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A Frightened Optimist On The Future of Humanity

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Re: A Frightened Optimist On The Future of Humanity

#11

Post by n4r9 »

barry-cotter wrote: post #6
garmaine wrote: post #2

Nick Bostrom is a philosopher, not an engineer. If he spent his time actually making things instead of fear mongerng, he might have an appreciation for how truly difficult it is to actually get things to work, and the challenges that would still confront advanced AI. His instantaneous end-the-world outcomes are not plausible and will never be realized. Yet he argues for draconian, fascist controls on technology and s…

Because if he’s right we really, really want to pay attention to this problem so we don’t all die. I’m sure Bostrom abstracts away an enormous amount of the difficulty in implementation but that’s quite defensible. Moore’s Law isn’t the only curve that works well to explain technological trends for decades. We can see in broad outlines what’s coming decades from now.

> Because if he’s right we really, really want to pay attention to this problem so we don’t all die.

You could say that about any doomsayer. It's important to use their reputation and authority, and your own context within reason, to weight the significance of their prophecies.

Re: A Frightened Optimist On The Future of Humanity

#12

Post by LocalPCGuy »

Gatsky wrote: post #10

This doomsday futurism has an interesting characteristic - the author of such prophecies can't lose. Either they are right and humanity (or what's left of it) will look back on them as prescient and clear thinking, or they are wrong and everyone will be too relieved and happy to care. The Y2K bug was another example.

There are 2 schools of thought on the Y2K bug, and the one you left out was that quite a lot of money was spent fixing bugs prior to the year 2000, which helped ensure that it was a minor event, with minor failures, instead of a bigger problem. There are computer systems we are even just now starting to hear had major problems that were addressed. Yes, there were people hyping it like crazy, and the average personal computer was not really at risk of anything major happening. But there were serious concerns that were addressed prior to 2000.

Also, it's likely the 9/11 attacks had less of an impact because of redundancies and backups put in place for the Y2K bug.

Re: A Frightened Optimist On The Future of Humanity

#14

Post by me_me_me »

garmaine wrote: post #2

Nick Bostrom is a philosopher, not an engineer. If he spent his time actually making things instead of fear mongerng, he might have an appreciation for how truly difficult it is to actually get things to work, and the challenges that would still confront advanced AI. His instantaneous end-the-world outcomes are not plausible and will never be realized. Yet he argues for draconian, fascist controls on technology and s…

> Nick Bostrom is a philosopher, not an engineer. If he spent his time actually making things instead of fear mongerng, he might have an appreciation for how truly difficult it is to actually get things to work, and the challenges that would still confront advanced AI.

I don't see how this argument even works. Lets change a premise and we get:

'Nick Bostrom is a philosopher, not an nuclear physicist. ... he might have an appreciation for how truly difficult it is to actually build a-bomb.' Therefore he should not speak about potential dangers/threats of nuclear bomb arsenals.

And as we all know we came extremely close to few false-positive MADs.

> His instantaneous end-the-world outcomes are not plausible and will never be realized. That's unsubstantiated hearsay claim by you. Can you list a single counter argument against runaway AGI?

>Yet he argues for draconian, fascist controls on technology and society that have real negative ramifications. At this point I am quite certain you have not read a single thing he Bostrom, and only making claims of articles/comments/2ndary sources. I think it was in Superinteligence, where he opens with a parable how overlooking dangers in short term is beneficial, but once you open pandora box you cant put it back. He is not against it AI, but thinks we shouldn't happily jump into something without thinking of future outcomes.

Let me give an example. Say CERN starts studying micro black holes. Those are absolutely safe to create as they 'fizzle out' due to hawkins radiation. So no one should stop CERN from making any precautions so that they accidentally create a black hole that doesn't evaporate? Right? It's micro black hole they are safe, we have no tech that could create bigger one, and we have total understanding of Physics. No need for regulation or safety talking.

Re: A Frightened Optimist On The Future of Humanity

#15

Post by me_me_me »

n4r9 wrote: post #11
barry-cotter wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because if he’s right we really, really want to pay attention to this problem so we don’t all die. I’m sure Bostrom abstracts away an enormous amount of the difficulty in implementation but that’s quite defensible. Moore’s Law isn’t the only curve that works well to explain technological trends for decades. We can see in broad outlines what’s coming decades from now.

> Because if he’s right we really, really want to pay attention to this problem so we don’t all die. You could say that about any doomsayer. It's important to use their reputation and authority, and your own context within reason, to weight the significance of their prophecies.

You could say that Eisenstein was doomsayer about nuclear fission.

And we did came quite close to doomsday scenarios, cold war, but also false-positives in automated detection defense systems.

Re: A Frightened Optimist On The Future of Humanity

#16

Post by garmaine »

saagarjha wrote: post #3
garmaine wrote: post #2

Nick Bostrom is a philosopher, not an engineer. If he spent his time actually making things instead of fear mongerng, he might have an appreciation for how truly difficult it is to actually get things to work, and the challenges that would still confront advanced AI. His instantaneous end-the-world outcomes are not plausible and will never be realized. Yet he argues for draconian, fascist controls on technology and s…

I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing to let a philosopher muse a bit about ethics and advise caution. Maybe we won’t have the AI singularity, but some of the questions brought up (should we improve ourselves? Is technology inherently good?) are quite important and contentious.

> Should we improve ourselves?

I don't like dying of primitive diseases, and aging.

> Is technology inherently good?

It doesn't have to be inherently (intrinsicly?) good. It has good ramifications, such as the literally billions of people that have had a chance to live and be brought out of poverty that wouldn't have even existed otherwise.

Those aren't insightful questions. They only sound wise when you don't think critically about them.

Re: A Frightened Optimist On The Future of Humanity

#17

Post by garmaine »

PavlovsCat wrote: post #8
garmaine wrote: post #2

Nick Bostrom is a philosopher, not an engineer. If he spent his time actually making things instead of fear mongerng, he might have an appreciation for how truly difficult it is to actually get things to work, and the challenges that would still confront advanced AI. His instantaneous end-the-world outcomes are not plausible and will never be realized. Yet he argues for draconian, fascist controls on technology and s…

> he argues for draconian, fascist controls on technology Technology doesn't mind, it doesn't have feelings. Draconian, fascist use of technology on people, that's a matter of actual importance.

> Draconian, fascist use of technology on people, that's a matter of actual importance.

That's what he's arguing for. A global police state that knows what everyone is doing, everywhere, and can intervene at a moment's notice to stop certain kinds of technological work.

Re: A Frightened Optimist On The Future of Humanity

#18

Post by adrianN »

barry-cotter wrote: post #6
garmaine wrote: post #2

Nick Bostrom is a philosopher, not an engineer. If he spent his time actually making things instead of fear mongerng, he might have an appreciation for how truly difficult it is to actually get things to work, and the challenges that would still confront advanced AI. His instantaneous end-the-world outcomes are not plausible and will never be realized. Yet he argues for draconian, fascist controls on technology and s…

Because if he’s right we really, really want to pay attention to this problem so we don’t all die. I’m sure Bostrom abstracts away an enormous amount of the difficulty in implementation but that’s quite defensible. Moore’s Law isn’t the only curve that works well to explain technological trends for decades. We can see in broad outlines what’s coming decades from now.

Decades from now we'll likely fight each other for food and water as climate change reduces the amount of arable land and important ecosystems collapse

Re: A Frightened Optimist On The Future of Humanity

#19

Post by farrisbris »

garmaine wrote: post #17
PavlovsCat wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> he argues for draconian, fascist controls on technology Technology doesn't mind, it doesn't have feelings. Draconian, fascist use of technology on people, that's a matter of actual importance.

> Draconian, fascist use of technology on people, that's a matter of actual importance. That's what he's arguing for. A global police state that knows what everyone is doing, everywhere, and can intervene at a moment's notice to stop certain kinds of technological work.

Well its not an impossible argument to understand from a game theory perspective of civilization.

I don't agree with it. Much as i don't agree with the Dark Forest premise set forward in the Three Body Problem series, I thought it was very interesting nontheless and worth spending quite a bit of time musing over. As with Nick Bostroms thoughts.

Just because we disagree with a concept on ethical or practical or whatever reason doesn't mean we should be discussing it or that we can gain something from discussing it.

At least he can argue his side, unlike the politicians constantly pushing for a more and more draconian state.

Re: A Frightened Optimist On The Future of Humanity

#20

Post by The_rationalist »

garmaine wrote: post #16
saagarjha wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing to let a philosopher muse a bit about ethics and advise caution. Maybe we won’t have the AI singularity, but some of the questions brought up (should we improve ourselves? Is technology inherently good?) are quite important and contentious.

> Should we improve ourselves? I don't like dying of primitive diseases, and aging. > Is technology inherently good? It doesn't have to be inherently (intrinsicly?) good. It has good ramifications, such as the literally billions of people that have had a chance to live and be brought out of poverty that wouldn't have even existed otherwise. Those aren't insightful questions. They only sound wise when you don't think…

And yet you are being downvoted for fighting common bullshit, what a world we live in!
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