When Trump and Soros sound the same, they're probably right.
The AI Threat to Open Societies
111–120 of 157 posts
Re: The AI Threat to Open Societies
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
Internet is out of control by citizens. The web was such a democratic space but browsers narrow that space down because they are centralized products. DRM-enabled only (if ever comes) will kill the web.
I don't understand - why are browsers centralised?
How many major browsers do you know? How hard it is to implement your own? How hard it is to just read and roughly audit the source code? How much control do you have over the features of the browser?
Re: The AI Threat to Open Societies
#113History has already answered this numerous times. AI is a tool much like a semi-automatic rifle or the printing press. The people who understand it well have an accelerated advantage over those who do not. It is both a good and bad thing depending upon who wields the tool. Like any force multiplier it will be misunderstood (magic) and improperly regulated by both open and closed societies alike. Like with any tool th…
The question people need to address, is whether AI is a tool like the evolution from the Gun to the automatic rifle. OR whether AI is the kind of tool like flight, which made fortresses redundant. We have many areas of thought and society, which have been protected by walls of 'difficulty' making them intractable to large scale, automated and effective manipulation. This may no longer be the case, and AI may well rep…
Why must people know those things? As with any new technology the second and third order consequences are unclear and will likely be entirely surprising beyond any intended (or not) consequences.
Here is what my own experience in programming and my understanding of history have taught me. A sufficiently advanced understanding of a useful technology (doesn't even have to be new) allows a small group dominance over spaces traditionally controlled by large organizations or heavy investments in large technology. This causes fear and panic when it becomes clear. The common current solution is to attempt to purchase the competition, but what if the competition is not available for purchase?
Perhaps the most common fallacy regarding new technology is that you can destroy the competition with a sufficiently large force. History has proven this false numerous times and it remains false with modern technology. Consider the battle of Argincout, battle of Crecy, or the establishment of the Yuan dynasty. Consider how much current corporations are investing in AI research with thousands of dedicated developers.
A superior technology can easily compete with Amazon's AI unit, for example, even though you may have a team of 5 developers competing against their 5000. The reason why is because it takes time to learn and develop a superior understanding of technology necessary to create the superior technology while the army of competing developers will find friction abandoning their perceptions of reality even when confronted with critical evidence. An army of 5000 developers is an establishment of culture, practices, identify, and perceptions resulting in a large stagnant wall.
Re: The AI Threat to Open Societies
#114This reminds me of the "Do artifacts have politics" paper by Langdon Winner [1]. He argues that technologies have inherent political traits. Nuclear power is considered to be supportive of autocratic political systems since nuclear power plants need centralized planning and networks to be effective. Solar power is considered democratic since anyone can harness it. It's an interesting paper and definitely worth a read…
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Re: The AI Threat to Open Societies
#115History has already answered this numerous times. AI is a tool much like a semi-automatic rifle or the printing press. The people who understand it well have an accelerated advantage over those who do not. It is both a good and bad thing depending upon who wields the tool. Like any force multiplier it will be misunderstood (magic) and improperly regulated by both open and closed societies alike. Like with any tool th…
Some technology is obviously more useful to the population at large, such as the printing press. Other trchnology is more useful to the tyrant, such as the helicopter only they can afford, and use to monitor the city centers for groups of those unruly students. The idea of all technology being neutral and equally useful for any cause is absurd. The discussion is what category AInfalls under. I can instantly see its v…
A tyrant is just a ruler.
> The discussion is what category AInfalls under.
A tool or utility. A hammer drives nails into wood enabling construction far superior to hands alone. A hammer can also crush skulls. A hammer is a utility. The determinate use is left to the user. The same objective reasoning applies to successful gun laws, which is often fatally missed by the gun lobby and advocates of gun restrictions.
Re: The AI Threat to Open Societies
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
The exertion of control doesn’t even have to be blatant or physical. If social credit is a determining factor in an individual’s ability to function effectively in society, e.g. by way of credit ratings and access to opportune employment, there’s a clear risk of increased self-censorship and conformance, thereby debilitating serious political opposition even in its infancy.
If this social credit or indirect influence is perfectly fair, it's not really a problem. However, it's very likely it will be unfair to some, and create tension and unrest that will lead to the same problems we have without AI.
I would argue it's unrealistic to make such a system that would be fair in the eyes of all coming generations. Imagine they implemented a social credit system in the Middle Ages and added or deducted points based on whether or not you followed the laws and norms of that era.
Re: The AI Threat to Open Societies
#117[flagged]
This account has been posting mostly unsubstantive or off-topic comments. In order for this site to gratify our intellectual curiosity, we all have to actually bring some thought to the discussion. Would you please?
Re: The AI Threat to Open Societies
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
And tech will also solve the power problem of autocratic regimes. Right now, a dictator can't control every single individual in the country on their own. They need police that can search your apt at 5am because you made a blog post critical of the government. They need lawyers to convict you, prison guards, etc. In such regimes, the dictator still has to put people into places of power so that the will of the dictat…
You don’t even need citizens or serfs in this case.
That's true. It's why dictators today who extract their wealth from natural resources don't really care if their population is starving, because the ruler doesn't need them. At least, he doesn't need the uneducated, weak people who are starving.
Re: The AI Threat to Open Societies
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
George Orwell made much the same point in 1945: http://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/ABomb/english/e_abomb
"ages in which the dominant weapon is expensive or difficult to make will tend to be ages of despotism, whereas when the dominant weapon is cheap and simple, the common people have a chance" All we need to do is democratize AI. It can be well argued that it is happening.
So you're thinking the best way to defeat (for some notion of "defeat") a centralizing AI is a myriad of user-controlled AIs (even if they are hosted e.g. on AWS)?
I had never thought of this, but it seems to make sense.
Re: The AI Threat to Open Societies
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some technology is obviously more useful to the population at large, such as the printing press. Other trchnology is more useful to the tyrant, such as the helicopter only they can afford, and use to monitor the city centers for groups of those unruly students. The idea of all technology being neutral and equally useful for any cause is absurd. The discussion is what category AInfalls under. I can instantly see its v…
A tyrant is just a ruler. > The discussion is what category AInfalls under. A tool or utility. A hammer drives nails into wood enabling construction far superior to hands alone. A hammer can also crush skulls. A hammer is a utility. The determinate use is left to the user. The same objective reasoning applies to successful gun laws, which is often fatally missed by the gun lobby and advocates of gun restrictions.
Check any dictionary, except a 2000 year old Latin one. A tyrant is “a cruel and oppressive ruler” (Oxford American). Since you know that this is how the word has been commonly used for at least decades, and it is entirely clear from context that it was the intended meaning here, why do you feel it appropriate to waste everyone’s time with such a transparently bad-faith attempt to derail the discussion?
Then, maybe, actually engage with the argument, instead of just restating its opposite without adding anything to support that viewpoint.