Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

There is no A.I.

newyorker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 523 posts

Re: There is no A.I.

#171

Post by AdieuToLogic »

b33j0r wrote: post #43
tracerbulletx wrote: post #27

All of these arguments seem to think that the brain isn't also generating a statistical ordering of semantic words and actions. Obviously the brain has a way more complex network of subsystems with various specialties than the artificial models we have today and is able to generalize language, math, and positional reasoning and mix it with the older parts of the brain for reward and training mechanisms and it can do…

We just can’t accept that we might solve ourselves. People are understandably desperate to understand their experiences as more than an encoding of a thing that might be explained. And all of our surprising wins and awful mistakes had explainable reasons, dammit; it wasn’t just a misfiring of trained statistical networks!

> We just can’t accept that we might solve ourselves.

To solve ourselves is to know ourselves completely, and to know ourselves completely is to be honest in who and why we are what we are simultaneously across all persons. It assumes perfect knowledge.

There is no statistical approximation nor computational power which can do this.

> People are understandably desperate to understand their experiences as more than an encoding of a thing that might be explained.

Another way to frame this is, "some people are nihilists and do not see life as more than an encoding of a thing that might be explained."

Re: There is no A.I.

#172

Post by [deleted] »

Animats wrote: post #68

The elephant in the room in these discussions of AI is the concept of the corporation. Most of the things people are worried about AI doing are things corporations already do. Deceptive marketing, exploiting customer information, conspiring to keep prices high, creating distractions from things companies are doing, setting up monopolies, lying to customers - the usual. With AI, this can be automated. Most of this is…

[deleted]

Re: There is no A.I.

#173

Post by Animats »

crabmusket wrote: post #123
Animats wrote: post #68

The elephant in the room in these discussions of AI is the concept of the corporation. Most of the things people are worried about AI doing are things corporations already do. Deceptive marketing, exploiting customer information, conspiring to keep prices high, creating distractions from things companies are doing, setting up monopolies, lying to customers - the usual. With AI, this can be automated. Most of this is…

This is a great framing. I also appreciated this similar idea in Matthew Butterick's blog: > Before too long, we will not dele­gate deci­sions to AI systems because they perform better. Rather, we will dele­gate deci­sions to AI systems because they can get away with every­thing that we can’t. You’ve heard of money laun­dering? This is human-behavior laun­dering. At last—plau­sible deni­a­bility for every­thing. [1]…

> Before too long, we will not dele­gate deci­sions to AI systems because they perform better. Rather, we will dele­gate deci­sions to AI systems because they can get away with every­thing that we can’t.

Here's Frontier Airlines announcing proudly to investors that they will do exactly that.[1] See page 44.

Today: Call center. Avenue for customer negotiation.

Tomorrow: Chatbot efficiently answers questions, reduces contacts and removes negotiation.

[1] https://ir.flyfrontier.com/static-files/c7e0a34d-3659-49cc-8...

Re: There is no A.I.

#174

Post by sangnoir »

browningstreet wrote: post #168
LambdaComplex wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Once AI systems can outperform CEOs, investors and boards will insist they be in charge. I doubt it. You know who sits on those boards? The executives of other companies.

CEOs are often a problem for Boards.

Board-members are often CEOs themselves (or CxOs), I don't doubt they'll circle the wagons to ensure the CEO is the last role replaced in a company.

Re: There is no A.I.

#175

Post by sdze »

brucethemoose2 wrote: post #113
Animats wrote: post #68

The elephant in the room in these discussions of AI is the concept of the corporation. Most of the things people are worried about AI doing are things corporations already do. Deceptive marketing, exploiting customer information, conspiring to keep prices high, creating distractions from things companies are doing, setting up monopolies, lying to customers - the usual. With AI, this can be automated. Most of this is…

I don't really agree with this... there is a parallel issue. If AIs are doing most of the work in megacorps (especially if robotics take off), then basically all profit is going to the owners and tiny groups of executive AI "managers." Even the most staunch (but sane) capitalist libertarian will admit mega income inequality is baaad juju.

And who will consume the output of these robots? Surely not the unemployed workers they replaced.

Re: There is no A.I.

#177

Post by amilios »

You want a plausible scenario for destruction via AI? Here's one. Some idiot governments put a neural network behind missile defense or nukes. Because ANNs are uninterpretable black boxes, at some point the system does a counterdefense against nothing or grossly overreacts to some stimulus. Tada, absolute destruction and chaos. This might seem far fetched, but is it really that out-there of a scenario?

Re: There is no A.I.

#178

Post by ftxbro »

counttheforks wrote: post #94
eternalban wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This then is the perfect historic opportunity to revist granting personhood to corporations. p.s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood Almost all such legal framings have been motivated by the legal difficulties of applying laws to organized groups of individuals. For example, entering into contracts is legally between two parties. Presumably, the sheer amount of legal reworking necessary to actually cr…

I never really understood this. Can a company go to prison or get the death penalty?

It's a legal term of art. The term 'natural person' means a human.

Re: There is no A.I.

#179

Post by fallingknife »

coldtea wrote: post #152
crabmusket wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you see a connection between limited liability and AI, or are you going in the direction of "free gifts to corporations"? I'm trying to understand how limited liability interacts with AI and corporations.

If people running corporations are personally responsible (with no "limited liability" protections) they can't just play fast and loose letting AI make decisions.

That's between them and the people who choose to hire them (the shareholders) and lend them money.

Re: There is no A.I.

#180

Post by nanidin »

Animats wrote: post #173
crabmusket wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great framing. I also appreciated this similar idea in Matthew Butterick's blog: > Before too long, we will not dele­gate deci­sions to AI systems because they perform better. Rather, we will dele­gate deci­sions to AI systems because they can get away with every­thing that we can’t. You’ve heard of money laun­dering? This is human-behavior laun­dering. At last—plau­sible deni­a­bility for every­thing. [1]…

> Before too long, we will not dele­gate deci­sions to AI systems because they perform better. Rather, we will dele­gate deci­sions to AI systems because they can get away with every­thing that we can’t. Here's Frontier Airlines announcing proudly to investors that they will do exactly that.[1] See page 44. Today: Call center. Avenue for customer negotiation. Tomorrow: Chatbot efficiently answers questions, reduces c…

This is the infuriating part of dealing with Amazon customer service these days. Anything that doesn’t fit into the box of what the chatbot will do is met with “I understand your frustration, …” and it’s like, no, there is no understanding here!

Just like call center trees have escapes to real service by pressing 0 ad nauseum or swearing loudly, these AI service agents will have ways to get to real people and they’ll be documented in the usual places.

Post reply on HN