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Humanity isn't ready for the coming intelligence explosion

economist.com

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Re: Humanity isn't ready for the coming intelligence explosion

#391

Post by falcor84 »

toasty228 wrote: post #316
falcor84 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "Yesterday's weather" argument works perfectly just up to the point when it doesn't.

Just like the "if the lines continues to go up" argument... The thing is, no one has anything to gain from defending my position, but many people make a load of $$$ from selling the opposite position to gullible people

> The thing is, no one has anything to gain from defending my position

Why? If someone running a company really believes that the line will soon stop going up and AI won't be replacing anyone, they could make the bet of strategically not investing in any AI initiatives, and instead investing in hiring and upskilling people who want to work without AI, and then just wait for the inevitable crash of all their competitors, no?

Re: Humanity isn't ready for the coming intelligence explosion

#392

Post by runarberg »

bcjdjsndon wrote: post #374
runarberg wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The car did not replace the horse and cart. This is an oft cited and widely believed myth. It replaced mostly walking, but also cycling, trollies and trains. And it didn't do so until after a huge build out of infrastructure to accommodate drivers at the cost of everything else. After the building of highways and roads cities were no longer walkable, people had moved out into the suburbs, their jobs were now a couple…

> It replaced mostly walking, but also cycling, trollies and trains. And everything was carried on people's heads, yeah? The horse and cart was in use right up to the 20th century my man...there was no other way to move heavy items across land until the combustion engine (or canals thought that's not technically over land)

Yes, true. You found one thing that people used mostly horse and cart for which they now use lorries and vans for today. However since the invention of car (after it stopped being a toy for rich people) cars have by far been mostly [like overwhelmingly so] used for personal transport. And I simply assumed that is what you meant (because that is what most people mean).

Re: Humanity isn't ready for the coming intelligence explosion

#393

Post by sameerds »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #368
embedding-shape wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My personal "wow" moment was less about it being able to do the same that I could do with it, just faster, but instead that together we could could build things that I wasn't able to build before (or unwilling to spend the time to learn maybe). So a bunch of stuff are suddenly "unlocked", as long as you know how to verify it properly.

If you weren't able to build it before then you aren't able to properly verify it Verifying is harder than building!

> If you weren't able to build it before then you aren't able to properly verify it

GP said "couldn't dream of building". To make an analogy, I wouldn't dream of building a house if I had to do every bit of brick-laying myself. But with others doing what I can't do, I can indeed dream of building a house and I do know how to verify that the house was built to satisfy my dream.

Re: Humanity isn't ready for the coming intelligence explosion

#394

Post by munksbeer »

PowerElectronix wrote: post #269
ACCount37 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

AI currently surpasses humans at many tasks, and the list grows every month. My guess is that within 20 years (as a hedging my bets 95% confidence level) AI will surpass our intelligence for almost everything.

The arguments over whether it truly "thinks" or "reasons" will be superfluous. They simply won't matter.

Re: Humanity isn't ready for the coming intelligence explosion

#395

Post by Retric »

MattRix wrote: post #321
Retric wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspected you felt that way even though it hasn’t been my personal experience. I’ve heard people say older models can’t do X, when I used that way etc. I suspect people are applying their own learning curve as part of their assessment of progress, you get better at writing prompts and it feels like the model improved. Which is why I’m saying we need some objective metrics to judge predictions of actual capacity.

There are objective metrics, that’s what benchmarks are.

Companies game benchmarks, but sure they are better than nothing.

Re: Humanity isn't ready for the coming intelligence explosion

#396

Post by whilenot-dev »

pheaded_while9 wrote: post #382
MSFT_Edging wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Claude or something acting in self-preservation That was an Ad. An Ad in the same style of many before it. Not through an ad agency, but the AI companies hyping their product by making their product seem scary and dangerous.

Does the press being an ad constitute the same thing as the information being false? If I advertize that my gun is dangerous, does the medium impact the truth value?

The medium is the message[0] might be of your interest. I personally wouldn't expect absolute truth in any advertisements or company statements, so some information are certain to be false, yes.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message

Re: Humanity isn't ready for the coming intelligence explosion

#397

Post by everyday7732 »

RandomLensman wrote: post #201
ACCount37 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think that AI can't any ambitions? Today's systems are mostly good at following instructions. But push them far enough, and you already get weirdness like alignment faking, instrumental self-preservation and more. We know because we've seen it in lab settings, while probing for extreme failure modes on purpose - but the world is large and strange enough that edge cases like that are liable to surface n…

Current AI systems have started to do things without ever being prompted for anything at all?

If they are set up that way yes they can continue indefinitely. Why would they not be able to do this? Take a look at the experiment called the AI village. https://theaidigest.org/village. I think it pauses sometimes because AI is expensive but could be running continuously with a larger budget

Re: Humanity isn't ready for the coming intelligence explosion

#398

Post by dandaka »

consumer451 wrote: post #319
dandaka wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI will not help by improving extremely smart people. AI will help dumb people and dumb processes with "free" expert-level intelligence. Anyone could still ignore intelligence and make ignorant decisions. But the default mode would be highly intelligent informed decision. Example with health - a patient can read blood test results with Opus and get very good results for "free". This is far away from helping extremely…

Why would they listen to an AI, when their favorite podcaster says something contrary? I am not trying to be funny btw, people take medical advice from podcasters over doctors. I have seen this first hand.

"Free AI" will not fight existing knowledge or strong opinions. It will spread to empty spaces. Example with blood test — there is no podcaster there and will not be.

Re: Humanity isn't ready for the coming intelligence explosion

#399

Post by RandomLensman »

everyday7732 wrote: post #397
RandomLensman wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Current AI systems have started to do things without ever being prompted for anything at all?

If they are set up that way yes they can continue indefinitely. Why would they not be able to do this? Take a look at the experiment called the AI village. https://theaidigest.org/village . I think it pauses sometimes because AI is expensive but could be running continuously with a larger budget

That village was never started, so to speak?

Re: Humanity isn't ready for the coming intelligence explosion

#400

Post by saulpw »

perarneng wrote: post #388

The economy isn't ready. Basically, all companies right now are sprinting toward increasing profit margins by trying to do more with fewer people. The problem is that, on this scale, they will lose income because unemployed people make terrible consumers, they will only buy what is strictly necessary. Consequently, society is in a race to the bottom, which could lead to extreme suffering and potential revolutions in…

Companies don't serve poor people; they have no money. Companies will pivot to serving the people who have money. If that means they only serve rich people, then that means we'll have more yacht makers and fewer dollar stores.
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