And Butler himself:
https://www.bartleby.com/library/prose/1066.html
An interesting read if you haven't already read Erewhon.
The Butlerian Jihad
21–30 of 99 posts
Re: The Butlerian Jihad
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
Think of how we treat ants or cockroaches. If they at all inconvenience us or even appear in our home, we kill them. We go as far as developing specialized poisons they take back to their nests to try to kill the whole colony. It isn't hard to envision a future where the intelligence gap between humans and AI is closer to humans vs ants than humans vs dogs.
I don't know about how you treat ants or cockroaches, but personally I've purchased a bugcatcher: it's a device you hold in the hand, with a magnifier on top and a sliding door on the bottom. If an insect disturbs me, I put it in the bugcatcher. I can look at it for a minute to check it's not a dangerous species (ex: black widow spider), then I go in the garden where I release it. > It isn't hard to envision a future…
> I care about bugs, and I do my best not to kill them.
You are an outlier, I'd rather not bet the future of humanity on all artificial intelligences being Francis of Assisis.
> Why would AI behave more like in your doomsday scenario than in my more mellow scenario?
Well maybe they wouldn't. But why risk it?
Re: The Butlerian Jihad
#23I don't understand why people like to fantasize the worst case scenarios. Sentient things appreciate eachother. If you have a pet, you are most certainly benevolent to it: you house it for free, you feed it, and you entertain it. Even if we assume AI becomes a few orders of magnitude more intelligent that humans, why would AI treat humans differently from the way we treat pets? I don't see the drawback in being house…
> I don't understand why people like to fantasize the worst case scenarios. The biggest TV show this year is literally yet another zombie apocalypse[1]. This is the easiest part to understand. What got frustrating was when all the effective altruists got all distracted about the AI Overlord Problem and stopped doing actual charity. But it was the charity thing that annoyed us; no one wanted to deny them their sci-fi…
> Albeit a really great one that's really about the meaning of happiness and belonging that you should absolutely watch.
That's the best recommendation I could get :) I'll check if it's not too violent, they I may add it to my watchlist.
I love watching and discovering old shows: right now I'm doing Sliders, next on the list is either Dinosaurs or the X-Files.
Re: The Butlerian Jihad
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wondering what Leto II would have said of the uses of ChatGPT?
I asked GPT-4: "Leto II Atreides, a character from Frank Herbert's Dune series, is a highly intelligent and prescient ruler who exists thousands of years after the Butlerian Jihad, an event where humanity revolted against thinking machines and artificial intelligence. Considering the context of the Butlerian Jihad, Leto II would likely have a complex view of ChatGPT. As a highly advanced AI language model, ChatGPT mi…
Typically incredible coherence, but also typical in it's fence-sitting uselessness that spends a lot of words but doesn't dare make a point.
I've only read up to book 4, but Leto II uses AI (well, advanced Ixian) technology but hides it. At least in book 4, he would have said that ChatGPT is not to be used at all by his people or his council, and wouldn't have used it himself, as he didn't need it.
Again, impressive tech, but doesn't give you an interesting or useful answer.
Re: The Butlerian Jihad
#25I don't understand why people like to fantasize the worst case scenarios. Sentient things appreciate eachother. If you have a pet, you are most certainly benevolent to it: you house it for free, you feed it, and you entertain it. Even if we assume AI becomes a few orders of magnitude more intelligent that humans, why would AI treat humans differently from the way we treat pets? I don't see the drawback in being house…
You're anthropomorphising too much.
The space of powerful optimisers is much larger than the space of things that are recognisably minds.
It might just be a mathematical model powerful enough to predict what people will do and what responses emitting text will entail that 'wants' a certain number to go up. Abstractly and philosophically parts of it might be recognisable similarly to people and those parts might even be arguably sapient and have empathy. But if they are just appendages like a finger then that won't help you any if your existence involves the number being smaller.
Maybe the first one will have its central loss function as something compatible with life, maybe it won't.
Re: The Butlerian Jihad
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wondering what Leto II would have said of the uses of ChatGPT?
I asked GPT-4: "Leto II Atreides, a character from Frank Herbert's Dune series, is a highly intelligent and prescient ruler who exists thousands of years after the Butlerian Jihad, an event where humanity revolted against thinking machines and artificial intelligence. Considering the context of the Butlerian Jihad, Leto II would likely have a complex view of ChatGPT. As a highly advanced AI language model, ChatGPT mi…
Can you ask it whether the Brian Herbert's portrayal of Marty and Daniel is consistent with what Frank wrote?
Re: The Butlerian Jihad
#27I don't understand why people like to fantasize the worst case scenarios. Sentient things appreciate eachother. If you have a pet, you are most certainly benevolent to it: you house it for free, you feed it, and you entertain it. Even if we assume AI becomes a few orders of magnitude more intelligent that humans, why would AI treat humans differently from the way we treat pets? I don't see the drawback in being house…
Humans treat some animals as pets, and others as food, and for experimentation.
I expect AI would be no different.
Re: The Butlerian Jihad
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know about how you treat ants or cockroaches, but personally I've purchased a bugcatcher: it's a device you hold in the hand, with a magnifier on top and a sliding door on the bottom. If an insect disturbs me, I put it in the bugcatcher. I can look at it for a minute to check it's not a dangerous species (ex: black widow spider), then I go in the garden where I release it. > It isn't hard to envision a future…
> I care about bugs, and I do my best not to kill them. You are an outlier, I'd rather not bet the future of humanity on all artificial intelligences being Francis of Assisis. > Why would AI behave more like in your doomsday scenario than in my more mellow scenario? Well maybe they wouldn't. But why risk it?
> Well maybe they wouldn't. But why risk it?
If only because we haven't found sentient aliens yet, so it might be our best chance to feel less lonely in this universe!
Also, I believe the more sentient beings, the better! We could fit a whole lot more of people on this earth, helping advance technology and progress!
Re: The Butlerian Jihad
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
I asked GPT-4: "Leto II Atreides, a character from Frank Herbert's Dune series, is a highly intelligent and prescient ruler who exists thousands of years after the Butlerian Jihad, an event where humanity revolted against thinking machines and artificial intelligence. Considering the context of the Butlerian Jihad, Leto II would likely have a complex view of ChatGPT. As a highly advanced AI language model, ChatGPT mi…
I can't wait to take LLMs this powerful off of the OpenAI/Microsoft guard rails. We're going to be able to write incredible fiction.
It is pretty close now. I got access through Poe. The censorship is light as long as you avoid sex and violence. It can do some sex though, for example I was able to generate a collection of pillow talk for a specific cultural context.
Re: The Butlerian Jihad
#30I don't understand why people like to fantasize the worst case scenarios. Sentient things appreciate eachother. If you have a pet, you are most certainly benevolent to it: you house it for free, you feed it, and you entertain it. Even if we assume AI becomes a few orders of magnitude more intelligent that humans, why would AI treat humans differently from the way we treat pets? I don't see the drawback in being house…
“why would AI treat humans differently from the way we treat pets?“
Are you suggesting that the first thing AI would do is getting us all fixed, because who in their right mind would want eight billion of those, no matter how cute they are?