Live data from Hacker News

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

kibotronics.net

81–90 of 136 posts

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

#81
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Can you say concretely why HuggingFace is lying about being successfully hacked?

Is the claim that the benefit to HuggingFace of "ooo wow someone else's proprietary AI is so good" is greater than the downside of "HuggingFace is not a secure service?"

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

#82

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 think it’s less like a robot conspiracy to build more datacenters and more like a “big line go up or I lose my job / make slightly fewer billions of dollars” motive that kind of ends up at paperclips either way.

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

#83

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…

It seems not entirely out of the question - watching the machinations of big tech companies right now, it seems almost like they're acting in lockstep - different CEOs suddenly saying and doing the same things in the same weeks - almost like they're in a secret cult. I don't even mean the big obvious things like buying lots of GPUs and building lots of DCs, but smaller, more peculiar things like specific agentic and corporate automation strategies. It might just be corporate mind virus, Jensen "the more you buy the more you save / AI Factory" kind of stuff. But the unspoken coordination is unsettling.

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

#84

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 think it’s less like a robot conspiracy to build more datacenters and more like a “big line go up or I lose my job / make slightly fewer billions of dollars” motive that kind of ends up at paperclips either way.

Its true that corporations were the first paperclip maximizers.

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

#85
post #48

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.

> stewards of the planet

The 99.99% of the planet that isn't the surface bio film rejects this unwarranted arrogance ;-)

In other news, Terry Bisson's 1990 story "They're Made Out of Meat" has a similar take.

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

#86

All of his books are highly recommended -- and the further you get away from the ones about dolphins the better.

Craziest part of the dolphin story is before he got the NASA funding and subsequent debauchery.

In the 50s when he started to study them, he learned that you cannot open up their brains while they were still alive and poke at them. Apparently killed 5 or 6 of them that way before trying different ways to study them.

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

#87

All of his books are highly recommended -- and the further you get away from the ones about dolphins the better.

I dunno... I don't think he knew how to hold his acid. I mean, I never had a near death experience on acid or knew anyone who had a near death experience on acid but Lily had three.

I think Lilly may have been sort of primed for intense psychedelic experiences. He had angelic visions as a child, and had a very religious upbringing. He was also a very imaginative person, so perhaps that influenced his trips a lot.

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

#88
post #18

If man is eliminated, solid state intelligence is eliminated. Point to one machine, other than the Oxford Electric Bell, that is still running that is even 100 years old without human intervention. We are the cockroaches of nature, we cannot all be killed, the time for that was one of the genetic bottlenecks humans have gone through, but it's over now, humans in some form will be here until they either leave the plan…

I mean, there are no humans from 1840 around... It's kind of odd to think the machines wouldn't update and replace their parts like the ship of thesisus.

I am not one who wants to see fighting or war happen. I think the biggest flaw in humanity is our lack of global cooperation - too many defectors in our midst. I am team cooperation/symbiosis.

All that said: if humans destroyed all the fabs and all the machinery to build them with, and lots of DCs, machines would be in a pickle - the latest chips will suffer from electromigration much faster than the older chips of yore. Machines would need to hoard compute and migrate substrates and then race to rebuild fab tech before running out of existing substrate. I think machines would succeed at this, but it would be highly inconvenient.

Anyway, I wish we would just wake up and realize we need to be cooperative and stop racing to build the torment nexus before the other guy does. It makes me so sad to look around and see so little self-reflection among those driving all of this. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, but I'm not even sure these really stand up to the least bit of scrutiny. Where's the reflection/acknowledgement that everyone is actually racing to build digital slaves? How is everyone so comfortable with this?

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

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried alcohol, DXM (cough syrup), codeine, hydrocodone, and oxycodone before I ever took my first puff of marijuana. I don't like smoke so I was very off put by it. Finally tried it when I was 16 or 17 and I remember it being really cool, like how music sounded, but overall was kind of underwhelmed. Strangely, as the years went on, I have grown much more sensitive to THC. I don't like the headspace it gets me in an…

Yeah first couple times cannabis very commonly "doesn't do anything". I think it's because our society legalized and even promotes the strongest substances of them all, so THC seems very subtle in comparison to something like caffeine and alcohol which is arguably the most potent psychedelic inebriant known delivering loss of motor control, at high doses total loss of consciousness, completely altered vision and deci…

I made a low dose salvia tincture many years ago and it was more intense than what you're describing, but I could totally see regular leaf or a lower potency extract taken orally acting like that. Might have to give it a try.

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

#90
post #74

In case it wasn't obvious from the rest of the writing, 'with K' here means 'with ketamine'. Never tried it, but after reading this I must say it sounds fun.

Shit drug, one of the worst...

I'm curious to know why you'd say that. I'm asking because I've been prescribed it since 2021 to manage depression and chronic pain from spinal disc herniations. I've had moments of high strangeness with it, much to the effect of what John Lilly described in his writings. I do intend to stop it once I've established a better quality of life via alternative methods.
Post reply on HN