Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Coming Technological Singularity (1993)

mindstalk.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 181 posts

Re: The Coming Technological Singularity (1993)

#111

Post by kiba »

K0balt wrote: post #81
trescenzi wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think one of the major weaknesses of “smart people” is they tend to think of intelligence as the key aspect of basically everything. Reality is though we have plenty of intelligence already. We know how to solve most of our problems. The challenges are much more social and our will as a society to make things happen.

The “otherness” of AI is what holds its appeal. Imagine a scenario where instead of AI, a billion dollar pill could make one person exponentially smarter and able to communicate with thousands of people per second. That does not have the same appeal. This provokes me to some musings on the theme. We imagine superintelligence to be subservient, evenly distributed, and morally benign at least. We don’t have a lot of ba…

Most of our stories portrayed AI as a threat, most famously SkyNet.

Also, I would be cautious about making predictions about the future.

Re: The Coming Technological Singularity (1993)

#112

Post by Retric »

trashtester wrote: post #104
Retric wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question becomes how do you calculate that 99.99%. As soon as you use reserved training data to pick a model the score it got on that data is no longer a valid answer due to selection bias.

You validate a random selection of results using actual experiments. If you validate 10k results and a maximum of 1 of the validations contradicts the prediction, you're at about 99.99% accuracy. 10k experiments may seem like a lot, but keep in mind that if we can engineer nanobots out of proteins the same way we build engines from steel today, the number of "parts" we may want to build using such biological nanotech…

> using actual experiments

That’s the bottleneck the model was trying to avoid in the first place. The goal of science is to come up with models we don’t need to validate before use, and it’s inherently iterative.

Nanbots are more sci-fi magic than real world possible. In the real world we are stuck with things closer to highly specialized cellular machinery than some do anything grey goo. Growing buildings from local materials seems awesome until you realize just how slow trees grow and why.

Re: The Coming Technological Singularity (1993)

#113

Post by bamboozled »

eep_social wrote: post #110
bamboozled wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still have a hard time understanding what this future would look like? Will we just sit around and do nothing then? I'm not saying we have to work, but there is some level of work that I think is required for happiness / fulfillment etc. I'm not even really against the idea, it just sounds quite dystopian to me.

I think reading a broad swath of sci-fi might be the best way to engage this topic. For fairly positive takes — Asimov had a take in the robot novels, Accelerando by Charles Stross touches on reputation-based currency (among a deluge of other ideas), Iain M Banks’ Culture novels have a take, and I cannot find it but there was a short story posted here recently about a dual-class system where the protagonist is rescue…

I'd say the book you're talking about is "The Machine Stops", it's a really fun/albeit scary read.

I won't say anything more in case you decide to read it, but it's amazing how the author managed to predict the future the way he did.

Thanks for the response and fingers crossed.

Re: The Coming Technological Singularity (1993)

#114

Post by pnut »

DiscourseFan wrote: post #41
p1esk wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

fairly clear what they can and can't do It’s not at all clear what the next gen models will do (e.g. gpt5). Might be enough to trigger mass unemployment. Or not.

Didn't OpenAI just cut its AGI department?

That could mean the agi is taking over, for all we know.

Re: The Coming Technological Singularity (1993)

#115

Post by bamboozled »

kiba wrote: post #109
trashtester wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it matters much if we're for or against such a future. If robots can do the same job as humans, but faster, cheaper and at a higher quality, out employers/customers will most likely replace us. If we're lucky, we may find some niche, be able to live off our savings or maybe be granted some UBI, but I absolutely do think it's concerning. What is worse, is that if we become obsolete in every way, it's not…

Who will be able to afford all of this if they're not getting paid?

Replying to both of you, I'm a little bit less scared about this "not having any money or food" scenario, presumably, if we have such incredibly sufficient machines at our disposal, I can't imagine they would have trouble being used for farming etc.

It's more the philosophical side that concerns me.

I don't really worry about this being a billionaires only club either. We've seen it already with AI products, there is just an abundance of competition and open source competition already available. It will be the same with robotics.

Also scary, is military robots gone rogue. Definitely not a fun prospect.

I'm personally really into surfing and skiing, honestly, if some how the robots kind of let me spend more time fishing, surfing and skiing, I'm pretty cool with all of that, I know a lot of people who don't have these passions though and work is a strong reason for their existence.

Re: The Coming Technological Singularity (1993)

#116

Post by trashtester »

kiba wrote: post #109
trashtester wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it matters much if we're for or against such a future. If robots can do the same job as humans, but faster, cheaper and at a higher quality, out employers/customers will most likely replace us. If we're lucky, we may find some niche, be able to live off our savings or maybe be granted some UBI, but I absolutely do think it's concerning. What is worse, is that if we become obsolete in every way, it's not…

Who will be able to afford all of this if they're not getting paid?

If you want the really dystopian version, it would be AI controlled military forces.

Or there could be some billionaire caste constructing ever grander monuments to their own vanity.

Or the production could go to serve any number of other goals that whoever is in charge (human or AI) sees as more important than the economic prosperity of the general population.

Re: The Coming Technological Singularity (1993)

#117

Post by ben_w »

kiba wrote: post #109
trashtester wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it matters much if we're for or against such a future. If robots can do the same job as humans, but faster, cheaper and at a higher quality, out employers/customers will most likely replace us. If we're lucky, we may find some niche, be able to live off our savings or maybe be granted some UBI, but I absolutely do think it's concerning. What is worse, is that if we become obsolete in every way, it's not…

Who will be able to afford all of this if they're not getting paid?

Before the industrial revolution, even though money existed, "wealth" really meant "land" rather than "capital".

While we do not today need to ask how people can afford robot lawnmowers despite being unable to find work hitching ploughs to draft horses or oxen, the fears at the time of things like this did lead to mobs smashing looms.

If I have some (n) robots that can do any task a human could do, one such task must have been "make this specific robot"*. If those n can make 2n robots before they break, and it takes 9 months to do so, and the mass of your initial set of n is 100 kg, they fully disassemble the moon in roughly 52 years. Also you can give (94.2 billion * n) robots to each human currently alive.

Asking "who can afford it" at that point is like some member of the species Kenyanthropus platyops asking how many knapped flints one must gather in order to exchange for a transatlantic flight from London to Miami, and how anyone might be able to collect them if we've all stopped knapping flint due to the invention of steel:

The economics are too alien, we cannot imagine this kind of thing accurately on the basis of anything we have available with which to anchor our expectations.

* including the entire chain of tools necessary to get there from bashing rocks together.

Re: The Coming Technological Singularity (1993)

#118

Post by tim333 »

K0balt wrote: post #81
trescenzi wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think one of the major weaknesses of “smart people” is they tend to think of intelligence as the key aspect of basically everything. Reality is though we have plenty of intelligence already. We know how to solve most of our problems. The challenges are much more social and our will as a society to make things happen.

The “otherness” of AI is what holds its appeal. Imagine a scenario where instead of AI, a billion dollar pill could make one person exponentially smarter and able to communicate with thousands of people per second. That does not have the same appeal. This provokes me to some musings on the theme. We imagine superintelligence to be subservient, evenly distributed, and morally benign at least. We don’t have a lot of ba…

A thousand years on is interesting. I'm guessing much of the earth will be kept as a kind of nature reserve for traditional humans rather like we have reserves for lions and bears and the like today. Pure AI stuff may have moved to space in a Dyson sphere like set up. I'm not sure about enhanced humans and robots. Maybe other areas of the planet similar to our normal urban areas. However it goes it'll probably start playing out much sooner than in a thousand years.

Re: The Coming Technological Singularity (1993)

#119

Post by kiba »

ben_w wrote: post #117
kiba wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who will be able to afford all of this if they're not getting paid?

Before the industrial revolution, even though money existed, "wealth" really meant "land" rather than "capital". While we do not today need to ask how people can afford robot lawnmowers despite being unable to find work hitching ploughs to draft horses or oxen, the fears at the time of things like this did lead to mobs smashing looms. If I have some (n) robots that can do any task a human could do, one such task must…

Before the industrial revolution, even though money existed, "wealth" really meant "land" rather than "capital".

The industrial revolution didn't really change anything about land.

It's still a fundamental and underrated component of our economic system, arguably more important than capital. That's why Georgism is a thing Indeed, it's even contemporary to the industrial revolution.

The economics are too alien, we cannot imagine this kind of thing accurately on the basis of anything we have available with which to anchor our expectations.

I would refrain from making such wild prediction about the future. As I have pointed out, the industrial revolution didn't change the fundamental importance of land. Arguably, it's much more important, and even more relevant today given how our land use policy is disastrous for our species and climate.

So, yes. It is important to ask how consumers will pay for all these robots if they don't have any sort of income that would make using robots economical.

Re: The Coming Technological Singularity (1993)

#120

Post by ikety »

bamboozled wrote: post #103
trashtester wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The human form is very versatile. While most robots may end up taking a different form, once we have sufficiently advanced humanoid robots, robots may replace human workers in almost any role.

I still have a hard time understanding what this future would look like? Will we just sit around and do nothing then? I'm not saying we have to work, but there is some level of work that I think is required for happiness / fulfillment etc. I'm not even really against the idea, it just sounds quite dystopian to me.

Do you have projects you care about outside of work?

If so, you'd have more time to dedicate to those projects.

If not, maybe you would be inspired to try a new project that you didn't have time for previously.

There's always work to be done. Some people could actually become organized, exercise, spend more time with their families, be better parents.

In the past when I've been unemployed I've spent the time to refine myself in new ways. If you've never had a sabbatical I suggest trying it if you have the opportunity.

Post reply on HN