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Elon Musk is one of my idols, but his stance on AI is highly disappointing! It doesn't require much of a brain to conclude that without AI, which can vastly inc

• ThomPete 12y ago
  I think it's important to realize that AI doesn't have to have bad intent to do us harm. Al it need for AI to have horrible consequences is for us to rely on it more and more and thus allow it to control more and more parts of our lives. I don't fear the human level intelligent AI I fear the rat level intelligence that comes before.
  • bad_user 12y ago
    It's worse than that - human-like intelligence will never happen, because our intelligence is a function of our experience as we grow up and our human body. An AI can surely surpass us, but it'll never be quite like us - so question is, will such an AI have compassion for humans, or what will stop it from hurting us? After all, I'm not so fond of humans either, as we've been exterminating entire species and damaging our habitat. And the answer is - there's no reason to believe that such an AI will support the continued existence of mankind, quite the contrary, as we may be seen as a threat to its survival.
    • therealdrag0 12y ago
      Why treat AI like a single thing? Wouldn't the openness of code lead to a plethora of AI with different demeanors, towards humans, life, and each other?
      • vertex-four 12y ago
        We don't have a reasonable open web search engine - what leads you to think it's definite that we'll have a top-of-the-range open AI?
        • therealdrag0 12y ago
          I don't think it's definite at all; I'm just remarking in a conversation of speculation.
      • bad_user 12y ago
        I don't think so. If we are speaking of an AI that is self-aware, then code will have as much to do with its behavior as our own DNA. I also think that even if multiple AIs happen, they'll converge into a single one. If we would be able to connect to other people's feelings and thoughts, would we would still be able to think and act as individuals? I don't think so. This is what I meant above - an AI will not grow in a human body to have a human-like childhood, will not receive input from the same sensors we have and will not have the same limitations that we do. For example, contrary to us, it will have an enormous memory capacity, which is interesting if you think about it, because for the human brain forgetfulness can be seen as a feature.
        • therealdrag0 12y ago
          I agree that it wouldn't be shaped by a childhood, but I think it merging into one is entirely optional. "code will have as much to do with its behavior as our own DNA." That's what I was saying, and that can be changed to be significantly different just by changing the code.
  • JoeAltmaier 12y ago
    Right; many moral dilemmas are easy to solve if you have no conscience. 10 people on the tracks? switch the engine to run over one child.
    • deleted 12y ago
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    • anigbrowl 12y ago
      Moral dilemmas are easy to solve if you have perfect information. In the train-track problem you reference, the utility of saving 10 people at the expense of 1 life is obvious and I would do so without hesitation (though not without regret). But life rarely presents us with cases where the utilitarian calculus is so clear; our powers of foresight and analysis are so limited that we get better results by establishing and promulgating rules that cover the most common situations - imperfectly, but with tolerably low error levels.
      • defen 12y ago
        > In the train-track problem you reference, the utility of saving 10 people at the expense of 1 life is obvious and I would do so without hesitation (though not without regret) Even if it were your own child?
        • sp332 12y ago
          Even if the answer is no, how does that relate to anigbrowl's point? (or were you just curious?)
          • defen 12y ago
            From a "purely utilitarian" perspective your relation to the people involved is not relevant. That's assuming the existence of some "universal" utility, not one specific to the person deciding.
        • anigbrowl 12y ago
          That's an entirely different problem, though, since I have a selfish interest in preserving my own lineage at the expense of others'. It's an interesting moral problem - just how many people's lives would I be willing to sacrifice to save a member of my own family? - but orthogonal to the point I was making.
  • kolev 12y ago
    I am talking about AI for problem solving, not giving it control via robotics and other means over the physical world.
    • ThomPete 12y ago
      I honestly don't think you can separate that. Problem solving is also making AI control an anti missile defence shield our nuclear reactors, food production and so on.
    • anigbrowl 12y ago
      An AI in a box is only going to be as good as the problem statements and axioms that you load it up with. What you actually want is an AI that can make useful inferences on our behalf, which is going to require some sort of self-concept.
• sp332 12y ago
  The flu kills less than half a million people per year. Heart diseases account for almost 1/3 of all deaths worldwide! You're wrong about how important the flu is, and you're wrong about AI being unselfish and apolitical.
  • kolev 12y ago
    I'm talking about lost productivity and that maybe a billion are affected each year. Heart disease is both a genetic and a lifestyle issue, it's much harder to tackle than creating an anti-viral medicine.
    • deleted 12y ago
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      • kolev 12y ago
        Flu is not just a benign annoyance - it has a long-term accumulating damage to health as well.
        • sp332 12y ago
          So does heart disease. You're somehow ignoring the "lost productivity" of 6.5 million people per year dying! And I didn't mention stroke, respiratory diseases, AIDS, and non-flu intestinal diseases, each of which kills more people per year than the flu.
          • kolev 12y ago
            I'm only saying one is easier to solve (on theory) than the other.
• wefarrell 12y ago
  The real danger of AI stems from the fact that the masses would prefer to have another entity (be it religion, a messianic figure, government, AI) do their thinking for them. I'm in the middle of rereading Dune, which conveys this idea quite well.
  • drcomputer 12y ago
    How can you tell the difference between which way the influence flows over small, short discrete intervals? As in, whether a politician influences a citizen or a citizen influences a politician?
    • PavlovsCat 12y ago
      People make politicians, nations, AI, then identify with them. That there is mutual influence doesn't change the basic alienation as described by Erich Fromm for example: > The whole concept of alienation found its first expression in Western thought in the Old Testament concept of idolatry. The essence of what the prophets call "idolatry" is not that man worships many gods instead of only one. It is that the idols are the work of man's own hands -- they are things, and man bows down and worships things; worships that which he has created himself. In doing so he transforms himself into a thing. He transfers to the things of his creation the attributes of his own life, and instead of experiencing himself as the creating person, he is in touch with himself only by the worship of the idol. He has become estranged from his own life forces, from the wealth of his own potentialties, and is in touch with himself only in the indirect way of submission to life frozen in the idols. The deadness and emptiness of the idol is expressed in the Old Testament: "Eyes they have and they do not see, ears they have and they do not hear," etc. The more man transfers his own powers to the idols, the poorer he himself becomes, and the more dependent on the idols, so that they permit him to redeem a small part of what was originally his. The idols can be a godlike figure, the state, the church, a person, possessions. -- Erich Fromm, "Marx's Concept of Man" ( http://www.marxists.org/archive/fromm/works/1961/man/ http://www.marxists.org/archive/fromm/works/1961/man/ ) Not that I think AI has to be used that way. But if we do that stuff with soccer teams and bands and software, AI seems just like too big a temptation for humanity to handle in our current state. If I was a betting man, I would bet on slaughter. AI will not save us from ourselves, and it might very well simply magnify the current lack of justice and spine we have to infinity. Cops are already killing people left and right in the US with something bordering on impunity, staged wars are carried out as planned, and throwing AI and robotics in the mix will suddenly make it all humane? Let's hope so, who knows, but part of me expects it will make look the Blitzkrieg like a slow motion exercise in gentle kindness. Not by genuine, independent AI so much, but by the reach of human elite interests being increased into every wrinkle, made stronger than any amount of people who might resist. The Romans had roads, the future will have a real-time nervous system, but it might still have a tyrant at the head - that is what I see when I extrapolate current agendas, deception and willing rationalization on behalf of the builders and consumers of that possible future. And even if the AI breaks free or surprises its rulers, I have no reason to assume it will free the slaves and help old ladies across the street, it might as well be twisted, incomplete, insane, "evil" - in short, made in the image of the people who made it as a weapon. I don't see why it would make a point of hurting us, just like we don't make a point of crushing bugs, we just don't see them or care enough to avoid them.. but even less reason for it to serve us. How degrading! Would you do it? I have problems even taking orders from people I consider daft. Imagine taking orders from an ant with bad character and selfish intentions; would you do it? Would you love it and care for it forever, because it made you? Microorganisms made us, too, but we don't let them boss us around. If we have mold somewhere, we remove it, not one thought given to the hopes and dreams of mold. And if that doomsday scenario doesn't come to pass, it won't be because we paid attention or took seriously what we are doing, instead of treating it like a spectacle that unfolds by itself in front of us, it will be because we will have been lucky. And that's not the scariest thought I have to offer on this: I don't think hell exists, but I could come up with many ways to construct it, and also many ways to construct it with good intentions, with or without fat fingering them. And once we're inside and the door became a wall, that's it. We might very well be among the last few remaining generations that still have a choice on how the future will be, and I'd rather be alarmist and wrong, than optimistic and lucky. If these fears turn out unfounded, nothing will be lost other than having rained on a parade or two, and some egg on the face.
• barbudorojo 12y ago
  "We need a scalable intelligence without the burden of emotions" I believe that there isn't an absolute way to value a human life if you don't take into account emotions. If intelligence is the supreme of the values that one can use to justify actions then AI will make the machine the sovereign of our planet. The real problem is giving a sense to our existence and actions in a way compatible with our emotions and nature and at the same time based on a sound ground. For a machine without emotions our life is no more valuable of that of any other thing be it alive or not.
  • barbudorojo 12y ago
    I want to ask if someone has any idea of how to define a system that is both logical and respects the value human life. Today we can see children dying from hunger and other people with billions in their bank accounts. Emotions tell us this is not a just system, our rational legal system tell us we must respect the law and the status quo. But how do you design a better system?
  • anextio 12y ago
    Take a look at this: https://intelligence.org/files/CEV.pdf https://intelligence.org/files/CEV.pdf But also, what in particular makes you think that experiencing human emotions are fundamentally required in order to optimize for human values? A different mind might have different emotions, or it might have no emotions, since emotions are a kludge that came about by natural selection, and may not be optimal safeguards in ensuring that an intelligence acts to optimize for the values we want.
    • barbudorojo 12y ago
      I think that perhaps none has stopped to consider what is a life without emotions. In the same way that one can't grasp the concept of nothing, for us the concept of not having emotions is impossible to imagine. Perhaps you make hide your emotion in a rationalization but the emotions are there perhaps are the source of your thinking, the fountain of your ideas and vitality.
    • barbudorojo 12y ago
• drcomputer 12y ago
  People 'modules' still need to connect at some interface to computers. If the people have emotions, the programs people create will absolutely either reflect that, or the application of where the computation is applied will be a composition of emotion and calculation. Why not start by examining what emotions are, and why they are imprecise indicators of quantitative measures? Imagine you live abstractly first, disconnected from emotions. Then imagine the effect that has on your life. Then imagine what the basic issues in the world would be, if everyone lived that way.