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How I feel about AI

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Re: How I feel about AI

#141

Post by simianwords »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #52

The thing that makes me pretty terrified about AI is that I think the "utopia" scenario is not much better than the "doom" scenario. We will very quickly get to a point where very few people will be able to contribute economically because they will be worse than AI (including robotics) at most domains. A world where people just have their whims catered to is not a utopia. We have tons of sayings and idioms about this…

Privileged rich people want scarcity to exist so that it gives meaning to their job.

wut.

Re: How I feel about AI

#142

Post by arctic-true »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #52

The thing that makes me pretty terrified about AI is that I think the "utopia" scenario is not much better than the "doom" scenario. We will very quickly get to a point where very few people will be able to contribute economically because they will be worse than AI (including robotics) at most domains. A world where people just have their whims catered to is not a utopia. We have tons of sayings and idioms about this…

Presumably, a truly superintelligent AI in a utopia scenario could figure out a way to enable people to continue working, even if the work doesn’t actually contribute anything, if it is really the case that work is essential to human wellbeing.

Now you might say “but those would be fake jobs.” If so, I have bad news about how many present-day jobs are fake jobs.

Re: How I feel about AI

#143

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

Crabber wrote: post #45
cush wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They already influence people to do things that we wouldn’t otherwise

For millennia evil people and dictators have been using manipulation, propaganda, threats of violence to get entire populations to try and do "things that they wouldn't do otherwise" and humanity has not been exterminated yet. Even in the modern world there's human scammers that try everything to coerce and manipulate people. Humans are resistant to this kind of thing because it's been part of human social society si…

Dictators have never had superintelligence, while the point of most doom scenarios is assuming that the AI will.

Dictators are mortal and can't be present in the whole world 24/7 and self-replicate.

Dictators are human and tend to have at least either a sliver of morality or self-preservation instinct, and/or people around them who have it. Many people during the last century could have unleashed doom by pushing a nuclear button, including various ruthless dictators, but at the moment none have done so since Hiroshima and Nagasaki (not that I trust that they won't at some point, but at least, for the last 80 years they haven't, which means it's not something that easily happens). Would you give the button to an unaligned AI? Would an unaligned AI care about mutually assured destruction?

Re: How I feel about AI

#144

Post by bossyTeacher »

Crabber wrote: post #18

>a superintelligent AI will inevitably destroy humanity Can someone please explain to me how an LLM is going to "destroy humanity"? Even if the claims of ChatGPT, Claude et al. are true that their super scary agents were able to escape a sandbox and start hacking other servers (which I feel is at least 50% likely to just be marketing bullshit), how is an AI going to affect anything in the real world? Perhaps an agent…

> how is an AI going to affect anything in the real world?

In 2026? Money. By paying enough, any human will do your bidding. And besides this, there are a lot of critical systems connected to the internet. Control over those gives you leverage over those systems. It's like wealth, the more you have, the easier it is to gain more.

Re: How I feel about AI

#146

Post by agumonkey »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #52

The thing that makes me pretty terrified about AI is that I think the "utopia" scenario is not much better than the "doom" scenario. We will very quickly get to a point where very few people will be able to contribute economically because they will be worse than AI (including robotics) at most domains. A world where people just have their whims catered to is not a utopia. We have tons of sayings and idioms about this…

There's the mice utopia experiment too. I often hear that in space your bones dégradé, your biology needs weight as input.

Also I believe our socialness was crafted out of the need for survival. If removed it's all gonna run wild since nobody needs anybody, and it might end up as doom scrolling but for human relationship. Short bursts from time to time and that's it

Re: How I feel about AI

#147

Post by FabHK »

Crabber wrote: post #131
cubefox wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> >a superintelligent AI will inevitably destroy humanity > Can someone please explain to me how an LLM is going to "destroy humanity"? He said "superintelligent AI", not "LLM". LLMs will for sure help with developing the AI that is no longer a mere LLM but will be capable of robotics. LLMs "predict" mainly text, animals (and future robot AI) are predict future sensory experience.

Well I think the point still stands that a superintelligent AI would still be constrained to the digital realm. And since we don't yet have a "superintelligent AI" we are just discussing science fiction at that point. Nobody has yet proven that a superintelligent AI is possible, or than an LLM is capable of creating one.

> a superintelligent AI would still be constrained to the digital realm.

That's already now only partially true, as outlined elsewhere. But a rogue persistent ASI would of course not willy-nilly attack humanity while humanity had a fighting chance, but create the conditions and methodically modify the world until at some point humans become superfluous to it.

> Nobody has yet proven that a superintelligent AI is possible

Sure, Eliezer Yudkowsky says that the probability that we'll all die given ASI is 100%, and you can argue that nobody has proven either that or even the possibility of ASI. However, a modified argument (e.g. that the probability that we'll all die given ASI is only say 50%, and the probability that we'll develop ASI also just 50%) still gives us reason to pause.

Re: How I feel about AI

#148

Post by FabHK »

Isamu wrote: post #80
Crabber wrote: post #18

>a superintelligent AI will inevitably destroy humanity Can someone please explain to me how an LLM is going to "destroy humanity"? Even if the claims of ChatGPT, Claude et al. are true that their super scary agents were able to escape a sandbox and start hacking other servers (which I feel is at least 50% likely to just be marketing bullshit), how is an AI going to affect anything in the real world? Perhaps an agent…

The confusing thing to me is the idea that it follows from super intelligence. I don’t see why running amuck requires intelligence, in fact it can be the most brain dead thing like the sorcerer’s apprentice, your creation is pursuing a goal without being able to weigh the consequences.

Intelligence gives it the capability to reach its goals (against obstacles).

Re: How I feel about AI

#149

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

arctic-true wrote: post #142
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #52

The thing that makes me pretty terrified about AI is that I think the "utopia" scenario is not much better than the "doom" scenario. We will very quickly get to a point where very few people will be able to contribute economically because they will be worse than AI (including robotics) at most domains. A world where people just have their whims catered to is not a utopia. We have tons of sayings and idioms about this…

Presumably, a truly superintelligent AI in a utopia scenario could figure out a way to enable people to continue working, even if the work doesn’t actually contribute anything, if it is really the case that work is essential to human wellbeing. Now you might say “but those would be fake jobs.” If so, I have bad news about how many present-day jobs are fake jobs.

I agree with this. I thought the AI 2027 paper put it well:

> There are even bioengineered human-like creatures (to humans what corgis are to wolves) sitting in office-like environments all day viewing readouts of what’s going on and excitedly approving of everything, since that satisfies some of Agent-4’s drives.

I'll leave it up to you to decide if that's an enviable/desirable future.

Re: How I feel about AI

#150

Post by giardini »

FabHK wrote: post #125
Crabber wrote: post #18

>a superintelligent AI will inevitably destroy humanity Can someone please explain to me how an LLM is going to "destroy humanity"? Even if the claims of ChatGPT, Claude et al. are true that their super scary agents were able to escape a sandbox and start hacking other servers (which I feel is at least 50% likely to just be marketing bullshit), how is an AI going to affect anything in the real world? Perhaps an agent…

That's what the Mayans thought - what harm can a couple of people on a boat do? > how is an AI going to affect anything in the real world? At least two ways: * Actuators, such as robots, industrial control systems, etc. * By influencing humans: bribery (yay for crypto), blackmail, election interference, interfering with sensors (e.g. making it appear as if a nuclear attack was under way), and many other ways. Either…

It wouldn't be enough to "eliminate most humans": any AI seeking to dominate would have to provide it's own infrastructure and continuation mechanism independent of humanity. OTOH if the goal were to eradicate humans (for whatever reason), that might prove an easier target. But I'd bet on biology and the humans: after all we're a time-tested technology!8-))
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