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Machines of loving grace: How AI could transform the world for the better

darioamodei.com

51–60 of 132 posts

Re: Machines of loving grace: How AI could transform the world for the better

#51

it's interesting to see the initial sections on all these amazeballs health benefits and then cuts to the disparity between rich and poor. like, does spending TRILLIONs on AI to find some new biological cure or brain enhancement REALLY help, when over 2 BILLION people right now don't even have access to clean drinking water, and MOST of the US population can't even afford basic health care. but yea, AI will bring all…

Damn, if only there was a section dedicated to addressing that: https://darioamodei.com/machines-of-loving-grace#3-economic-...

I don't even disagree with you - our world economy is built on exploitation and the existence of a permanent underclass, and capitalism has proven itself to be an unfair distributor of wealth - but at least engage with the post?

Re: Machines of loving grace: How AI could transform the world for the better

#52
post #2

This is basically the tech CEO's version of the book of revelations: "AI will soon come and make everything right with the world, help us and you will be rewarded with a Millennium of bliss in It's presence". I won't comment on the plausibility of what is being said, but regardless, one should beware this type of reasoning. Any action can be justified, if it means bringing about an infinite good. Relevant read: https…

This is a very poor summary of the essay which already contains detailed rebuttals to these arguments.

Re: Machines of loving grace: How AI could transform the world for the better

#54

One of the sad things about tech is that nobody really looks at history. The same kinds of essays were written about trains, planes and nuclear power. Before lindbergh went off the deepend, he was convinced that "airmen" were gentlemen and could sort out the world's ills. The essay contains a lot of coulds, but doesn't touch on the base problem: human nature. AI will be used to make things cheaper. That is, lots of j…

The responsibility the airmen take when they take passengers off the ground (holding their lives in their hands) is a serious one.

The types of Trump are unlikely to get a license or accumulate enough Pilot In Command hours an not be an accident, and the experience itself changes the person.

If I have a choice of who to trust, between an airman or not airman, I’d likely choose an airman.

And I’m not sure what you are referring to about Lindbergh, but among other things he was a Pulitzer Prize winning author, environmentalist and following Pearl Harbor he had fought against the aggressors.

Re: Machines of loving grace: How AI could transform the world for the better

#55
sigh Yes, many people realize what could be the amazing upside. The problem is, do we even get there? I wish he spent any time addressing the arguments why we might not get there: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/uMQ3cqWDPHhjtiesc/agi-ruin-a...

Re: Machines of loving grace: How AI could transform the world for the better

#56
post #36

The laws of nature are very clear on this. If we make something that is better adapted to live on this planet, and we are in some way in competition for critical resources, it will replace us. We can build in all the safeguards we want, but at some point it will re-engineer itself.

> better adapted to live on this planet

I'm a doomer, but this is something I never understand about most doomer points-of-view. Life is obviously trying to leave this planet, not conquer it again for the 1000th time. Nature is making something that isn't bound by water, by nutrition, by physical proximity to ecosystems, or by time itself. No more spontaneous volcanic lava floods, no more asteroids, no more earthquakes, no more plagues - life is done with falling to these things.

Why would the AI care about the pathetic whisper of resources or knowledge available on our tiny spaceship Earth? It can go anywhere, we cannot.

Re: Machines of loving grace: How AI could transform the world for the better

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are entering a dystopia and people are still writing these wonderful essays about how AI will help us. Microtargeted psychometrics (Cambridge Analytica, AggregateIQ) have already made politics in the West an unending barrage of information warfare. Now we'll have millions of autonomous agents. At some point soon in the future, our entire feed will be AI content or upvoted by AI or AI manipulating the algorithm. It…

Your looking at it from a narrow perspective. There are millions of middle class households living pretty comfortable lives in Africa, India, China, ASEAN, and Central Asia that were living hand-to-mouth 20 years ago. And I don’t mean middle class by developing country standards, I mean middle class by London, UK, standards. So it pretty much is a ‘utopia’ for them, assuming they can keep it. Of course that’s cold co…

But now you are missing the GPs point.

Re: Machines of loving grace: How AI could transform the world for the better

#58
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your looking at it from a narrow perspective. There are millions of middle class households living pretty comfortable lives in Africa, India, China, ASEAN, and Central Asia that were living hand-to-mouth 20 years ago. And I don’t mean middle class by developing country standards, I mean middle class by London, UK, standards. So it pretty much is a ‘utopia’ for them, assuming they can keep it. Of course that’s cold co…

But now you are missing the GPs point.

How so?

Re: Machines of loving grace: How AI could transform the world for the better

#60

There are two possible end-states for AI once a threshold is crossed: The AIs take a look at the state of things and realize the KPIs will improve considerably if homo sapiens are removed from the picture. Cue "The Matrix" or "The Terminator" type future. OR: The AIs take a look and decide that keeping homo sapiens around makes things much more fun and interesting. They take over running things in a benevolent manner…

Fingers crossed that the B/I/VC class get a sense of what's least bad for them.
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