We need a Butlerian Jihad against AI
erikhoel.substack.com
We need a Butlerian Jihad against AI
1–10 of 161 posts
Re: We need a Butlerian Jihad against AI
#2Don’t come across many Dune references these days.
Re: We need a Butlerian Jihad against AI
#3Yes. The inevitable defeatism that will show up in these comments is
"Oh, but China will do it anyway, so there's no point."
Which is pretty easily counterable:
1) We don't know if China would cooperate with a ban. We haven't tried. China is very complicated, and if you think you can predict what Xi will do, you are wrong.
2) If AI is truly a global existential and moral crisis, the US _could_ absolutely shut down China's AI research capabilities. There are a few avenues here, some less pleasant than others. Think outside the box.
Re: We need a Butlerian Jihad against AI
#4Don’t come across many Dune references these days.
well - prepare for a lot of them after the movie comes out...
Re: We need a Butlerian Jihad against AI
#5> “Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind.”
Great. We aren’t!
Re: We need a Butlerian Jihad against AI
#6Re: We need a Butlerian Jihad against AI
#7> To slim results. Elon Musk explained his new nihilism about the possibility of stopping AI advancement on the Joe Rogan podcast, when he said:
“I tried to convince people to slow down. Slow down AI. To regulate AI. This was futile. I tried for years. Nobody listened. Nobody listened.”
Rather rich coming from one of the self driving car market leaders. It certainly makes business sense to mislead academia and the policy sector into wasting resources on figuring out the best philosophical and ethical regime while large corporations benefit from regulatory capture. If he has his way, ML would become like the pharmaceutical industry, with multiple barriers of entry if you are not well-funded, well-connected, or established.
Re: We need a Butlerian Jihad against AI
#8I think the cat is out of the bag when it comes to AI and its potential, and you simply can't regulate and trust foreign nations to play ball. The possible gains are too big to expect everyone to get together and consider the downside carefully, i.e no coordination on the morality or risks; winner takes all will be the prevalent mindset when the first player hits major strides. It's going to be an arms race sort of scenario aimed at automation and productivity until it reaches the military industry, then we'll see.
You know, as I am reading The Cultures series, I can't help imagine how much fun would be to have a Mind taking care of a few things for us.
Re: We need a Butlerian Jihad against AI
#9We should be actively building this new "AI Species" because we are going to be extinct eventually and should think about making a better successor for the human species. The morality argument is nonsense.
How about this: "The primary objective of humanity should be to build an intelligent system with far more precise perception, reasoning and physical manipulation capabilities than humans"
That's my starting point.
Re: We need a Butlerian Jihad against AI
#10Yes. The inevitable defeatism that will show up in these comments is "Oh, but China will do it anyway, so there's no point." Which is pretty easily counterable: 1) We don't know if China would cooperate with a ban. We haven't tried. China is very complicated, and if you think you can predict what Xi will do, you are wrong. 2) If AI is truly a global existential and moral crisis, the US _could_ absolutely shut down Ch…
Agreed, these are both good replies to that (which is probably the most common response for some reason)