About as helpful as "Guns don't kill people ... "
And equally rebutted by Eddie Izzards "Well, I think the gun helps".
You are the scariest monster in the woods
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Re: You are the scariest monster in the woods
#12That's why I am never afraid to walk alone at night, in the dark forest.
Re: You are the scariest monster in the woods
#13I struggle to understand how people can just dismiss the possibility of artificial intelligence.
Human cognition was basically bruteforced by evolution-- why would it be impossible to achieve the exact same result in silicon, especially after we already demonstrated some parts of those results (e.g. use of language) that critically set us apart from other animals?
I'm not buying the whole "AI has no agency" line either; this might be true for now, but this is already being circumvented with current LLMs (by giving them web access etc).
As soon as profit can be made by transfering decision power into an AIs hand, some form of agency for them is just a matter of time, and we might simply not be willing to pull the plug until it is much too late.
Re: You are the scariest monster in the woods
#14We have been using the mechanism of "Humans communicating and working together" to form superintelligences for a long time. They have gotten more effective, more efficient and more durable with time. AI isn't the new monster. It's a new mitochondria being domesticated to supercharge the existing monsters.
That reminds me of the “paper clip maximizer” thought experiment about rogue AI fulfilling a particular goal, without being held to any consideration of human welfare
I thought it was a very novel idea at first, until I realized that this describes all manners of human groups, notably corporations and lobbying groups, they will turn the world into a stove, subvert democracy, (try to) disrupt the economic and social fiber of society, anything to eg maximize shareholder value
Re: You are the scariest monster in the woods
#15About as helpful as "Guns don't kill people ... " And equally rebutted by Eddie Izzards "Well, I think the gun helps".
All of the solutions to AI "safety" are analagous to gun control: it is a centralization of power.
Re: You are the scariest monster in the woods
#16A nit: There's a subtle distinction between an individual human and the power of human organization and civilization that is implied by the article, but never outright stated.
One-for-one, there are many creatures that are individually more dangerous to humans, and a decent number of people are killed by such animals every year. Indeed, a naked human in the wild is going to be quite fragile and easy to kill until they can bring some technology to bear. But there are no animals or even set of animals that could conceivably wipe out all of humanity at any of our technological peaks from the last 100,000 years. Even the number one killer of humans, the mosquito, is gradually being defeated, going from a vector for disease to just an annoyance, just like the flea.
Re: You are the scariest monster in the woods
#17"We (humans) are the scariest animal in the woods. We’re the scariest animal anywhere. At any time, in any location, under any circumstances, if there’s a human present then that’s the scariest motherfucker in the woods."
Has this guy not heard of the Bengal tigers of the Sundarban forests, which kill ~50 humans per year? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_attacks_in_the_Sundarban...
Re: You are the scariest monster in the woods
#18That's why I am never afraid to walk alone at night, in the dark forest.
Must not live in the Sundarbans
Re: You are the scariest monster in the woods
#19"Humans will do what they’ve always tried to do—gain power, enslave, kill, control, exploit, cheat, or just be lazy and avoid the hard work—but now with new abilities that we couldn’t have dreamed of." -- A pretty bleak, and also accurate, observation of humanity. I have to hope that the alternative sentence encompassing all of the good can lead to some balance.
I really liked this article, but it is pessimistic. Unfortunately that seems to be the culture-du-jour. Anger and fear drive engagement effectively, as it always has. If it bleeds, it Leeds has been a thing in news organizations since at least the 70s.
If we ignore the headlines peddled by those who stand to benefit the most from inflaming and inciting, we live in a miraculous modern age largely devoid of much of the suffering previous generations were forced to endure. Make no mistake there are problems, but they are growing exponentially fewer by the day.
An alternate take: humans will do what they’ve always tried to do—build, empower, engineer, cure, optimize, create, or just collaborate with other humans for the benefit of their immediate community—but now with new abilities that we couldn’t have dreamed of.
Re: You are the scariest monster in the woods
#20(DISCO ELYSIUM SPOILERS BELOW) One of the most poignant moments in Disco Elysium is near the very end when you encounter a very elusive crypid/mythic beast. The moment is treated with a lot of care and consideration, and the conversation itself is, I think, transcendent and some of the best writing in games (or any media) ever. The line that sticks with me most is when the cryptid says: "The moral of our encounter is…
>It's easy to see this reflected in nature in the real world. All animals and life seem to be aware and accommodating of each other, but humans are cut out from that communication.
This just seems like noble savaging birds and rabbits and deer. None of these creatures have any communication with each other, and while they may be more aware of each other's presence than a 'go hiking every once in a while' person, someone who actually spends a good amount of time in the woods, such as a hunter or birdwatcher, probably has a pretty good sense of them. The Disco Elysium quote just reads like fairly common environmentalist misanthropy, which I suppose isn't surprising considering the creators.