A Frightened Optimist On The Future of Humanity
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Re: A Frightened Optimist On The Future of Humanity
#2Nick Bostrom is a philosopher, not an engineer. If he spent his time actually making things instead of fear mongerng, he might have an appreciation for how truly difficult it is to actually get things to work, and the challenges that would still confront advanced AI. His instantaneous end-the-world outcomes are not plausible and will never be realized. Yet he argues for draconian, fascist controls on technology and society that have real negative ramifications.
Why do we continue to give him airtime?
Re: A Frightened Optimist On The Future of Humanity
#3Nick Bostrom is a philosopher, not an engineer. If he spent his time actually making things instead of fear mongerng, he might have an appreciation for how truly difficult it is to actually get things to work, and the challenges that would still confront advanced AI. His instantaneous end-the-world outcomes are not plausible and will never be realized. Yet he argues for draconian, fascist controls on technology and s…
I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing to let a philosopher muse a bit about ethics and advise caution. Maybe we won’t have the AI singularity, but some of the questions brought up (should we improve ourselves? Is technology inherently good?) are quite important and contentious.
Re: A Frightened Optimist On The Future of Humanity
#4Nick Bostrom is a philosopher, not an engineer. If he spent his time actually making things instead of fear mongerng, he might have an appreciation for how truly difficult it is to actually get things to work, and the challenges that would still confront advanced AI. His instantaneous end-the-world outcomes are not plausible and will never be realized. Yet he argues for draconian, fascist controls on technology and s…
I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing to let a philosopher muse a bit about ethics and advise caution. Maybe we won’t have the AI singularity, but some of the questions brought up (should we improve ourselves? Is technology inherently good?) are quite important and contentious.
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Re: A Frightened Optimist On The Future of Humanity
#5I think most concepts of transhumanism are yesterday's crave for hoverboards.
Still, I don't think all his fears are unfounded. While I am skeptical about artificial general intelligence that suddenly surpasses our ability to reason, I am more concerned about specialized agents that quantify nearly everything of our lives and gain influence through human actors overestimating their abilities and therefore creating a data burocracy that will indeed have problems with bias.
Not arguing against the transhumanist tech lead that might have or might not have a form of cocaine addiction that at least supports people dreaming of more advanced AI.
More concerned about the people that buy into it and treat it as gospel. I mean it comes from a machine that doesn't have these aweful restrains humans are subjected to...
Re: A Frightened Optimist On The Future of Humanity
#6Nick Bostrom is a philosopher, not an engineer. If he spent his time actually making things instead of fear mongerng, he might have an appreciation for how truly difficult it is to actually get things to work, and the challenges that would still confront advanced AI. His instantaneous end-the-world outcomes are not plausible and will never be realized. Yet he argues for draconian, fascist controls on technology and s…
Because if he’s right we really, really want to pay attention to this problem so we don’t all die.
I’m sure Bostrom abstracts away an enormous amount of the difficulty in implementation but that’s quite defensible. Moore’s Law isn’t the only curve that works well to explain technological trends for decades. We can see in broad outlines what’s coming decades from now.
Re: A Frightened Optimist On The Future of Humanity
#7I just saw him on Joe Rogan podcast, he is selling another book isn't he?
Re: A Frightened Optimist On The Future of Humanity
#8Nick Bostrom is a philosopher, not an engineer. If he spent his time actually making things instead of fear mongerng, he might have an appreciation for how truly difficult it is to actually get things to work, and the challenges that would still confront advanced AI. His instantaneous end-the-world outcomes are not plausible and will never be realized. Yet he argues for draconian, fascist controls on technology and s…
> he argues for draconian, fascist controls on technology
Technology doesn't mind, it doesn't have feelings. Draconian, fascist use of technology on people, that's a matter of actual importance.
Re: A Frightened Optimist On The Future of Humanity
#9I just saw him on Joe Rogan podcast, he is selling another book isn't he?
Sound like that's the reason for this article aswell
PR campaign at its best
Re: A Frightened Optimist On The Future of Humanity
#10This doomsday futurism has an interesting characteristic - the author of such prophecies can't lose. Either they are right and humanity (or what's left of it) will look back on them as prescient and clear thinking, or they are wrong and everyone will be too relieved and happy to care. The Y2K bug was another example.