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The illusion of AI’s existential risk

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Re: The illusion of AI’s existential risk

#21

Post by RC_ITR »

janalsncm wrote: post #16
rootusrootus wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We could end up in a world where 99.99% of people are redundant and useless cost centers for our GDP maximizing economic paradigm If 99% of consumers no longer have money to spend, GDP will definitely not be maximized.

They don’t need to be consumer goods. $1000 spent on clothes is the same as $1000 spent on GPUs as far as GDP is concerned. Headless businesses swapping dollars around creates plenty of GDP with few to no people involved.

A common fallacy is thinking that transactions exist without a human at either end of it (usually due to many layers of complexity in between).

You can talk all you want about companies selling to companies, etc., but at the end of the day everything on earth is owned by a human eventually.

Even high-frequency trades between two hedge funds are done with capital that was supplied by Limited Partners who probably are acting on behalf of pensioners.

The scenario you're describing is one of extreme wealth inequality, which is a real problem, but one that's supposed to be solvable through democratic means. Stopping technological progress isn't going to solve it.

Re: The illusion of AI’s existential risk

#22

Post by semi-extrinsic »

janalsncm wrote: post #16
rootusrootus wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We could end up in a world where 99.99% of people are redundant and useless cost centers for our GDP maximizing economic paradigm If 99% of consumers no longer have money to spend, GDP will definitely not be maximized.

They don’t need to be consumer goods. $1000 spent on clothes is the same as $1000 spent on GPUs as far as GDP is concerned. Headless businesses swapping dollars around creates plenty of GDP with few to no people involved.

Just a tinge of broken window fallacy there?

Re: The illusion of AI’s existential risk

#23

Post by __loam »

ggm wrote: post #6

AGI doesn't ever have to happen for rapid deployment of AI based systems to cause harm. Google "robodebt australia" for what happens when government uses machine derived decisions to penalise the poor.

That point is basically what the article is about.

Re: The illusion of AI’s existential risk

#24

Post by __loam »

JimtheCoder wrote: post #20
more_corn wrote: post #17

The distant future. Like five years. Self-aware (or a simulation thereof) AGI with self-directed motivation and the ability to self modify is barely a half step from ASI. And AGI could happen in the coming year. Five if you wanna be pessimistic. Never if you’re extraordinarily pessimistic but that’s looking unlikely. If it’s possible it’s possible now. This isn’t the Yellowstone super volcano that might blow in the n…

"And AGI could happen in the coming year." "People who talk like this are idiotic at best."

Someone built what is essentially a fancy markov chain that was trained to look convincing to people and people think that's going to lead to AGI lol.

Re: The illusion of AI’s existential risk

#25

Post by RC_ITR »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #22
janalsncm wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don’t need to be consumer goods. $1000 spent on clothes is the same as $1000 spent on GPUs as far as GDP is concerned. Headless businesses swapping dollars around creates plenty of GDP with few to no people involved.

Just a tinge of broken window fallacy there?

The broken window fallacy is a controversial axiom that implies demand generation isn't a meaningful way to increase GDP (it comes from the camp that believes output capacity is the only true measure of GDP).

This concept became particularly controversial during the Cambridge Capital Controversy [0].

If you believe that GDP is an exogenous measure of what society can produce, you run into oddities like global GDP changing trajectory in 2008 [1] (i.e. we never 'caught up' but did the US housing crisis really cause the human race to lose our ability to create more goods and services?).

On the other hand, if you believe demand drives GDP, then why don't we just demand ourselves into more wealth? Shouldn't natural constraints like resource scarcity then drive GDP (i.e. the original underpinning of the broken window fallacy)?

In either case, the broken window fallacy is far from an agreed-upon axiom.

[0]https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/08953300332116501... [1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.PP.CD

Re: The illusion of AI’s existential risk

#26

Post by version_five »

__loam wrote: post #24
JimtheCoder wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"And AGI could happen in the coming year." "People who talk like this are idiotic at best."

Someone built what is essentially a fancy markov chain that was trained to look convincing to people and people think that's going to lead to AGI lol.

"Introducing the AI Mirror Test, which very smart people keep failing"

https://www.theverge.com/23604075/ai-chatbots-bing-chatgpt-i...

Re: The illusion of AI’s existential risk

#27

Post by Aerroon »

janalsncm wrote: post #7

I don’t understand why economic disruption and human obsolescence isn’t considered an existential risk. We could end up in a world where 99.99% of people are redundant and useless cost centers for our GDP maximizing economic paradigm. In that case, you don’t need killer robots in order to push humanity towards near-extinction. The invisible hand will smite them. But don’t worry, TED Talk attendee. The obsoletariat mo…

>I don’t understand why economic disruption and human obsolescence isn’t considered an existential risk.

Because that's the goal of our economic system! If everything could be made with no human labor requirement, then the price of these goods is going to trend towards zero. The disruption is going to cause pain, but ultimately that's what we've always been after.

Re: The illusion of AI’s existential risk

#28

Post by RandomLensman »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #14
janalsncm wrote: post #7

I don’t understand why economic disruption and human obsolescence isn’t considered an existential risk. We could end up in a world where 99.99% of people are redundant and useless cost centers for our GDP maximizing economic paradigm. In that case, you don’t need killer robots in order to push humanity towards near-extinction. The invisible hand will smite them. But don’t worry, TED Talk attendee. The obsoletariat mo…

It's a bizarre and blinkered article. The most immediate dangers are economic. We already have a hopelessly unstable economic system, with increasing swathes of the population economically disenfranchised. AI is more likely to accelerate that than prevent it. The other immediate dangers are social and political. When one person with resources can run an AI-enhanced troll farm and social media PR engine - not even rem…

AI could also be used for counter PR. Eventually, societies could shut down social media or ban use of AI content for political purposes, for example.

I would also expect a huge uptick in bureaucracy from AI, so lots of new jobs will spring up.

Re: The illusion of AI’s existential risk

#29

Post by gumballindie »

janalsncm wrote: post #7

I don’t understand why economic disruption and human obsolescence isn’t considered an existential risk. We could end up in a world where 99.99% of people are redundant and useless cost centers for our GDP maximizing economic paradigm. In that case, you don’t need killer robots in order to push humanity towards near-extinction. The invisible hand will smite them. But don’t worry, TED Talk attendee. The obsoletariat mo…

It is, just not by the media. They only worry when their jobs are threatened. The rest of us can have cake.

Re: The illusion of AI’s existential risk

#30

Post by jefftk »

version_five wrote: post #5
martythemaniak wrote: post #2

We live in a very confusing, transitory time. Right now there's a large chunk of people who are convinced that we are a few years away from extinction if we do not ration out GPUs and bomb illegal clusters of compute, while at the same time there's a large chunk that believes that a car can never navigate a single-lane one-way tunnel safely without a driver (ie, The Boring Company). Absolutely wild.

I've only seen grifters, hysterics, or the ignorant talking about existential AI risk. A lot of people just nods their heads and go along, but I don't think there are many that have really thought about it (and understand what modern AI is) that really belive the risk. It's more like political polarization where people dwell on something they don't agree with to the point where they treat it as if the world is going…

> I've only seen grifters, hysterics, or the ignorant talking about existential AI risk.

Which category would you put Geoffrey Hinton in? https://www.utoronto.ca/news/risks-artificial-intelligence-m...

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