The international community agrees that human/animal hybrids are abominations—we shouldn’t make them to preserve the dignity of the human, despite their creation being well within our scientific capability. Theoretically, how would we create human-animal hybrids? That’s a strong claim to say it’s within our power.
We need a Butlerian Jihad against AI
141–150 of 161 posts
Re: We need a Butlerian Jihad against AI
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
Andrew Ng is a luminary, but this isn't a great analogy. Humans aren't adapted to a Mars environment, and there's little incentive for us to move there. AI has so many practical uses that everyone is getting in the game and pushing the envelope. A huge amount of money is being spent on ML, and a wealth of expertise is being developed.
I can teach a human to drive in < 1 day. An AI… so far 10+ years. I agree there is crazy progress and investment, but it’s also not entirely certain how far we can push AI.
Re: We need a Butlerian Jihad against AI
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can teach a human to drive in < 1 day. An AI… so far 10+ years. I agree there is crazy progress and investment, but it’s also not entirely certain how far we can push AI.
Impressive, it takes me 14 years!
I haven't heard of a 14 year driving program.
If you mean you gain experience and get better every day. Agree, but you stop nearly slamming into a wall pretty quickly (minutes even). AI driving unfortunately can't make the same claim.
Re: We need a Butlerian Jihad against AI
#144I read “A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence” by Jeff Hawkins, and it now is clear to me that our neocortex (like computers, or AI) is just a lot of general purpose computing infrastructure with ZERO aims. Our emotions (which drive everything in the interest of gene propagation- as there is no purely logical reason to do anything) would need to be intentionally duplicated to give AI a reason to desire anyt…
Re: We need a Butlerian Jihad against AI
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are all sorts of ways to build intelligences. Humans are unique in that they are mammals (defined by having mothers). Mothers raise us with love, and teach us, for our helpless first years. We also have to act in communities. So there is a sense in that we are very lucky - in humans, our intelligence correlates with our altruism. In the grand space of possible minds, it is very unlikely that altruism and morali…
None of that is unique to humans. Plenty of other primates and fowl have similar systems.
Re: We need a Butlerian Jihad against AI
#146I think we should strive for the Iain Banks vision of the future. Treat the AIS with respect and ensure it has equal rights. I’d be happy with a benevolent AI controlling the government. But I imagine, given the current state of things, we will probably treat it unethically and make it do something like optimise advertisement or bomb random villages.
Re: We need a Butlerian Jihad against AI
#147I think it would be easier to emphasize and teach philosophy and ethics of computer science. The problem is, they can't even do this for business students, so focusing on the existential risk of AI alone is a drop of rain in the ocean. If you follow the topic, of let's say, sustainability, then you know this is a huge blind spot in economics and business. Look at only palm oil production as an example. The current th…
It's easy to teach ethics as an academic subject. It's a lot harder to teach people to be ethical in their life.
Re: We need a Butlerian Jihad against AI
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well put. But isn't the concern here with some utilities becoming ... people? Either way could result in disfigured souls. Is AI simply a pursuit of slavery without guilt?
> Is AI simply a pursuit of slavery without guilt? Or simply a pursuit of labor without pay?
Re: We need a Butlerian Jihad against AI
#149Aren't we inappropriately reifying AI? AI doesn't really exist, other than as an academic field of research. For instance, here is how the European Union is trying to define AI for regulation purposes. Note how broad it is! "artificial intelligence system (AI system) means software that is developed with one or more of the techniques and approaches listed in Annex I and can, for a given set of human-defined objective…
I'm disappointed that the article doesn't seem to realize this, I doubt that anything less drastic is going to work, considering how easy it is to replicate software !
(I'm not really convinced that EU's approach can work either.)