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Among the A.I. doomsayers

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Re: Among the A.I. doomsayers

#341

Post by supertimor »

bamboozled wrote: post #253
Kostic wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you consider it if they started affecting your life? Like, making it hard to build on land you just bought?

True story from me. I almost bought a house that was eaten severely by white ants. The problem wasn’t the ants, it was the way the slab was formed which caused the slab to crack and the house was also built into the mud of a road side embankment. Due to this crap design the ants could access the wood and had access to water from the mud. I assessed all of this and figured it wasn’t the ants fault, they were doing wha…

That was very kind of you, and I appreciate that you value life so much, no matter how small; but I’m going to say you are an extreme outlier.

Realistically, how many people would go to all that trouble to save an ant nest on land that they are building on? And that’s not mentioning how many ants probably died in the move or were left behind and died in the rebuilding of the foundation, even despite all the care you took.

Re: Among the A.I. doomsayers

#342

Post by HKH2 »

kouru225 wrote: post #325
HKH2 wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would an AGI stick to what seems to be a set of arbitrary rules and not look outside of them? The AGI would be smarter than that, no? Or is there a way to make an AGI immune to hubris?

What makes you think morality is arbitrary? Morals are instilled by the superego. The superego is an internalized version of your parents. You decided to do your homework because your parents told to, but now you’re much older. Does it still seem like doing homework was an arbitrary decision? Of course not. It had a purpose and a goal that was well-thought out. You just couldn’t understand it as a child because you’d…

> What makes you think morality is arbitrary?

I never said it is; my point was that to someone hubristic it is. That's why I said 'seems to'. An AGI wouldn't have a superego, so by your definition, it could never understand morals, and it wouldn't be surprising if it discarded them or tried to argue its way out of being subject to them. That's what the snake did in the story of the garden of Eden.

Re: Among the A.I. doomsayers

#343

Post by kouru225 »

HKH2 wrote: post #342
kouru225 wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think morality is arbitrary? Morals are instilled by the superego. The superego is an internalized version of your parents. You decided to do your homework because your parents told to, but now you’re much older. Does it still seem like doing homework was an arbitrary decision? Of course not. It had a purpose and a goal that was well-thought out. You just couldn’t understand it as a child because you’d…

> What makes you think morality is arbitrary? I never said it is; my point was that to someone hubristic it is. That's why I said 'seems to'. An AGI wouldn't have a superego, so by your definition, it could never understand morals, and it wouldn't be surprising if it discarded them or tried to argue its way out of being subject to them. That's what the snake did in the story of the garden of Eden.

“Hubris” is a moral judgment that implies a strategic outcome.

An AGI wouldn’t have a superego, but it would have the ability to study data across really long timescales and apply itself to long term strategies that would supersede the need for a superego. Since we apply morality as a shorthand for describing agreed upon negative consequences for complex behaviors, we can assume that an AI can overcome this need by simply calculating out the full consequences of complex behaviors without the need for any shorthand. And we can assume that AI can even iterate on and develop on its own understanding of these complex calculations much faster than a human can, making it significantly better at navigating moral issues.

We’ve had plenty of ideas that were later found out to be wrong (if not more.) I’d be just as afraid of an AI that was bound to our understanding of reality as I would be of one that wasn’t. For example, if a “moral” AI was coded 100 years ago, it would enforce the belief that homosexuality is immoral.

Re: Among the A.I. doomsayers

#344

Post by HKH2 »

kouru225 wrote: post #343
HKH2 wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What makes you think morality is arbitrary? I never said it is; my point was that to someone hubristic it is. That's why I said 'seems to'. An AGI wouldn't have a superego, so by your definition, it could never understand morals, and it wouldn't be surprising if it discarded them or tried to argue its way out of being subject to them. That's what the snake did in the story of the garden of Eden.

“Hubris” is a moral judgment that implies a strategic outcome. An AGI wouldn’t have a superego, but it would have the ability to study data across really long timescales and apply itself to long term strategies that would supersede the need for a superego. Since we apply morality as a shorthand for describing agreed upon negative consequences for complex behaviors, we can assume that an AI can overcome this need by s…

> And we can assume that AI can even iterate on and develop on its own understanding of these complex calculations much faster than a human can, making it significantly better at navigating moral issues.

Yeah, like judging human history and deciding murderous humans need to be removed from the earth or enslaved for their own benefit. (Some people already argue that the world would be better off without humans.)

Also, we know torture is wrong because we have a sense of pain, but an AI would just have to take our word for it. That doesn't seem too balanced to me.

Re: Among the A.I. doomsayers

#345

Post by inference-lord »

crotchfire wrote: post #307
ben_w wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, it's a very easy alignment problem: just impose a tax on size. That's like saying "AI alignment is a very easy problem: don't open the box". Sure, it works on paper, but the exact thing you say later down about the government liking gigantic corporations is what makes it hard — the corporation (and, it is feared, AI) convinces the people who have the power to limit them, to remove those limits.

I think you have completely missed the point: > the government liking gigantic corporations is what makes it hard — the corporation (and, it is feared, AI) convinces the people The corporations didn't convince the people. They didn't have to. They convinced the government , which was already acting contrary to our interests. There's a tendency to assume that just because we run an election every few years, the govern…

I think there is some truth to this, but what about the government opening and a case against Boeing? If they were just in it for the corporation, would this be happening?

Maybe it's all a show trial to show the American people they still care, but let's see what happens.

Re: Among the A.I. doomsayers

#346

Post by inference-lord »

theoreticalmal wrote: post #313
Thuggery wrote: post #308

It seems to me nearly every story about robots that gain sentience in human storymaking has them eventually turning against their human creators. Even the word robot itself comes from a Czech play were men develop an artificial human and these "robots" then ... usurp and destroy their creators. Am I the only one that finds this interesting and odd? I also suspect this narrative repetition is not totally unrelated to…

I think it’s indicative of human psychology. We realize we have the capability to deceive and destroy and be “evil”. We realize that, if we were to judge ourselves impartially, we would probably not come out un-condemned. If we can’t satisfy our own judgmental criteria, it’s doubtful an actual third party set of criteria would be satisfied either.

I agree, I think we make all of this up because we don't know what to expect from the future, except we've learned quite a bit about our own motivations and drivers and so all we can do is look in the mirror and use whatever comes back at us.

Unfortunately we seem to have learned we're really not a very benevolent bunch of people because we've basically plundered the planet, hurt our fellow living creatures and so now all we can do is look at something called "AI" and expect it to the same.

Re: Among the A.I. doomsayers

#347

Post by novia »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #291
namaria wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because, as unlikely as it is, if we're discussing risk scenarios for AI getting out of hand. Well then a monolithic superintelligence is just one of the possibilities. What about a swarm of dumb AIs that are nonetheless capable of reasoning and decision making and they become a threat? That's pretty much what we did. There's no super intelligent monkey in charge. As much as some have tried to pretend, material or ot…

The difference is that we have 100% complete control of these AIs. We can just go into the power grid substation next to the data center and throw the big breaker, and the AI ceases to exist. When humans developed, we did not displace an external entity that had created us and that had complete power to kill us all in an instant.

Friedrich Nietzsche might disagree

Re: Among the A.I. doomsayers

#348

Post by bamboozled »

supertimor wrote: post #341
bamboozled wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True story from me. I almost bought a house that was eaten severely by white ants. The problem wasn’t the ants, it was the way the slab was formed which caused the slab to crack and the house was also built into the mud of a road side embankment. Due to this crap design the ants could access the wood and had access to water from the mud. I assessed all of this and figured it wasn’t the ants fault, they were doing wha…

That was very kind of you, and I appreciate that you value life so much, no matter how small; but I’m going to say you are an extreme outlier. Realistically, how many people would go to all that trouble to save an ant nest on land that they are building on? And that’s not mentioning how many ants probably died in the move or were left behind and died in the rebuilding of the foundation, even despite all the care you…

I mean I think I'm a little different, but not completely unheard of. I'm sure if you gave people the option , the time and money, they'd do something similar.

And that’s not mentioning how many ants probably died in the move or were left behind and died in the rebuilding of the foundation, even despite all the care you took.

I don't know but I know enough to know that moving the food source away, removes the ant's, they'll go elsewhere to find food. Now imagine what having an IQ of 5000 and almost unlimited time..."The AI".

Re: Among the A.I. doomsayers

#349

Post by namaria »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #338
namaria wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If shutting down datacenters is your solution to AI getting out of hand, it isn't as much a solution as fall out.

Look at the measures that were implemented during covid. Many of them were a lot more extreme than shutting down datacentres, yet they were aimed to mitigate a risk far less than "existential".

That's a post hoc conclusion. At the time we were all uncertain.

Re: Among the A.I. doomsayers

#350

Post by barfbagginus »

13years wrote: post #276
barfbagginus wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

We don't know the end result of acceleration. Is it Dyson Spheres, virtual environments or Fermi Paradox. The capitalist interpretation is just your nuance of observation. It is about finding meaning. Humanity struggles with meaning without purpose and finds it difficult to find purpose without struggle. That is not my unique perspective. For a great allegory, I would recommend watching the Twilight Zone episode "A N…

[flagged]
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