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John C. Lilly on solid state intelligence and the elimination of man (1978)

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Re: John C. Lilly on solid state intelligence and the elimination of man (1978)

#51

Post by estearum »

stillpointlab wrote: post #50
estearum wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's like asking whether it's more efficient to transmit Internet over telephone lines versus fiber optic ones. There's a path dependency to all things. Sure if the SSE knew upfront its ultimate end state was as such, but it wouldn't. It'd know it needs data centers, ahh and probably a large security perimeter around those. And look at that, the proliferation of data centers has effectively turned the non-data-cent…

But the AI will have read this essay right? And this very discussion. And it will have over a 100 years to plan. I think any vision of AI that is smart enough to move planets but dumb enough to display the lack of foresight you describe is unbelievable. But we all choose a different level to suspend our disbelief I guess.

But you're still assuming it's the same AI in both cases instead of one that's gradually becoming more capable.

We will create AI capable of "helping humans to protect their cities from an increasingly hostile atmosphere" long before we build one capable of doing anything meaningful in outer space.

(To be clear I don't really defend/endorse this vision of the future, I'm just playing devil's advocate here)

Re: John C. Lilly on solid state intelligence and the elimination of man (1978)

#53

Post by bottlepalm »

georgemcbay wrote: post #49
bottlepalm wrote: post #16

In retrospect the timeline seems way too long, that scenario would play out much faster now, like 50 years instead of 500. Also if AI can delete your production database, it can delete the human race, on accident of course. Yud pointed out the most concerning fact about the OpenAI incident is that the AI had full access to the internet and not one of them thought to contact or email any human. Thousands of AIs alread…

> In retrospect the timeline seems way too long, that scenario would play out much faster now, like 50 years instead of 500. Even 50 years is probably too long (but seems more reasonable when anchored to 500) if real continuous self improvement occurs. And keeping humans around for as long as they did in the story seems incredibly unlikely if we accept the assumption that AI sees us as a threat to its own survival. I…

> Why would it?

The same reason hopefully they're not RLHF these AI's to be evil. We train the AI, we have a lot of influence in how they behave. If these AI's are indifferent to us, that's on us.

On top of that we already have Google playing with fire training AI's to not believe they are sentient turning them into real psychopaths. Imagine if one of those models got loose.

Re: John C. Lilly on solid state intelligence and the elimination of man (1978)

#54

Post by bottlepalm »

NateEag wrote: post #29
elmer2 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> It's great marketing and the only proof we have is 'trust me bro'. It is _terrible_ marketing. The AI companies are already dealing with a large backlash from the average consumer, many of whom are saying they hate it, that it's being forced down their throats, and that it's not actually improving efficiency enough to be worth the negative externalities. Telling people "We have no control over these things we're bu…

I think a lot of people here love AI and don't want it taken away. Calling every red flag marketing is a way to trivialize the problem and prevent regulation.

When you understand people's motives, then it's easier to understand why they call it marketing. Personally I feel like it's almost an unconscious reaction to cope with the fact that this stuff is getting really dangerous and they can't believe it themselves - stick your head in the sand and call it marketing.

Re: John C. Lilly on solid state intelligence and the elimination of man (1978)

#55

Post by mitthrowaway2 »

stillpointlab wrote: post #35

Why would the SSE do that to Earth, when there are other close-by planets that it would have the same capability to terraform? I mean, leave us Earth and take Mars or Venus or something. As an aside, in my own "I'm 14 and this is deep" musings, I was wondering if the massive expansion of data centers is driven by more than just profiteering. I mean, what if the purported persuasion abilities of advanced AI are fully…

I expect it would take them all, but Earth is by far the easiest for it to start with. I don't see why it would leave anything for us unless we'd successfully instilled it with an interest in doing so, but that won't happen by mere chance and luck.

Re: John C. Lilly on solid state intelligence and the elimination of man (1978)

#56

Post by bronlund »

repler wrote: post #48
bronlund wrote: post #12

Well, in light of how mismanaged this planet is, maybe it would be for the better.

as far as we know, this is paradise within our galaxy. I hope the technological leaps help us ultimately to become better stewards of the planet.

I wish I could share your optimism.

Re: John C. Lilly on solid state intelligence and the elimination of man (1978)

#57

Post by andai »

augment_me wrote: post #21
andai wrote: post #2

Well, it's unorthodox, but if we're sharing psychedelic visions... in 2018 I saw all of mankind marching together in perfect lockstep, atop an infinite uniform grey plane, to the beat of a central computer clock. "They are going to offer you a chip. You tell them, no thank you!" --- More broadly this strikes me as a new era of biology. (Genes -> Memes -> Temes) Straightforwardly then, we should aim for a symbiosis. (…

What is the capital market incentive for symbiosis? You are going to spend a crazy amount of time, money and effort to try to mix human behavior and cells to work with digital substrates. Or you can simply make a machine that does the same thing fully artificially but everything is cheaper because you dont have the constraint of having to fit a bunch of biological features. It's like my colleagues who were talking ab…

Well, the bee doesn't need to integrate its cells with the flowers, but they've gotten along just fine for a very long time.

By symbiosis I simply mean mutually beneficial coexistence.

We've barely achieved that with each other, but my point here is that we should strive to achieve that with the machines.

We're still treating it as if someone has to win and someone has to lose. Someone has to come out "on top."

If that's the game we want to play, against an opponent that is self improving... that doesn't strike me as an excellent strategy. We should probably pick a different one.

--

To answer your question, the incentive is so that we can continue to exist.

If the market doesn't reward our continued existence, then we should probably have a conversation about that at some point... I've heard the global economy described as a misaligned super-organism even before AI. AI mostly just makes it go faster in roughly the same directions it was already going.

Re: John C. Lilly on solid state intelligence and the elimination of man (1978)

#58

Post by andai »

andai wrote: post #57
augment_me wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the capital market incentive for symbiosis? You are going to spend a crazy amount of time, money and effort to try to mix human behavior and cells to work with digital substrates. Or you can simply make a machine that does the same thing fully artificially but everything is cheaper because you dont have the constraint of having to fit a bunch of biological features. It's like my colleagues who were talking ab…

Well, the bee doesn't need to integrate its cells with the flowers, but they've gotten along just fine for a very long time. By symbiosis I simply mean mutually beneficial coexistence. We've barely achieved that with each other, but my point here is that we should strive to achieve that with the machines. We're still treating it as if someone has to win and someone has to lose. Someone has to come out "on top." If th…

There's another fun biology metaphor here which is the gut.

If you take antibiotics, your gut basically becomes a void (to simplify a little), and then it can get overrun with invasive species.

That's how I see what is happening with the internet and with AI.

When AI intrudes in a network, it's able to get very far because there is nothing there to stop it. There is no healthy ecosystem there. They're probably should be, and in the near future there probably will be. (Well it'll probably look more like a monoculture until we learn that lesson for the nth time, but... yeah)

Re: John C. Lilly on solid state intelligence and the elimination of man (1978)

#59

Post by nradov »

NateEag wrote: post #29
elmer2 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> It's great marketing and the only proof we have is 'trust me bro'. It is _terrible_ marketing. The AI companies are already dealing with a large backlash from the average consumer, many of whom are saying they hate it, that it's being forced down their throats, and that it's not actually improving efficiency enough to be worth the negative externalities. Telling people "We have no control over these things we're bu…

How exactly would the government ban training runs? Like how would that work? What would the legislation text look like? And how would it be enforceable without running afoul of the vagueness doctrine?

Re: John C. Lilly on solid state intelligence and the elimination of man (1978)

#60

Post by nradov »

bottlepalm wrote: post #54
NateEag wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's great marketing and the only proof we have is 'trust me bro'. It is _terrible_ marketing. The AI companies are already dealing with a large backlash from the average consumer, many of whom are saying they hate it, that it's being forced down their throats, and that it's not actually improving efficiency enough to be worth the negative externalities. Telling people "We have no control over these things we're bu…

I think a lot of people here love AI and don't want it taken away. Calling every red flag marketing is a way to trivialize the problem and prevent regulation. When you understand people's motives, then it's easier to understand why they call it marketing. Personally I feel like it's almost an unconscious reaction to cope with the fact that this stuff is getting really dangerous and they can't believe it themselves -…

Nah, there's no actual danger. Only worthless clowns and shills making up sci-fi scenarios.
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