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Remarks on AI from NZ

nealstephenson.substack.com

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Re: Remarks on AI from NZ

#61

Post by GuinansEyebrows »

keybored wrote: post #51
GuinansEyebrows wrote: post #35

> Likewise today a graphic artist who is faced with the prospect of his or her career being obliterated under an AI mushroom cloud might take a dim view of such technologies, without perhaps being aware that AI can be used in less obvious but more beneficial ways. look, i'm sure there are very useful things you can use AI for as a designer to reduce some of the toil work (of which there's a LOT in photoshop et al). b…

> > being obliterated under an AI mushroom cloud might take a dim view of such technologies, without perhaps being aware that AI can be used in less obvious but more beneficial ways. How vivid. Never mind the mushroom cloud in front of your face. Think about the less obvious... more beneficial ways? Of course non-ideologues and people who have to survive in this world will look at the mushroom cloud of giant corporat…

it's the most "ignoring the forest for the trees" thing i've read in a long time.

Re: Remarks on AI from NZ

#62

Post by iandanforth »

"It hasn’t always been a cakewalk, but we’ve been able to establish a stable position in the ecosystem despite sharing it with all of these different kinds of intelligences."

Or, more accurately, we have become an unstoppable and ongoing ecological disaster, running roughshod over any and every other species, intelligent or not, that we encounter.

Re: Remarks on AI from NZ

#63

Post by sally_glance »

iandanforth wrote: post #62

"It hasn’t always been a cakewalk, but we’ve been able to establish a stable position in the ecosystem despite sharing it with all of these different kinds of intelligences." Or, more accurately, we have become an unstoppable and ongoing ecological disaster, running roughshod over any and every other species, intelligent or not, that we encounter.

Most likely we're not the only species to have achieved that state, and by the law of large numbers will eventually perish just like the others (if we don't manage to transcend this state).

Re: Remarks on AI from NZ

#64

Post by cadamsdotcom »

vonneumannstan wrote: post #24

It's a nice article but Neal like many others falls into the trap of seemingly not believing that intelligences vastly superior to Humans' across all important dimensions can exist and competition between minds like that almost certainly ends in Humanity's extinction. "I am hoping that even in the case of such dangerous AIs we can still derive some hope from the natural world, where competition prevents any one speci…

> almost certainly ends in humanity’s extinction.

The Culture novels talk about super intelligent AIs that perform some functions of government, dealing with immense complexity so humans don’t have to. Doesn’t prevent humans from continuing to exist and being quite content in the knowledge they’re not the most superior beings in the universe.

Why do you believe human extinction follows from superintelligence?

Re: Remarks on AI from NZ

#65

Post by knowitnone »

We certainly do know how bats see with their ears. It's called echo-location - very similar to sonar/radar - which we do all the time. "Sheepdogs can herd sheep better than any human." Running faster the humans allows them to do that. If humans ran that fast, I'm sure we could do it too. "intelligent considering how physically small their brains" there's no correllation between brain size and intelligence. "Dragonflies have been around for hundreds of millions of years and are exquisitely highly evolved to carry out their primary function of eating other bugs." That's basic evolution, what's the point? Feels like this was writeen written by AI. Should have just gotten to the point without all this exposition.

Re: Remarks on AI from NZ

#66

Post by abnercoimbre »

knowitnone wrote: post #65

We certainly do know how bats see with their ears. It's called echo-location - very similar to sonar/radar - which we do all the time. "Sheepdogs can herd sheep better than any human." Running faster the humans allows them to do that. If humans ran that fast, I'm sure we could do it too. "intelligent considering how physically small their brains" there's no correllation between brain size and intelligence. "Dragonfli…

> Feels like this was writeen written by AI.

This cheap remark doesn't add anything to the discussion, especially considering who the author you're insulting is. Most of us will overlook a logical flaw or two to follow his big-picture thinking.

Re: Remarks on AI from NZ

#67

Post by tuatoru »

incoming1211 wrote: post #46
gregoryl wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NZ is pretty unique, there is quite a lot of farmable land which is protected wilderness. There's a specific trust setup to help landowners convert property, https://qeiinationaltrust.org.nz/ Imperfect, but definitely better than most!

> there is quite a lot of farmable land This is not really true. ~80% of NZ's farmable agricultural land is in the south island. But ~60% of milk production is done in the north island.

And virtually none of it is arable. Pastoral at best, suitable for grazing at varying intensities ranging from light to hardly at all.

Re: Remarks on AI from NZ

#68

Post by tuatoru »

w10-1 wrote: post #48

Funny how he seems to get so close but miss. It's an anthropocentric miss to worry about AI as another being. It's not really the issue in today's marketplace or drone battlefield. It's the scalability. It's a hit to see augmentation as amputation, but a miss to not consider the range of systemic knock-on effects. It's a miss to talk about nuclear weapons without talking about how they structured the UN and the world…

The point of Chatham House rules is to encourage free-ranging and unfiltered discussion, without restriction on its dissemination. If people know they are going to be held to their words, they become much less willing to say anything at all.

The "residue" of openness is in fact the entire point of that convention. If you want to be invited to the next such bunfight, just email the organisers and persuade them you have insight.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatham_House_Rule

Re: Remarks on AI from NZ

#69

Post by tuatoru »

knowitnone wrote: post #65

We certainly do know how bats see with their ears. It's called echo-location - very similar to sonar/radar - which we do all the time. "Sheepdogs can herd sheep better than any human." Running faster the humans allows them to do that. If humans ran that fast, I'm sure we could do it too. "intelligent considering how physically small their brains" there's no correllation between brain size and intelligence. "Dragonfli…

Neal was referring to Tom Nagel's famous essay, "What is it Like to be a Bat?".

From wikipedia: "The paper presents several difficulties posed by phenomenal consciousness, including the potential insolubility of the mind–body problem owing to "facts beyond the reach of human concepts", the limits of objectivity and reductionism, the "phenomenological features" of subjective experience, the limits of human imagination, and what it means to be a particular, conscious thing."

It would be taken for granted by nearly all participants in such bunfights that all of the others are familiar with that essay and the discussion it provoked.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_It_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%3F

Re: Remarks on AI from NZ

#70

Post by skybrian »

NitpickLawyer wrote: post #8

> Maybe a useful way to think about what it would be like to coexist in a world that includes intelligences that aren’t human is to consider the fact that we’ve been doing exactly that for long as we’ve existed, because we live among animals. Another analogy that I like is about large institutions / corporations. They are, right now, kind of like AIs. Like Harari says in one of his books, Peugeot co. is an entity tha…

If a corporation is like an AI, it’s like one we imagine might exist one day, not currently-existing AI. LLM’s aren’t trying to make money or do anything in particular except predict the next token.

The corporations that run LLM’s do charge for API usage, but it’s independent of what you the chat is about. It’s happening at a different level in the stack.

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