As the rabbis say, "May this day come quickly and in our time!" Except maybe not the whole destroying the Earth with atomics part.
The Butlerian Jihad
31–40 of 99 posts
Re: The Butlerian Jihad
#32Earlier 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 think I have the same bug catcher!
No matter how we treat bugs, humans as a whole kill a heck of a lot of bugs. Even unintentionally, like by driving our cars or destroying habitats.
While I will conceed that there is some doomsday thinking going on, I don't think it is unreasonable to spend relatively more time thinking about the scenarios that could be most harmful. I would rather humanity overindex a little on exploring the life threatening scenario vs how great the infinite Seinfeld episode is. But to each there own!
Re: The Butlerian Jihad
#33It was a necessary point in the world building of Dune. Frank Herbert needed his world to not have AI or human like robots. He explored alternatives: human computers via Mentats, and Terminator like infiltrators via facedancers.
Dune takes a fantasy like approach to technology. There are no lasers, because they would cause a nuclear reaction. There are no robots, because of their past uprising.
This was a neat way to tie loose ends and sustain the universe. Brilliant.
Re: The Butlerian Jihad
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
How long until the adult LLMs are available on porn sites?
Re: The Butlerian Jihad
#35The Butlerian Jihad is an unlikely fantasy. Technological advance follows a Darwinian logic: if one group of beings decides to stop developing an advantageous technology, then almost always eventually a different group of beings will develop that technology anyway and will then probably outcompete the group that decided to not develop the technology. This is why stopping AI development would be extremely hard. You might as well try to get countries to give up their nuclear weapons. To pull off something like the Butlerian Jihad, you would need the group of beings that oppose thinking machines to somehow defeat the group of beings that are perfectly fine with using thinking machines as assistants in the war against the other group.
Re: The Butlerian Jihad
#36Chatgpt could probably write a better book than Herbert's son.
Seriously, all the dune prequels are just so bad.
If you read the first 2, 3, 4 dune books and enjoyed the (5 and 6 get really weird), and pick up one of the books published after Herbert's death, you will be very disappointed.
Re: The Butlerian Jihad
#37The Butlerian Jihad is an unlikely fantasy. Technological advance follows a Darwinian logic: if one group of beings decides to stop developing an advantageous technology, then almost always eventually a different group of beings will develop that technology anyway and will then probably outcompete the group that decided to not develop the technology. This is why stopping AI development would be extremely hard. You mi…
This assumes that AI makes a group stronger rather than weaker.
Re: The Butlerian Jihad
#38It was a necessary point in the world building of Dune. Frank Herbert needed his world to not have AI or human like robots. He explored alternatives: human computers via Mentats, and Terminator like infiltrators via facedancers. Dune takes a fantasy like approach to technology. There are no lasers, because they would cause a nuclear reaction. There are no robots, because of their past uprising. This was a neat way to…
Yeah there is something in the world building of Frank Herbert that never leaves you when you've read the entire series.
I also like that there are implied abuse of the Bulterian bible later in the series... The stuff going on on Ix and the Tleilaxus' interpretation of the code.
Re: The Butlerian Jihad
#39The Butlerian Jihad is an unlikely fantasy. Technological advance follows a Darwinian logic: if one group of beings decides to stop developing an advantageous technology, then almost always eventually a different group of beings will develop that technology anyway and will then probably outcompete the group that decided to not develop the technology. This is why stopping AI development would be extremely hard. You mi…
This is precisely what happens though. Mentats, Guild Navigators, the Bene *s. Instead of machines they evolved people.
Re: The Butlerian Jihad
#40The Butlerian Jihad is an unlikely fantasy. Technological advance follows a Darwinian logic: if one group of beings decides to stop developing an advantageous technology, then almost always eventually a different group of beings will develop that technology anyway and will then probably outcompete the group that decided to not develop the technology. This is why stopping AI development would be extremely hard. You mi…
This assumes that AI makes a group stronger rather than weaker.
A safe assumption, just a LLaMA torrent away from confirmation.
I bet you that an un-guardrailed LLM just slays at, well, slaying.
Put it in a Boston Robotics.