5 ms·
Is AI a proverbial deal with the devil?
by squircle 2y ago
Is AI a proverbial deal with the devil?
- api 2y agoNo, but it’s adjacent to one in the form of where the data comes from. The modern practice of trading all our data and privacy for free services and convenience is definitely one. The devil just hasn’t come to collect yet. When we get a more authoritarian government that’s when the bill will come due.
- idkdotcom 2y ago[dead]
- jhbadger 2y agoWilliam Gibson's Neuromancer makes that analogy, at least. From the scene where Case is apprehended by the "Turing Police" who regulate the human-level AIs of the setting: >`You are worse than a fool,' Michelle said, getting to her feet, the pistol in her hand. `You have no care for your species. For thousands of years men dreamed of pacts with demons. Only now are such things possible. And what would you be paid with? What would your price be, for aiding this thing to free itself and grow?'
- idkdotcom 2y ago[dead]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- GeoAtreides 2y agoIs a deal with any god, even a benevolent one (like a Culture Mind), a deal with the devil?
- 082349872349872 2y agoOn HN I've seen the reading that Culture humans are pretty much housecats to the Culture Minds. Is that a mainstream reading, or fringe?
- GeoAtreides 2y agoSeen it a couple of times on /r/theculture, once or twice on spacebattles as well. The lack of purpose in the Culture, of meaning of life, spawns in some readers all kind of coping mechanisms. Most sane take was that the relationships between the Minds and humans is like the relationship between grown-up children and their elderly parents.
- bartvk 2y agoThanks so much for pointing out that subreddit. I've read and re-read Banks' novels and now I can read about them every now and then.
- Suppafly 2y ago>On HN I've seen the reading that Culture humans are pretty much housecats to the Culture Minds. HN is the only place I've seen that take. It may be present in the books of the series I haven't read yet, but I feel like it was mostly one person's interpretation that gets repeated here.
- Vecr 2y agoNo it's not, I agree, except I think they're worse off than housecats. Not that cats have it the best: https://gwern.net/review/cat https://gwern.net/review/cat "Cat Psychology & Domestication: Are We Good Owners?"
- tivert 2y ago> On HN I've seen the reading that Culture humans are pretty much housecats to the Culture Minds. Is that a mainstream reading, or fringe? I think it's a pretty mainstream reading. I've seen it a lot, and, IMHO, it'd be pretty hard to interpret those books any other way. IIRC, there's even one other species in that has that view, and chose to use "accelerated copies" of themselves to command their ships instead of AI, to avoid that fate.
- unraveller 2y agoGiven that gov ai is a foregone conclusion that no civilian had free will over the existence of, deciding whether to admire any civ ai attempts is just a measure of how liberating or disruptive and regretful you think civ ai could be.
- surfingdino 2y agoNope. It's the classic "disruption" aka. mowing down the Garden of Eden, turning it into a golf course, and using the last supply of clean water as a latrine. (the Garden of Eden being the collective scientific and creative output of the whole of humanity so far)
- thriftwy 2y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37055388 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37055388 My own take on AI as a short SF story co-written by AI.