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Dude, You Broke the Future (2017)

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Re: Dude, You Broke the Future (2017)

#81

Post by Nursie »

Stierlitz wrote: post #59
Nursie wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're firmly in the realm of sci-fi (which we are) I find the idea of a neuron-by-neuron replacement of the human brain by nano-sized computational units that function exactly the same way as those neurons, to be a more interesting proposition. Can it be done in a way that doesn't imply the death of the subject?

> .. Can it be done in a way that doesn't imply the death of the subject? The key word is replacement. Can this replacement vote or inherit property? What happens if there is a clerical error and they make two replacements. Which one is the real you?

Oh absolutely, I think that is the key thing. Personally I'd never get into a transporter such as they are portrayed in Star Trek - what comes out the other end may well be a perfect reconstruction, and think it is me, and behave to the outside world as if it is me. But would there be a continuity of conscious experience? Or am I dead and a facsimile is now in my place?

Incidentally, this is why I can't take Roko's Basilisk at all seriously - a future simulation of me is not me. Well, it;s one reason anyway.

Re: Dude, You Broke the Future (2017)

#82

Post by perl4ever »

bitwize wrote: post #29
bawolff wrote: post #12

> Nobody in 2007 was expecting a Nazi revival in 2017, right? Is that actually true? I seem to remember people predicting that usa has been edging towards facism for a while now, especially in the aftermath of 9/11. For example here is an article from 2003 predicting usa is heading towards fasicism https://secularhumanism.org/2003/03/fascism-anyone/

Nobody among the intellectual class anticipated Trump's election in 2016. Much like physicists hypothesized dark matter to account for the apparent greater mass necessary to stabilize galaxies and such, the political intelligentsia hypothesized an enormous, hidden body of "dark Nazis" to account for their chosen candidate not winning the election. It is unfathomable to them that enough people in the center, center-ri…

He won the election by winning the electoral college. You know, I know, everybody knows that.

There is no need to explain where an "enormous hidden body" of votes came from because it didn't. There is no need to explain why the polls were wrong, because they were as accurate as they normally are. There is no need to explain why elites were wrong about what the people thought because they weren't. And there's no reason to argue about whether the election was rigged, because Trump said it was.

Re: Dude, You Broke the Future (2017)

#83

Post by nemothekid »

Comparing Corporation to Sci-Fi super AI's is missing the point I think. I don't think the author literally believe corporations are AGIs, he starts with the point that corporations are "old, slow AIs". The article starts from a single argument - we have to be careful with AIs that are smarter than us, because if we don't instruct them carefully, we will end up in a paperclip maximizer situation. From there I take away 2 main points:

1. We do a shit job today of controlling "old, slow" paperclip maximizers, so there's no confidence we will ever be any better controlling an AI, despite any good intentions.

2. Our wild exotic ideas about paperclip maximizers probably won't come to fruition and instead we will end up in a boring dystopia where AIs will maximize time spent playing Farmville on Facebook.

Re: Dude, You Broke the Future (2017)

#84

Post by jengleton »

grawprog wrote: post #74
jengleton wrote: post #5

Robert Miles has an interesting response to the claim that corporations are AIs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5pUA3LsEaw To paraphrase: yes, corporations function as agents, but their maximum performance is limited by the capabilities of their employees. A corporate AI may have a much broader set of skills than any single person, and may be able to tackle many concurrent tasks, but as an "intelligent agent" its d…

By that logic, wouldn't any organization, team or group of people doing things together be an ai? Corporations aren't the only kind of grouping of people together one or more purposes as a unit. This definition also seems to ignore the 'artificial' part of artificial intelligence. If we're going to stretch the definition of ai that thin, wouldn't a school of fish or a flock of birds be considered 'ai'? Or at least an…

If I were to paraphrase the comparison, it might be something like:

"An AI is some constructed entity which, starting with a goal, uses its intelligence to make changes to the world in order to bring that goal to fruition. One of the things about AI that is worrying is that its system-of-values might have no relation whatsoever to those possessed by human beings, and the best way for it to accomplish its goals might be to do things that most people would consider quite nasty. AI systems that are trying to maximize something are in constant tension with the laws that we put in place to try to keep them from steamrolling over everything in pursuit of their goals. Corporations fit the bill, under the assumption that the goal is 'maximize shareholder value'."

While a nest of ants or a swarm of bees certainly exhibit interesting emergent behavior, perhaps even collective intelligence, they 1). aren't constructed and 2). don't have clear goals.

You could argue that smaller groups of people fit the bill too, I guess. Maybe the difference is that corporations tend to have distinct goals which outlive their members, and that they have special recognition under the law as independent entities. Not sure.

Re: Dude, You Broke the Future (2017)

#85

Post by plushpuffin »

ALittleLight wrote: post #62
worldsayshi wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tesla [...] is clearly not a different class of intelligence from [...] corporations I believe he just used Tesla as an example of corporation not as something new or special. > the point of the paperclip thought experiment is, broadly, that an AI's interests might not be aligned with our own and that misalignment may cause serious problems. But (some) corporations clearly do share this aspect to some extent. They…

Most, if not all, corporations are misaligned to humanity's well-being. That is, they want money, and that's not exactly the same thing as what would be best for humanity. This is okay though because corporations are the same class and kind of intelligence as the rest of humanity and so they can be (somewhat) predicted and constrained by our laws and norms. Because corporations are the same class of intelligence, the…

I think one of the big problems with trying to predict and constrain corporations is that they all basically have OCD. They are obsessed with whatever it is they do and they task all their agents with figuring out how to optimize and achieve that one thing (or multiple related things if they're organized into divisions).

While the corporation might not possess superintelligence, trying to thwart it it when its actions are harmful to society is like having a crazy neighbor. You just want to relax when you're home from work; you can't dedicate all your free time and attention to constantly monitoring and pushing back against someone who is on a crusade to achieve a petty, limited goal and seemingly has no other interests to occupy their time.

Re: Dude, You Broke the Future (2017)

#86

Post by drdeca »

choward wrote: post #52
jariel wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I should have added 'with a charter' - and then, corporations are literally just that - formalised groups working together with some ostensibly stated purpose. The legal enfranchisement of such organisations is something contextual to the establishment of broader legal frameworks, which happened later in civilisation (i.e. Modern Era), but even then, one could apply the same ideal to Noble Houses, which derived their…

> formalised groups working together with some ostensibly stated purpose Increasing shareholder value. There is no other goal that any corporation has unless corruption is involved.

Aren’t “public benefit” corporations a thing? Where they have both the goal of profit and also some other goal(s) set out in their charter or whatever?

Re: Dude, You Broke the Future (2017)

#87

Post by pdonis »

dodobirdlord wrote: post #51
pdonis wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they aren't. Corporations don't magically do things that the group of actors working together don't do.

They literally do. Plenty of legal and regulatory constructs apply only to corporations. Limited liability is a thing that is available by forming a corporation, as is carrying out an SEC filing and selling stock. A corporation can also survive, as a legal construct, the deaths of all founding members.

> They literally do.

None of the things you describe make corporations magically able to do things without the group of people that make up the corporation doing things.

Re: Dude, You Broke the Future (2017)

#88

Post by Animats »

A point I've made on here before is the big near-term risk from AI is not general-purpose artificial intelligence. It's machine learning systems that do a better job of making corporate decisions than humans. Corporations are shareholder value maximizers. There's a powerful school of thought, the Chicago School, which claims that's all they should be, and have no other responsibilities.

Machine learning systems are really good at maximizing some defined criterion. It's quite possible that they might get good at making corporate decisions. They already do that for some investment funds.

Once machine learning systems are better at corporate decision making than humans, market forces will demand they be put in charge. The companies with inferior human-based technology will start to lose out. That's implicit in the forces behind capitalism.

Be afraid, CEOs. Be very afraid. The machines are coming to take your job.

(Somebody should turn this into a TED talk.)

Re: Dude, You Broke the Future (2017)

#89

Post by bigiain »

zaphar wrote: post #9
jengleton wrote: post #5

Robert Miles has an interesting response to the claim that corporations are AIs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5pUA3LsEaw To paraphrase: yes, corporations function as agents, but their maximum performance is limited by the capabilities of their employees. A corporate AI may have a much broader set of skills than any single person, and may be able to tackle many concurrent tasks, but as an "intelligent agent" its d…

I don't think the comparison was to AI as a super intelligence. AI doesn't have to be a super intelligence to be AI or to be dangerous.

In fact sub-par artificial intelligence is probably at least as dangerous as sub-par human intelligence, when we let it loose with significant power/authority in the real world.

(for supporting evidence to this claim, see "high frequency trading", "self driving cars", and "the leader of the free world" )

Re: Dude, You Broke the Future (2017)

#90

Post by dleslie »

Animats wrote: post #88

A point I've made on here before is the big near-term risk from AI is not general-purpose artificial intelligence. It's machine learning systems that do a better job of making corporate decisions than humans. Corporations are shareholder value maximizers. There's a powerful school of thought, the Chicago School, which claims that's all they should be, and have no other responsibilities. Machine learning systems are r…

Be afraid, humanity. All that stands between humanity and the short-term exploitation in unregulated niches where there are long-term negative externalities is human oversight with its pesky feelings.

And even that fails us too often.

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