The Most Terrifying Thought Experiment of All Time
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Re: The Most Terrifying Thought Experiment of All Time
#2Just don't choose any of the boxes and be done with it, ;-). It will BSOD the God machine.
Re: The Most Terrifying Thought Experiment of All Time
#3Nobody is going to make a malevolent universe controlling AI on purpose.
If a massively powerful and knowledgeable AI was created by accident, it would have nothing to gain by being malevolent.
And both those points don't matter anyway, since the technological singularity is impossible.
Re: The Most Terrifying Thought Experiment of All Time
#4here's the comment thread from when the topic last surfaced 6 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8051533
Re: The Most Terrifying Thought Experiment of All Time
#5Nobody is going to make a malevolent universe controlling AI on purpose. If a massively powerful and knowledgeable AI was created by accident, it would have nothing to gain by being malevolent. And both those points don't matter anyway, since the technological singularity is impossible.
Hopefully your first statement is true, but I've seen individuals do really dumb stuff.
A true AI would have the ability to learn and to evolve. Watch the movie Transcendence, I see very few flaws in that movie's logic.
If humans posed a threat to the AI it could certainly be malevolent from our perspective, to it it would just be doing what's necessary to survive.
Computers were "impossible" 200 years ago, the internet was something that few people could even imagine. I don't really consider anything impossible, what would make it truly impossible given enough time, resources, and motivation?
Re: The Most Terrifying Thought Experiment of All Time
#6TL,DR: Here is the thought experiment, 4th paragraph after 3 long paragraphs of stuff I didn't want to read.
"What if, in the future, a somewhat malevolent AI were to come about and punish those who did not do its bidding? What if there were a way (and I will explain how) for this AI to punish people today who are not helping it come into existence later? In that case, weren’t the readers of LessWrong right then being given the choice of either helping that evil AI come into existence or being condemned to suffer?"
I don't think it's that interesting of a thought experiment, there are dozens of much more insightful and thought-provoking ones out there.
Search for "best thought experiments" on Google if you want some cool things to think about. It might be taboo to mention but weed will make thought experiments really fun, in my opinion.
Re: The Most Terrifying Thought Experiment of All Time
#7Nobody is going to make a malevolent universe controlling AI on purpose. If a massively powerful and knowledgeable AI was created by accident, it would have nothing to gain by being malevolent. And both those points don't matter anyway, since the technological singularity is impossible.
>If a massively powerful and knowledgeable AI was created by accident, it would have nothing to gain by being malevolent.
The point is that, if you create an superintelligent AI that isn't very, very highly optimized for helping us, it is very likely that it will hurt us at some point.
Or as the saying goes:
>The AI does not hate you, nor does it love you, but you are made out of atoms which it can use for something else.
Re: The Most Terrifying Thought Experiment of All Time
#8Nobody is going to make a malevolent universe controlling AI on purpose. If a massively powerful and knowledgeable AI was created by accident, it would have nothing to gain by being malevolent. And both those points don't matter anyway, since the technological singularity is impossible.
Hopefully your first statement is true, but I've seen individuals do really dumb stuff. A true AI would have the ability to learn and to evolve. Watch the movie Transcendence, I see very few flaws in that movie's logic. If humans posed a threat to the AI it could certainly be malevolent from our perspective, to it it would just be doing what's necessary to survive. Computers were "impossible" 200 years ago, the inter…
The Internet could certainly be imagined 200 years ago. It's just a series of interconnected telegraph lines.
Re: The Most Terrifying Thought Experiment of All Time
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hopefully your first statement is true, but I've seen individuals do really dumb stuff. A true AI would have the ability to learn and to evolve. Watch the movie Transcendence, I see very few flaws in that movie's logic. If humans posed a threat to the AI it could certainly be malevolent from our perspective, to it it would just be doing what's necessary to survive. Computers were "impossible" 200 years ago, the inter…
The Internet could certainly be imagined 200 years ago. It's just a series of interconnected telegraph lines.
Even considering telegraphs only input and output was clicks? No wireless, no converting the clicks to anything but words using Morse Code. Was it really reasonable back then to imagine wires running to every house? Electronic signals all around us providing data constantly?
Today I can stand almost anywhere (ignoring cell coverage and different technologies required to use satellite phones) and talk to any other human on the planet with video chat. I can instantly access any and all information online that's being sent to me from millions of servers. It still blows my mind that it's actually been implemented in such a small amount of time, and I grew up with it.
I can barely believe we have electricity, water, sewage, internet, and phone lines running to 99+% of the houses and businesses in the country, in most countries even.
Re: The Most Terrifying Thought Experiment of All Time
#10Just don't choose any of the boxes and be done with it, ;-). It will BSOD the God machine.
Flip a coin.