Do we need to worry about artificial stupidity? • Hacker News Board

Re: Do we need to worry about artificial stupidity?

#41

Post by Nasrudith » Wed, Aug 14, 2019, 12:05 PM UTC

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #26

narrator wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which calls into question the whole idea that democracy even works and that people can actually think for themselves and aren't just controlled by whatever propaganda happens to show up in front of their faces. I don't even argue politics with people any more because it's almost 100% what news sources they trust and find credible. It's all just rumor and innuendo these days. Those news sources trust and find credible…

Democracy (in the general sense) works just fine. It relies on groups of people of a certain geographic area physically getting out and interacting. Democracy isn't some guy living in his closet plugged into the web and making life choices based on AI-selected video streams. That's some kind of transhumanist nightmare. AI is an extinction-level threat to humanity, but when you say that, people think you're talking ab…

I must disagree about democracy - abstracted out it only relies upon distribution of power and dependencies.

I keep on hearing AI claimed as an extinction level threat yet never has an actual mechanism been given - just a pile of tropes taken as dogma.

Let alone the fact that if humanity does something stupid enough with basically anything it could be an extinction level threat. A comet and a sufficently large number reenacting Heavens Gate would be an extinction level threat with no inherent technology even communications.

Mass adoption of plutonium codpieces/IUDs and deliberate refusal to recognize the effects of radiation poisoning for fear of effect on commerce or pride could be an extinction level event.

AI won't save us from being a pile of complete idiots unless it is vastly superhuman but it cannot be blamed for death by stupidity.

Re: Do we need to worry about artificial stupidity?

#42

Post by delinka » Wed, Aug 14, 2019, 12:07 PM UTC

skilled wrote: post #18

al_form2000 wrote: post #14

'There is no doubt that AI may one day become much more intelligent than humans' Really?

"no doubt" and "may" are two words that contradict one another. Clearly whoever wrote that has no idea what they are talking about.

I disagree. They've constructed a sentence that will always be true by using the weasel word "may" and the emphatic "no doubt."

I have no doubt that one day someone may win big at poker in a casino. Someone may; or they may not - of this I have no doubt.

Re: Do we need to worry about artificial stupidity?

#43

Post by ivanhoe » Wed, Aug 14, 2019, 12:15 PM UTC

narrator wrote: post #21

mrhappyunhappy wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YouTube recommendations feel like a direct impediment to democracy. When your recommendations consist of the same crap all the time, it may seem as though that stuff carries more weight than it really does. I wonder to what degree YouTube is responsible for the current political climate. The same with Twitter really. When you only follow and see posts from people you choose, how are you supposed to give important iss…

Which calls into question the whole idea that democracy even works and that people can actually think for themselves and aren't just controlled by whatever propaganda happens to show up in front of their faces. I don't even argue politics with people any more because it's almost 100% what news sources they trust and find credible. It's all just rumor and innuendo these days. Those news sources trust and find credible…

Works for whom? You or the majority?

Re: Do we need to worry about artificial stupidity?

#44

Post by microcolonel » Wed, Aug 14, 2019, 12:34 PM UTC

481092 wrote: post #17

pjc50 wrote: post #11

There's a lot to be said for this line of argument. The stupidity of the Youtube recommendation engine has wrecked Brazilian politics, for example: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/11/world/americas/youtube-br... (The deliberate construction of an AI that pays people to produce lies to damage other people's health and welfare sounds like a farfetched science fiction plot. Accidentally building one, and then trying to…

They should make youtube great again. It used to be that I could watch 911 videos on the anniversary and there'd be real heart-felt personal videos from actual people involved and now most of that's been censored by dramatic conspiratorial junk. It'd also be great if it didn't recommend for every video I watch, Jordan Peterson on his social justice sprees complaining about the newest thing that he's offended by this…

> Jordan Peterson... That got old last year.

No, it did not. By some takes, society is in its most dire crisis ever and he's telling people they can do something other than panic. That's popular, get over it.

Re: Do we need to worry about artificial stupidity?

#45

Post by merpnderp » Wed, Aug 14, 2019, 12:43 PM UTC

narrator wrote: post #25

mattlutze wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to illustrate our attenuation to story and the effect of dominant stories on our worldviews. I'd suggest it's less a challenge to democracy and more an affirmation of the criticality of a fact-based, unbiased 4th estate, and the scary effects of anyone with a comb-over and green screen being able to make their own "news" show.

So do the politicians in power only give out media licenses to news sources that feed from those "Anonymous Sources" that support their agenda? The problem is not who is allowed to report, it's that the mainstream news has started citing anonymous sources with ridiculous frequency and the credibility of those sources is never called into question because nobody knows who they are. When those anonymous sources turn ou…

This is the actual problem. The news has no consequences for being wrong, no matter how outrageously or often.

Re: Do we need to worry about artificial stupidity?

#46

Post by jddj » Wed, Aug 14, 2019, 12:43 PM UTC

I used Google Translate yesterday to translate a french phrase to english and got something like: "It's better to be alone than to be in bad comapny".

I looked around for a Duolingo-style "report bad translation", "rate" or "give feedback" action but couldn't find one anywhere on that screen.

Artificial stupidity seems like a natural step on the way to artificial intelligence, but we would likely benefit from building in some training wheels.

Re: Do we need to worry about artificial stupidity?

#47

Post by 481092 » Wed, Aug 14, 2019, 12:54 PM UTC

microcolonel wrote: post #44

481092 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should make youtube great again. It used to be that I could watch 911 videos on the anniversary and there'd be real heart-felt personal videos from actual people involved and now most of that's been censored by dramatic conspiratorial junk. It'd also be great if it didn't recommend for every video I watch, Jordan Peterson on his social justice sprees complaining about the newest thing that he's offended by this…

> Jordan Peterson... That got old last year. No, it did not. By some takes, society is in its most dire crisis ever and he's telling people they can do something other than panic. That's popular, get over it.

Out of all the crises society has ever faced, you're talking about one of the most peaceful times in mankind. This is why people are getting annoyed at youtube's recommendations and part of the problem. People like you and Peterson trying to fight over people's minds and telling them you need to be offended by this or you need to do that. No, I just want to watch my nature docs, I don't need people trying to recruit me to fight in their own personal culture wars.

Re: Do we need to worry about artificial stupidity?

#48

Post by DanielBMarkham » Wed, Aug 14, 2019, 12:59 PM UTC

Nasrudith wrote: post #41

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democracy (in the general sense) works just fine. It relies on groups of people of a certain geographic area physically getting out and interacting. Democracy isn't some guy living in his closet plugged into the web and making life choices based on AI-selected video streams. That's some kind of transhumanist nightmare. AI is an extinction-level threat to humanity, but when you say that, people think you're talking ab…

I must disagree about democracy - abstracted out it only relies upon distribution of power and dependencies. I keep on hearing AI claimed as an extinction level threat yet never has an actual mechanism been given - just a pile of tropes taken as dogma. Let alone the fact that if humanity does something stupid enough with basically anything it could be an extinction level threat. A comet and a sufficently large number…

"I keep on hearing AI claimed as an extinction level threat yet never has an actual mechanism been given - just a pile of tropes taken as dogma."

I believe that is the point I'm making: by digitizing the human experience and optimizing certain easily-optimized chains of thought, you will never see the mechanism; nor will I.

There is no mechanism in the sense you seem to be asking for.

This is a preponderance of the evidence argument, not a geometric one, so even if we completely understand one another, it's perfectly fine for you to feel the point hasn't been made and I to feel like it has.

We all know various situations where people are given what they ask for and it ends up destroying them. People who suddenly win the lottery don't generally have a bright future ahead of them. People with paranoia issues who spend a lot of time off medications alone researching things usually don't end up in a good place. Rebellious youths experimenting with opiates are in a dangerous place. Isolated social groups with tight moral strictures have problems in a larger secular society.

I don't know how many of these situations you'd like listed, but there are easily dozens, and that's speaking in a generic sense. Once you start individually customizing the scenarios, say an isolated youth with some tendencies towards paranoia living in a tightly-controlled social group, the scenarios expand without limitations.

And that's what current AI promises, customized experiences in various situations based on all sorts of variables you and I may never have considered. You do this with every person, in more and more situations, and the impact is undecidable. Yes, you don't get it. The reasoning doesn't hold up. That's because if I could make a specific case about one particular scenario, it wouldn't be applicable to the argument I'm making.

I wish I could say we're performing a wide scale social experiment that we've never seen before. But the word "experiment" implies a lot of agency that isn't there. We're just mucking around with millions of variables simultaneously across a population of billions and telling people that because there's nothing obviously bad to be seen, nothing bad must be there. Then we end up reading these vague studies about how teens who use their cell phones more are more unhappy than those who don't -- and we're unable to process that information in any reasonable context. We're expecting to be able to reason about AI, but if we could do that, we wouldn't need the AI in the first place.

Re: Do we need to worry about artificial stupidity?

#49

Post by silveroriole » Wed, Aug 14, 2019, 1:20 PM UTC

microcolonel wrote: post #44

481092 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should make youtube great again. It used to be that I could watch 911 videos on the anniversary and there'd be real heart-felt personal videos from actual people involved and now most of that's been censored by dramatic conspiratorial junk. It'd also be great if it didn't recommend for every video I watch, Jordan Peterson on his social justice sprees complaining about the newest thing that he's offended by this…

> Jordan Peterson... That got old last year. No, it did not. By some takes, society is in its most dire crisis ever and he's telling people they can do something other than panic. That's popular, get over it.

What is he telling people they can do? Other than stand up straight and ignore the crisis until they’ve cleaned their rooms? (I’ve already read the book.)

Re: Do we need to worry about artificial stupidity?

#50

Post by celticmusic » Wed, Aug 14, 2019, 1:23 PM UTC

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #48

Nasrudith wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I must disagree about democracy - abstracted out it only relies upon distribution of power and dependencies. I keep on hearing AI claimed as an extinction level threat yet never has an actual mechanism been given - just a pile of tropes taken as dogma. Let alone the fact that if humanity does something stupid enough with basically anything it could be an extinction level threat. A comet and a sufficently large number…

"I keep on hearing AI claimed as an extinction level threat yet never has an actual mechanism been given - just a pile of tropes taken as dogma." I believe that is the point I'm making: by digitizing the human experience and optimizing certain easily-optimized chains of thought, you will never see the mechanism; nor will I. There is no mechanism in the sense you seem to be asking for. This is a preponderance of the e…

what you're spouting is just religion all over again.

There will always be a certain segment of the population that are into drugs, into religion, into politics, into the mindless entertainment provided by youtube, ad nauseum.

But it will never be all of humanity, or even most of humanity. The trash still needs to be collected, the electricity still needs to be generated, the food still needs to be made and distributed. And the country still needs to be run.

The ones doing these things are going to understand the reality enough to value doing them.

The danger of AI isn't in a long slow destruction of humanity, it's in a flash event that wrests control from us such that we can never regain it.

Now, whether or not that can, or will, happen is up for debate.

But this argument about how AI is slowly going to destroy us because we're all going to slowly start valuing what it tells us over "real life" is just the same old morality arguments surrounding religion reskinned. It just means you understand their perspective, or their need to enforce their world vision on others.