Economist has drunk the AI koolaid. Pretty pathetic for a publication of their esteem.
Humanity isn't ready for the coming intelligence explosion
261–270 of 524 posts
Re: Humanity isn't ready for the coming intelligence explosion
#262Earlier quoted context omitted.
Being a process doesn't preclude something from being an entity. In particular, all of us living organisms have our constituent atoms constantly replaced, and we don't typically consider that a risk to our sense of self.
It comes down to "what stays the same when all its atoms are replaced" and "how can we tell it is the same entity and not just an identical but different one". I think the answers are "shape" AND "continuity". E.g. all "atoms" of a glider in Conway's Life get replaced every couple turns but an observer can tell it is still a glider because it keeps the shape, and it the same glider because it continues it's previous…
What does a glider have that a continuously running claw lacks?
Re: Humanity isn't ready for the coming intelligence explosion
#263"Ten years from now, I think we will realize that we were standing in the foothills of the singularity now... I believe that we're only a few years away from [AGI], maybe 2030 plus or minus a year... I think [AGI] will be an enormous transformative technology, it's going to effectively be a new human era... We can feel this year, I would say, even though I've been working towards this for 30 years, I think this year…
Why are these people so obsessed with the year 2030? It keeps popping up everywhere.
Re: Humanity isn't ready for the coming intelligence explosion
#264This is the kind of articles that make the last, biggest fool buy the top of a bubble.
A good chatbot, image/video generator, coder, etc is not going to enslave us all (not in actual sense, although maybe in the instagram sense) or propel us into a golden era.
They are nice tools for some pretty specific tasks and not much more. And we are only seeing the heavily subsidised version of the tools.
Re: Humanity isn't ready for the coming intelligence explosion
#265We don't need to live "side by side" with AI. AI is not alive, it's a technology we use. This is like talking about living side by side with your toaster.
Even a child can see the difference between AI and a toaster.
Re: Humanity isn't ready for the coming intelligence explosion
#266How far are we from reliable AI? One that could, for example, handle 80% of office jobs without screwing up more than humans?
My guess would be 15 years. But I think it will take longer than that before people actually replace office workers with AI.
Re: Humanity isn't ready for the coming intelligence explosion
#267Earlier quoted context omitted.
The free intelligence may help to steer the society and politicians to one or the other side. The only question is who decides which.
No invention was able to steer the psychopaths away from waging wars. But this time it's absolutely different, right? Riiight?..
Don't we have now much less wars than before, in general?
Re: Humanity isn't ready for the coming intelligence explosion
#268Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Being smarter than the best-organized aggregate of all humans Isn't there pretty much a consensus that committees and institutions are not all that smart? I think you're confusing the categories of "intelligence" and power. Institutions are powerful. The smartest AI is still just a tool without the infrastructure to turn that into real world effects and someone to direct it. It seems you have faith that this is ine…
I'm genuinely baffled each time I encounter this notion that the power is dumb. It's as if power was a kind of demigod Heracles who paves its way with sheer brute force alone. But in reality it consists of very mortal and feeble creatures of meat and bone. How in the world can people assume dumb those who possess all the means and rights for violence by controlling and manipulating myriads of other creatures of meat…
Power and intelligence are not completely unrelated. Are government officials, politicians, CEOs, judges, etc, usually above average intelligence? Probably. Do the institutions they work within make intelligent decisions? Sometimes.
The fallacy is assuming intelligence automatically equates to power and influence. University professors and doctors have very little power in their institutions even though they may often be more intelligent than their bosses.
A worse fallacy is assuming intelligence creates better political outcomes (in the broad sense of politics as contested collective decision-making).
I don't know many people who would willingly trade their freedom to make a bad decision for the enforcement of the "right" decision by a superior intelligence.
Re: Humanity isn't ready for the coming intelligence explosion
#269We don't need to live "side by side" with AI. AI is not alive, it's a technology we use. This is like talking about living side by side with your toaster.
"Alive" is irrelevant. Bullshit like "alive", "sentient" or "conscious" doesn't decide much, at the day's end. It just distracts from the thing that matters. And the thing that matters is: capability. Even today's AIs are capable of autonomous goal-oriented agentic behavior - and growing more and more so with every release. At sufficient capability, AI stops being "a technology we use", and becomes a force in itself…
Human intelligence is going to be peerless for centuries if this AI is the one supposed to be the peer.
Re: Humanity isn't ready for the coming intelligence explosion
#270Earlier quoted context omitted.
> ...I don't believe it is a any more crazy believe than all of the other religions. And it's certainly not any more crazy than walking around with these small, addictive devices in our pockets that we rely on for navigation, information, entertainment, social connection.
Addictive? How can a computing device have addictive properties? It's not like it is something you swallow or digest. User error? Certainly. A hundred years ago alcoholic drinks were outlawed in certain parts of the world, yet today there is no grocery shop that doesn't openly sell them.
> It's not like it is something you swallow or digest.
Anything that interacts with the brain's rewards circuitry can be addictive. By your apparent definition, behavioral addictions, like gambling addiction, cannot exist. Because you don't swallow or inhale the slot machine.