- semi-extrinsic 3y ago
  There are a lot of assumptions going on here. One of them is that superintelligent AI will arise. We have no reason to believe this will happen in our lifetimes. I posit that we are about as close to superintelligent AI as James Watt was to nuclear fusion. The other assumption is that wealth and power are distributed according to intelligence. This is obviously false, wealth and power are largely distributed according to who you or your father plays golf with. As long as AIs don't play golf and don't have fathers, we are quite safe.
  - namaria 3y ago
    > As long as AIs don't play golf and don't have fathers, we are quite safe. Until it becomes 'who you exchange bytes most efficiently with" and all humans are at a disadvantage against a swarm of even bellow average intelligence AGI agents.
    - semi-extrinsic 3y ago
      But why would it become this?
      - namaria 3y ago
        Because, as unlikely as it is, if we're discussing risk scenarios for AI getting out of hand. Well then a monolithic superintelligence is just one of the possibilities. What about a swarm of dumb AIs that are nonetheless capable of reasoning and decision making and they become a threat? That's pretty much what we did. There's no super intelligent monkey in charge. As much as some have tried to pretend, material or otherwise. There's just billions of average intelligence monkeys and we overran all Earth's ecosystems in a matter of centuries. Which is neither trivial nor fully explained yet.
        datadrivenangel 3y ago
        Hey some of us are below average. But yes, the corporations and swarm behavior are already doing poorly for our biosphere.
        semi-extrinsic 3y ago
        The difference is that we have 100% complete control of these AIs. We can just go into the power grid substation next to the data center and throw the big breaker, and the AI ceases to exist. When humans developed, we did not displace an external entity that had created us and that had complete power to kill us all in an instant.
        namaria 3y ago
- graemep 3y ago
  Actually, it will have the opposite effect, at least in the short term. People who own high value assets (everything from land to the AI) will continue to own them and there will be no opportunities for people to earn their way up (because they can be replaced by AI). "The logical endpoint is the subjugation or elimination of our species" Possibly, but it would be by our species (those who own and control the AI) rather than by the AI.
  - K0balt 3y ago
    I would venture to say that transhumanism will be the path and goal of the capital class, as that will be a tangible advantage potentially within their grasp. I suppose then that they would become “homo sapiens sapiens sapiens” or some other similarly hubris laden label, and go on to abandon, dominate or subjugate the filthy hordes of mere Homo sapiens sapiens.
    - graemep 3y ago
      Yes, a theme in cyberpunk SF, but also in much older works, such as CS Lewis's That Hideous Strength.
cyrialize 3y ago
I believe you may be alluding to longtermism[0]. At it's face value, longtermism seems like a good thing, but I've heard many criticisms against it - mainly levied against the billionaire class. And the criticisms mostly center on what you're saying here - how many billionaires are focusing on fixing problems that are very far off in the future, while ignoring how their actions affect those of the very near future. This is really less of a criticism of longtermism, and more of a criticism of how billionaires utilize longtermism. Is it important that we find another planet to live on? Sure, but many will argue that we should be taking steps now to save our current planet. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longtermism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longtermism
- bamboozled 3y ago
  If we get to another habitable planet we’ll plunder that too. Turn it into graphics cards for “inference”.
theptip 3y ago
No, they are not. Pretty much everyone in the x-risk community also recognizes the existence of short-term mundane harms as well. The community has been making these predictions for over a decade, long before it was anything other than crazy talk to most people. Google has a big investment in reducing AI bias (remember Gemini got slammed for being “too woke”). Altman is a big proponent of UBI. Etc.

by antod 3y ago

hyperadvanced 3y ago

The more I look at AI, the more I get the feeling that this is true. Spinning an intriguing sci-fi tale of apocalypse and extinction is relatively easy and serves to obfuscate any nearer-term concerns about AI behind a hypothetical that sucks the air out of the room. That said, I don’t think that it’s necessarily disingenuous so much as it is myopic - to them of course AI is exciting, world-changing, and profitable, but they (willfully or not) fail to see the downsides or upsides for anyone else but them. Perhaps in the minds of the ultra-rich AI proponents, solutions to nearer-term effects of their tech are someone else’s problem, but the “existential risks” are “everyone’s” problem.

statuslover9000 3y ago

The short-term effect is a harbinger of the long-term risk, since capitalism doesn’t inherently care for people who don’t provide economic value. Once superintelligent AI arises, none of us will have value within this system. Even the largest current capital holders will have a hard time holding on to it with an enormous intelligence disadvantage. The logical endpoint is the subjugation or elimination of our species, unless we find a new economic system with human value at its core.

semi-extrinsic 3y ago
There are a lot of assumptions going on here. One of them is that superintelligent AI will arise. We have no reason to believe this will happen in our lifetimes. I posit that we are about as close to superintelligent AI as James Watt was to nuclear fusion. The other assumption is that wealth and power are distributed according to intelligence. This is obviously false, wealth and power are largely distributed according to who you or your father plays golf with. As long as AIs don't play golf and don't have fathers, we are quite safe.
- namaria 3y ago
  > As long as AIs don't play golf and don't have fathers, we are quite safe. Until it becomes 'who you exchange bytes most efficiently with" and all humans are at a disadvantage against a swarm of even bellow average intelligence AGI agents.
  - semi-extrinsic 3y ago
    But why would it become this?
    - namaria 3y ago
      Because, as unlikely as it is, if we're discussing risk scenarios for AI getting out of hand. Well then a monolithic superintelligence is just one of the possibilities. What about a swarm of dumb AIs that are nonetheless capable of reasoning and decision making and they become a threat? That's pretty much what we did. There's no super intelligent monkey in charge. As much as some have tried to pretend, material or otherwise. There's just billions of average intelligence monkeys and we overran all Earth's ecosystems in a matter of centuries. Which is neither trivial nor fully explained yet.
      - datadrivenangel 3y ago
        Hey some of us are below average. But yes, the corporations and swarm behavior are already doing poorly for our biosphere.
      - semi-extrinsic 3y ago
        The difference is that we have 100% complete control of these AIs. We can just go into the power grid substation next to the data center and throw the big breaker, and the AI ceases to exist. When humans developed, we did not displace an external entity that had created us and that had complete power to kill us all in an instant.
        namaria 3y ago
graemep 3y ago
Actually, it will have the opposite effect, at least in the short term. People who own high value assets (everything from land to the AI) will continue to own them and there will be no opportunities for people to earn their way up (because they can be replaced by AI). "The logical endpoint is the subjugation or elimination of our species" Possibly, but it would be by our species (those who own and control the AI) rather than by the AI.
- K0balt 3y ago
  I would venture to say that transhumanism will be the path and goal of the capital class, as that will be a tangible advantage potentially within their grasp. I suppose then that they would become “homo sapiens sapiens sapiens” or some other similarly hubris laden label, and go on to abandon, dominate or subjugate the filthy hordes of mere Homo sapiens sapiens.
  - graemep 3y ago
    Yes, a theme in cyberpunk SF, but also in much older works, such as CS Lewis's That Hideous Strength.

cyrialize 3y ago

I believe you may be alluding to longtermism[0]. At it's face value, longtermism seems like a good thing, but I've heard many criticisms against it - mainly levied against the billionaire class. And the criticisms mostly center on what you're saying here - how many billionaires are focusing on fixing problems that are very far off in the future, while ignoring how their actions affect those of the very near future. This is really less of a criticism of longtermism, and more of a criticism of how billionaires utilize longtermism. Is it important that we find another planet to live on? Sure, but many will argue that we should be taking steps now to save our current planet. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longtermism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longtermism

bamboozled 3y ago
If we get to another habitable planet we’ll plunder that too. Turn it into graphics cards for “inference”.

theptip 3y ago

No, they are not. Pretty much everyone in the x-risk community also recognizes the existence of short-term mundane harms as well. The community has been making these predictions for over a decade, long before it was anything other than crazy talk to most people. Google has a big investment in reducing AI bias (remember Gemini got slammed for being “too woke”). Altman is a big proponent of UBI. Etc.