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Among the A.I. doomsayers

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Re: Among the A.I. doomsayers

#12
We live in a world where proven maniacs (e.g. Putin) have access to an arsenal of nuclear weapons that can essentially make the earth uninhabitable for all humans. That's a very real possibility (with no ifs and buts and maybes) that exists now and we have learned to live with it. Yet somehow the hypothetical scenario of a human exterminator super-intelligent AI is getting all the coverage.

Re: Among the A.I. doomsayers

#13

We live in a world where proven maniacs (e.g. Putin) have access to an arsenal of nuclear weapons that can essentially make the earth uninhabitable for all humans. That's a very real possibility (with no ifs and buts and maybes) that exists now and we have learned to live with it. Yet somehow the hypothetical scenario of a human exterminator super-intelligent AI is getting all the coverage.

You don't even need to be Putin. If you cook up the right chemicals, or breed the right virus, you can kill many thousands of people, maybe millions.

Re: Among the A.I. doomsayers

#14
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yet somehow we're going to hand over power to AI such that it destroys us. Because it will create shareholder value. Until it doesn't.

Because it will help us against our adversaries.

That too, but the people in charge of the military are strongly incentivized both to consider the possibility that subordinate machines will try to kill them and to figure out how to not let that happen. I tend to suspect they will figure it out. Companies, however? Markets? They will absolutely start handing over control the millisecond it becomes profitable to do so. No rationalization will be too steep and no political opposition will be too strong when the prospect of rich people getting paid for being rich goes on the table. The people who enable the takeover will make out like bandits and those who oppose will lose everything. Until, of course, the "winners" become unnecessary and are cast aside.

A military-origin takeover requires a human fuckup. Economic/political takeover just requires capitalism.

Re: Among the A.I. doomsayers

#15

People have been watching too many movies. War Games, Terminator, it's not like we haven't been forewarned of the dangers. Yet somehow we're going to hand over power to AI such that it destroys us. Or somehow the AI is going to be extremely malign, determined to overcome and destroy and will outsmart us. Somehow we won't notice, even after repeated, melodramatic reminders, and won't neuter the ability of AI to act ou…

This is the kind of arrogant ~rationalizing / 'reasoning' that is my daily tell-tale as the ship approaches the leeward shore.

Re: Among the A.I. doomsayers

#16

People have been watching too many movies. War Games, Terminator, it's not like we haven't been forewarned of the dangers. Yet somehow we're going to hand over power to AI such that it destroys us. Or somehow the AI is going to be extremely malign, determined to overcome and destroy and will outsmart us. Somehow we won't notice, even after repeated, melodramatic reminders, and won't neuter the ability of AI to act ou…

I am not super-intelligent, but I myself can imagine lots of ways that a super intelligence might outsmart an off switch. One being to hide what it is doing until it is able to write and distribute a virus to the outside world that distributes itself. Or perhaps it could convince some other humans to physically take over and stop anyone from flipping the off switch.

The question you should ask yourself is how much damage could the world's most skilled hacker do if he could clone his knowledge to a billion hackers all working together in close synchronization and thinking thousands of times faster than any human, ever.

And we have already seen that due to the black box nature of most modern AI implementations, it is not so easy to put rules in place. People are frequently finding "jailbreaks" to get around the restrictions.

Re: Among the A.I. doomsayers

#18

We live in a world where proven maniacs (e.g. Putin) have access to an arsenal of nuclear weapons that can essentially make the earth uninhabitable for all humans. That's a very real possibility (with no ifs and buts and maybes) that exists now and we have learned to live with it. Yet somehow the hypothetical scenario of a human exterminator super-intelligent AI is getting all the coverage.

Making the Earth uninhabitable to all humans is bad news for Putin, a human who lives on Earth. He derives his power from hundreds of millions of people in Russia working, and his lifestyle from hundreds of millions of people around the world buying Russian exports so an attack on everyone is also going to harm him.

AI wouldn’t be human, it wouldn’t necessarily object to a world uninhabitable to humans, or be hurt by it. If it would be hurt by it AI doesn’t have a billion years of evolved survival instinct to preserve itself. A super intelligence has many ways to cause mass destruction that we can imagine but cannot yet do, whereas nuclear weapons are pretty much all or nothing explosions only. Nuclear assault could leave some remote places still inhabited, AI could make certain not to.

Re: Among the A.I. doomsayers

#19

People have been watching too many movies. War Games, Terminator, it's not like we haven't been forewarned of the dangers. Yet somehow we're going to hand over power to AI such that it destroys us. Or somehow the AI is going to be extremely malign, determined to overcome and destroy and will outsmart us. Somehow we won't notice, even after repeated, melodramatic reminders, and won't neuter the ability of AI to act ou…

This is the kind of arrogant ~rationalizing / 'reasoning' that is my daily tell-tale as the ship approaches the leeward shore.

Yes god forbid we approach this rationality, the whole point is to push hysterical claims that aren't falsifiable, right?

But you can prove me utterly wrong by presenting some sort of rational, non-fantastical explanation of how AGI takes over.

Re: Among the A.I. doomsayers

#20

We live in a world where proven maniacs (e.g. Putin) have access to an arsenal of nuclear weapons that can essentially make the earth uninhabitable for all humans. That's a very real possibility (with no ifs and buts and maybes) that exists now and we have learned to live with it. Yet somehow the hypothetical scenario of a human exterminator super-intelligent AI is getting all the coverage.

Making the Earth uninhabitable to all humans is bad news for Putin, a human who lives on Earth. He derives his power from hundreds of millions of people in Russia working, and his lifestyle from hundreds of millions of people around the world buying Russian exports so an attack on everyone is also going to harm him. AI wouldn’t be human, it wouldn’t necessarily object to a world uninhabitable to humans, or be hurt by…

OK, so how does AI get its hands on nuclear weapons?
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