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The Real Danger to Civilization Isn't AI. It's Runaway Capitalism

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Re: The Real Danger to Civilization Isn't AI. It's Runaway Capitalism

#11

Post by whatshisface »

throwaway1660 wrote: post #3

Just thought I'd drop by with this helpful link about Venezuela: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/17/world/america... There's a first time for everything. New kinds of disasters happen. However, we can identify a number of past and present civilizational collapses, going back to the 18th century, that appear to correlate strongly with what we might call "runaway socialism." It seems difficult to identify a…

That's an interesting point: if I had to guess at an explanation, I'd say that "runaway capitalism" makes people miserable and in well-franchised societies the people will always demand that the government step in (see: so much of US history, the fact that this article was written).

However, if the people of a country are asking that too much be "given" to them (I.E. more than the country actually has), who's going to stop that? It surely won't be the same people that supported the bad administrators to start with. The only people who resist this bad end are the fiscal conservatives that always keep an eye on the budget, and if they aren't there to start with (preventing the monetary crisis from starting in the first place) then, well, nobody's going to rally the "radical fiscal conservative revolutionary front."

Re: The Real Danger to Civilization Isn't AI. It's Runaway Capitalism

#12

Post by jackmott »

throwaway1660 wrote: post #3

Just thought I'd drop by with this helpful link about Venezuela: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/17/world/america... There's a first time for everything. New kinds of disasters happen. However, we can identify a number of past and present civilizational collapses, going back to the 18th century, that appear to correlate strongly with what we might call "runaway socialism." It seems difficult to identify a…

and why do you think people keep turning to socialism? could it be because capitalism has a tendency to run amok?

Re: The Real Danger to Civilization Isn't AI. It's Runaway Capitalism

#13

Post by civilian »

Runaway capitalism, oh shit. So that does that mean:

- Global poverty will continue to decrease

- We'll get a variety of options to choose from whenever we want to buy something

- We'll get to choose how to spend our own money

- We'll get quick and diligent service

- If we don't like something, we can choose to stop buying it or working for them?

The horror!!!!!

Re: The Real Danger to Civilization Isn't AI. It's Runaway Capitalism

#14

Post by laretluval »

wernercd wrote: post #8
eref wrote: post #5

Why not both?

Why not neither? The greatest danger to Civilization, in my not-so-humble opinion is tribalism. My country is better. My religion. My political philosophy. My color. My sex. My gender. And I'll riot and kill if you don't agree. Capitalism? Socialism? AI? Those won't overcome the stupidity of large populations of humans.

Tribalism has been around for the entire course of civilization, and has decreased over time since we got the idea that it's a bad thing. So if civilization seems like it's in trouble now then it seems unlikely that tribalism is the cause.

Re: The Real Danger to Civilization Isn't AI. It's Runaway Capitalism

#15

Post by aaron-lebo »

civilian wrote: post #9
aaron-lebo wrote: post #2

Nicely done Buzzfeed. Billionaires like Bill Gates and Elon Musk assume that a superintelligent AI will stop at nothing to achieves its goals because that’s the attitude they adopted. Kind of reminds one of Ex Machina . If amoral profit maximizers design AI, it's very possibly gonna be an amoral profit maximizer. It still irrationally bothers me after 30 years of shitty MS products and Gates literally preventing tech…

But he's not donating to the church for "penance". He's helping save lives from malaria, and working on other projects to help the developing world! You can't dismiss that, and he's giving away so much of his money that it can't be considered a "fee". He's gonna 90% of it away by the time he's done.

Of course and you can't knock him for doing that. It's good, good for him. We could at least acknowledge that others didn't accumulate that wealth because their standards for business were higher than his.

Re: The Real Danger to Civilization Isn't AI. It's Runaway Capitalism

#16

Post by jerf »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #2

Nicely done Buzzfeed. Billionaires like Bill Gates and Elon Musk assume that a superintelligent AI will stop at nothing to achieves its goals because that’s the attitude they adopted. Kind of reminds one of Ex Machina . If amoral profit maximizers design AI, it's very possibly gonna be an amoral profit maximizer. It still irrationally bothers me after 30 years of shitty MS products and Gates literally preventing tech…

"If amoral profit maximizers design AI, it's very possibly gonna be an amoral profit maximizer."

The argument from those concerned about AI is richer than that. Any AI, and indeed, any Intelligence in general can be viewed as maximizing its results along a certain gradiant, no matter how complicated that gradient may be. If an AI determines that improving itself would help it achieve its goals, and there isn't some sort of natural limit to intelligence that would stop it, the first one to develop will improve itself until it is exceedingly good at maximizing that metric, whatever it may be. Even if someone quite altruistic comes along and programs this first AI to "maximize the happiness of humans", and gets even a slight bit sloppy with their gradient, they may create an AI that optimizes the universe for human happiness by converting the entire universe into human pleasure centers being stimulated at the maximum possible rate, and nothing else that you might be concerned about, such as your forebrain or visual center or anything else that you may think makes you human, but the highly altruistic and very well-meaning AI programmer neglected to specify in their definition of human.

Here's another way of looking at the AI concerns: Let us stipulate a magical force in the universe that constrains AIs to be "fairly benevolent". Can you, right now, mathematically specify what a human is, and mathematically specify the best thing for humanity, in such a way that you are willing to 100% commit yourself and all humans to those definitions, rigidly, and for all time? And are you comfortable with the fact that it probably won't be you deciding?

For context, I'm not necessarily a big believer in this argument, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth at least thinking about, and characterizing correctly.

Re: The Real Danger to Civilization Isn't AI. It's Runaway Capitalism

#17

Post by dragonwriter »

whatshisface wrote: post #11
throwaway1660 wrote: post #3

Just thought I'd drop by with this helpful link about Venezuela: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/17/world/america... There's a first time for everything. New kinds of disasters happen. However, we can identify a number of past and present civilizational collapses, going back to the 18th century, that appear to correlate strongly with what we might call "runaway socialism." It seems difficult to identify a…

That's an interesting point: if I had to guess at an explanation, I'd say that "runaway capitalism" makes people miserable and in well-franchised societies the people will always demand that the government step in (see: so much of US history, the fact that this article was written). However, if the people of a country are asking that too much be "given" to them (I.E. more than the country actually has), who's going t…

> However, if the people of a country are asking that too much be "given" to them (I.E. more than the country actually has), who's going to stop that?

The external actors from whom such goods must come will, as historically they always eventually have.

Re: The Real Danger to Civilization Isn't AI. It's Runaway Capitalism

#18

Post by Id15eba6u »

It's runaway capitalism It's runaway socialism It's runaway what-ever-ism

As always it's hard to take anything from buzzfeed serious when they are so obviously biased in everything they post. What ever thing can 'runaway' is a threat to civilization, from pollution to propaganda in the news.

Re: The Real Danger to Civilization Isn't AI. It's Runaway Capitalism

#20

Post by [deleted] »

laretluval wrote: post #14
wernercd wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not neither? The greatest danger to Civilization, in my not-so-humble opinion is tribalism. My country is better. My religion. My political philosophy. My color. My sex. My gender. And I'll riot and kill if you don't agree. Capitalism? Socialism? AI? Those won't overcome the stupidity of large populations of humans.

Tribalism has been around for the entire course of civilization, and has decreased over time since we got the idea that it's a bad thing. So if civilization seems like it's in trouble now then it seems unlikely that tribalism is the cause.

[deleted]
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