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I'm seriously so sick of hearing about how machine intelligence is going to spell the end of humanity. The amount of gears that would have to fall into place is

I'm seriously so sick of hearing about how machine intelligence is going to spell the end of humanity. The amount of gears that would have to fall into place is never mentioned. We aren't close to SMI. Its much more likely that we humans are excelling at dreaming up apocalyptic scenarios, much like we have always done..... The "sloppy, dangerous thinking" is the aversion these types of articles create within the general population to artificial intelligence. We don't need to fear AI, we need to understand and control it...

SquidMagnet 12y ago
It has been my experience that the more a particular person attempts to understand and control machine intelligence, the more she grows to fear it and its potential.
- jeffreyrogers 12y ago
  The only people who claim that machine intelligence is dangerous are the ones on the outside looking in. Everyone who actually works in on AI and understands it (hint, it's just search and mathematical optimization) thinks the fear surrounding it is absurd.
  - sushirain 12y ago
    The fear is not absurd, but SMI is not going to materialize soon. We need to get ready, currently, by thinking about it.
  - mej10 12y ago
    > Everyone who actually works in on AI and understands it thinks the fear surrounding it is absurd. This isn't true. Please don't state falsehoods. Stuart Russell, Michael Jordan, Shane Legg. Those are just the ones mentioned elsewhere in this thread.
  - olalonde 12y ago
    How many of those AI researchers are actually working on AGI though? As you mentioned, most of them are in fact just developing search and optimisation algorithms. Personally, I believe the fields of neuroscience/biology are more likely to produce the first AGI. People who claim machine intelligence is dangerous are not scared of k-means clustering or neural networks, they are scared of an hypothetical general intelligence algorithm which hasn't been discovered yet. One could argue that the fear is absurd because AGI is not likely to happen within our lifetime but it's hard to argue that it will not happen eventually and be a potential threat.
typedweb 12y ago
> Its much more likely that we humans are excelling at dreaming up apocalyptic scenarios, much like we have always done..... There's always profit in predicting the end of the world.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
astrodust 12y ago
Exactly. A lot of these doomsday scenarios involve people remaining ignorant, stupid, helpless bags of meat with no ability to improve themselves or contain potential threats. It's like people freaking out that "superhuman strength machines" would spell the end of the world since why, if an electric motor is so powerful, would you need manual labor for anything? SMI is another tool and the interplay between "machine intelligence" and "human intelligence" will be complicated and nuanced. For example, biotech is filled with ferociously complicated problems that may take machine intelligence to solve. Once solved, these could lead to genetically engineered humans that are intrinsically smarter or better able to deal with the machines. This doesn't even touch on the fact that the distinction between machine intelligence and human intelligence might become quite blurred. Already I've noticed that people are "stupider" without their phones, they've offloaded a lot of cognitive functions on a device that's pretty much omni-present. A person with a smart phone today could be considered of superhuman intelligence since they're able to draw on significant resources a person without one doesn't have. A seven year old kid can tell you the capital of Tajikistan and the last ten presidents of Micronesia without breaking a sweat.
- Houshalter 12y ago
  The concerns about AGI are very real and none of these comments address any of the arguments made about them. I feel like someone in the 1930's trying to warn people about nuclear weapons. Everyone automatically assumes it's absurd and can't happen, that it's fear mongering etc. Fortunately nuclear weapons didn't destroy the world, but AI almost certainly will. No amount of smarthphone apps or genetic engineering is going to make humans anywhere near the level of superintelligent machines.
  - astrodust 12y ago
    I'm confused. You mention nuclear weapons, which everyone was convinced would destroy the world and didn't, then go and claim that AGI, with the same potential, will assuredly do it. Just as nuclear weapons radically transformed the world, dramatically reducing the amount of armed conflict, AGI may have a similar transformative effect. I see no signs that this is going to lead to destruction. Is it really the sign of an intelligent machine to go all Skynet on us? Even that doomsday scenario had machine intelligences fighting for us. I think your pessimism is confusing the relative probability of the outcomes.
drzaiusapelord 12y ago
This is an ugly situation because usually the geeks defend technology from the luddites, but in these cases the geeks are the luddites. I find the more someone sees themselves as an intellectual the more they are afraid of AI. I guess a cynical explanation is that AI will knock them off that intellectual pedestal. Personally, I welcome something smarter than us. We've just been tip-toeing through endless warfare, poor economics, poor social policy, and occasionally skirting with nuclear destruction. Give the AI's a chance to contribute, especially if the solutions to problems we can't crack are because of human cognitive limits. This situation reminds me of how the Apollo landings couldn't be done without computers. There's just no way a person can do those calculations on paper. AI as a contributor of economic, technological, or social policy seems to be a similar step.
- indrax 12y ago
  Here are some hard problems to crack then, in particular Value Learning: https://intelligence.org/research-guide/ https://intelligence.org/research-guide/
x0x0 12y ago
I don't consider myself particularly alarmist about too many things, but I have to admit I'm a little worried about machine intelligence on one front: What happens when most people have no salable skills due to the combination of robotics and AI? We're essentially going to have to live w/ income supports for the 90+% of Americans, and worse for the countries to which we've exported eg electronic device construction and clothing manufacture. I think there's a nonzero chance society essentially tears itself apart during the transition period. It is now the Republican party position that not all people deserve healthcare, housing, or enough food to eat. What happens when their hated segment of the populace gets much bigger in a job market that doesn't need cashiers, janitors, gardeners, cooks, taxi drivers, car washers, many farmers, or most menial labor? Also, I would note that creating AI that requires less control makes it more useful. So in some sense the development of AI itself fights against controls.
- delluminatus 12y ago
  I think this is a more legitimate concern than the fear of the "Matrix outcome" that some people seem to have. But, what you're describing is the process of people being replaced by technology. Generally speaking, this will probably not be a problem for a free-market economy, although it will certainly result in some unemployment. The key point is that replacing humans with machines does not only cause unemployment, but it also reduces cost of production, which stimulates capital investment and/or reduces prices in the industry in question. In the general economy, this reduced cost and increased production should offset the lost "purchasing power" from the now-unemployed parties. The stimulus reduces costs in other industries which promotes job growth. The end result is likely to be that the same number of people are employed, but they are employed in a more efficient manner of production. The cost of labor will decrease relative to the amount of production, however because this is tied to a decrease in cost of production, the real value of the labor (in terms of things you can buy) should not decrease. Of course there will be some disenfranchised individuals, especially those who have particular skills that are replaced my mechanization. However, this is more likely to affect skilled laborers (like cooks) than those who are not paid for their skills (like janitors or cashiers). In the end, I guess my point is that a free-market economy naturally balances these factors due to the relationship between supply and demand. However, it's possible that we will reach a point, especially if we truly do hit a Singularity, where we will have to reconsider the use of a scarcity-based economy at all, as production becomes completely divorced from any human action. Hopefully though, at that point the cost of goods will have naturally fallen to such a degree that the transition can be performed peacefully.
sp332 12y ago
Militaries are developing AI-controlled guns and mobile gun platforms. They have already accidentally killed humans. http://www.wired.com/2007/10/robot-cannon-ki/ http://www.wired.com/2007/10/robot-cannon-ki/ Another incident like this with more intelligence and mobility could kill a lot more people.

SquidMagnet 12y ago

It has been my experience that the more a particular person attempts to understand and control machine intelligence, the more she grows to fear it and its potential.

jeffreyrogers 12y ago
The only people who claim that machine intelligence is dangerous are the ones on the outside looking in. Everyone who actually works in on AI and understands it (hint, it's just search and mathematical optimization) thinks the fear surrounding it is absurd.
- sushirain 12y ago
  The fear is not absurd, but SMI is not going to materialize soon. We need to get ready, currently, by thinking about it.
- mej10 12y ago
  > Everyone who actually works in on AI and understands it thinks the fear surrounding it is absurd. This isn't true. Please don't state falsehoods. Stuart Russell, Michael Jordan, Shane Legg. Those are just the ones mentioned elsewhere in this thread.
- olalonde 12y ago
  How many of those AI researchers are actually working on AGI though? As you mentioned, most of them are in fact just developing search and optimisation algorithms. Personally, I believe the fields of neuroscience/biology are more likely to produce the first AGI. People who claim machine intelligence is dangerous are not scared of k-means clustering or neural networks, they are scared of an hypothetical general intelligence algorithm which hasn't been discovered yet. One could argue that the fear is absurd because AGI is not likely to happen within our lifetime but it's hard to argue that it will not happen eventually and be a potential threat.

typedweb 12y ago

> Its much more likely that we humans are excelling at dreaming up apocalyptic scenarios, much like we have always done..... There's always profit in predicting the end of the world.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

astrodust 12y ago

Exactly. A lot of these doomsday scenarios involve people remaining ignorant, stupid, helpless bags of meat with no ability to improve themselves or contain potential threats. It's like people freaking out that "superhuman strength machines" would spell the end of the world since why, if an electric motor is so powerful, would you need manual labor for anything? SMI is another tool and the interplay between "machine intelligence" and "human intelligence" will be complicated and nuanced. For example, biotech is filled with ferociously complicated problems that may take machine intelligence to solve. Once solved, these could lead to genetically engineered humans that are intrinsically smarter or better able to deal with the machines. This doesn't even touch on the fact that the distinction between machine intelligence and human intelligence might become quite blurred. Already I've noticed that people are "stupider" without their phones, they've offloaded a lot of cognitive functions on a device that's pretty much omni-present. A person with a smart phone today could be considered of superhuman intelligence since they're able to draw on significant resources a person without one doesn't have. A seven year old kid can tell you the capital of Tajikistan and the last ten presidents of Micronesia without breaking a sweat.

Houshalter 12y ago
The concerns about AGI are very real and none of these comments address any of the arguments made about them. I feel like someone in the 1930's trying to warn people about nuclear weapons. Everyone automatically assumes it's absurd and can't happen, that it's fear mongering etc. Fortunately nuclear weapons didn't destroy the world, but AI almost certainly will. No amount of smarthphone apps or genetic engineering is going to make humans anywhere near the level of superintelligent machines.
- astrodust 12y ago
  I'm confused. You mention nuclear weapons, which everyone was convinced would destroy the world and didn't, then go and claim that AGI, with the same potential, will assuredly do it. Just as nuclear weapons radically transformed the world, dramatically reducing the amount of armed conflict, AGI may have a similar transformative effect. I see no signs that this is going to lead to destruction. Is it really the sign of an intelligent machine to go all Skynet on us? Even that doomsday scenario had machine intelligences fighting for us. I think your pessimism is confusing the relative probability of the outcomes.

drzaiusapelord 12y ago

This is an ugly situation because usually the geeks defend technology from the luddites, but in these cases the geeks are the luddites. I find the more someone sees themselves as an intellectual the more they are afraid of AI. I guess a cynical explanation is that AI will knock them off that intellectual pedestal. Personally, I welcome something smarter than us. We've just been tip-toeing through endless warfare, poor economics, poor social policy, and occasionally skirting with nuclear destruction. Give the AI's a chance to contribute, especially if the solutions to problems we can't crack are because of human cognitive limits. This situation reminds me of how the Apollo landings couldn't be done without computers. There's just no way a person can do those calculations on paper. AI as a contributor of economic, technological, or social policy seems to be a similar step.

indrax 12y ago
Here are some hard problems to crack then, in particular Value Learning: https://intelligence.org/research-guide/ https://intelligence.org/research-guide/

x0x0 12y ago

I don't consider myself particularly alarmist about too many things, but I have to admit I'm a little worried about machine intelligence on one front: What happens when most people have no salable skills due to the combination of robotics and AI? We're essentially going to have to live w/ income supports for the 90+% of Americans, and worse for the countries to which we've exported eg electronic device construction and clothing manufacture. I think there's a nonzero chance society essentially tears itself apart during the transition period. It is now the Republican party position that not all people deserve healthcare, housing, or enough food to eat. What happens when their hated segment of the populace gets much bigger in a job market that doesn't need cashiers, janitors, gardeners, cooks, taxi drivers, car washers, many farmers, or most menial labor? Also, I would note that creating AI that requires less control makes it more useful. So in some sense the development of AI itself fights against controls.

delluminatus 12y ago
I think this is a more legitimate concern than the fear of the "Matrix outcome" that some people seem to have. But, what you're describing is the process of people being replaced by technology. Generally speaking, this will probably not be a problem for a free-market economy, although it will certainly result in some unemployment. The key point is that replacing humans with machines does not only cause unemployment, but it also reduces cost of production, which stimulates capital investment and/or reduces prices in the industry in question. In the general economy, this reduced cost and increased production should offset the lost "purchasing power" from the now-unemployed parties. The stimulus reduces costs in other industries which promotes job growth. The end result is likely to be that the same number of people are employed, but they are employed in a more efficient manner of production. The cost of labor will decrease relative to the amount of production, however because this is tied to a decrease in cost of production, the real value of the labor (in terms of things you can buy) should not decrease. Of course there will be some disenfranchised individuals, especially those who have particular skills that are replaced my mechanization. However, this is more likely to affect skilled laborers (like cooks) than those who are not paid for their skills (like janitors or cashiers). In the end, I guess my point is that a free-market economy naturally balances these factors due to the relationship between supply and demand. However, it's possible that we will reach a point, especially if we truly do hit a Singularity, where we will have to reconsider the use of a scarcity-based economy at all, as production becomes completely divorced from any human action. Hopefully though, at that point the cost of goods will have naturally fallen to such a degree that the transition can be performed peacefully.

sp332 12y ago

Militaries are developing AI-controlled guns and mobile gun platforms. They have already accidentally killed humans. http://www.wired.com/2007/10/robot-cannon-ki/ http://www.wired.com/2007/10/robot-cannon-ki/ Another incident like this with more intelligence and mobility could kill a lot more people.