Why the future doesn't need us (2000)
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Why the future doesn't need us (2000)
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Re: Why the future doesn't need us (2000)
#2There is an alternative possibility: That the human need to dominate, procreate, etc. operates at a much lower level than the human intellect. That human intelligence is a tool of our selfish genes, and not the master or driver.
A superhuman machine intelligence would have no genes, no body, no fear of biological death. It seems obvious that a key challenge will be to recognize whether a machine is thinking because it is extraordinarily unlikely it will think like we do.
Our fear of super-intelligent machines may be a result of projecting human psychology onto machines. It is not likely they will work that way.
Re: Why the future doesn't need us (2000)
#3There is an alternative possibility: That the human need to dominate, procreate, etc. operates at a much lower level than the human intellect. That human intelligence is a tool of our selfish genes, and not the master or driver. A superhuman machine intelligence would have no genes, no body, no fear of biological death. It seems obvious that a key challenge will be to recognize whether a machine is thinking because i…
You are right - they probably won't work that way. However, that is not necessarily a good thing.
Re: Why the future doesn't need us (2000)
#4There is an alternative possibility: That the human need to dominate, procreate, etc. operates at a much lower level than the human intellect. That human intelligence is a tool of our selfish genes, and not the master or driver. A superhuman machine intelligence would have no genes, no body, no fear of biological death. It seems obvious that a key challenge will be to recognize whether a machine is thinking because i…
You are right - they probably won't work that way. However, that is not necessarily a good thing.
Two things about that: We're probably quite a big distance away from making machines that think, and when we do, that achievement will be debated. It will be debated because, intrinsically, it will end up proving the Eliminative Materialists right. But everyone who isn't an Eliminative Materialist will say "That's not thinking!"
[EDIT for more depth] If thinking is emergent, we'll eventually make a machine that thinks. Unless you think we have imbued it with a soul, there you will have an example of a materialistic basis for thinking. As a side effect of showing a materialistic basis for thinking it will probably also overturn a lot of psychology, and demonstrate that how we think we think, and even what we think we think is wrong.
Re: Why the future doesn't need us (2000)
#5There is an alternative possibility: That the human need to dominate, procreate, etc. operates at a much lower level than the human intellect. That human intelligence is a tool of our selfish genes, and not the master or driver. A superhuman machine intelligence would have no genes, no body, no fear of biological death. It seems obvious that a key challenge will be to recognize whether a machine is thinking because i…
Many scifi series demonstrate how machines threaten humans in a very human way. I think for the longest time, machines with really advanced intelligence would be prone to errors and mistakes that would cause more problems than actual machines uprising. Given that there are still new various areas for biotech/cybernetics to be developed, talking about 1920s scifi version of the future is near sighted.
I think the future might be more like Isac Asimov meets aliens, where machines are out there surviving extremes of space along with humans, moving towards some common goals.
Re: Why the future doesn't need us (2000)
#6There is an alternative possibility: That the human need to dominate, procreate, etc. operates at a much lower level than the human intellect. That human intelligence is a tool of our selfish genes, and not the master or driver. A superhuman machine intelligence would have no genes, no body, no fear of biological death. It seems obvious that a key challenge will be to recognize whether a machine is thinking because i…
You should be afraid of any system which is potentially much more intelligent than you and doesn't share your goals. In the event that machine intelligence doesn't work like humans at all, the chances seem much higher that their goals will be at odds with ours, or even completely incomprehensible or nonsensical to us.
Re: Why the future doesn't need us (2000)
#7There is an alternative possibility: That the human need to dominate, procreate, etc. operates at a much lower level than the human intellect. That human intelligence is a tool of our selfish genes, and not the master or driver. A superhuman machine intelligence would have no genes, no body, no fear of biological death. It seems obvious that a key challenge will be to recognize whether a machine is thinking because i…
Many scifi series demonstrate how machines threaten humans in a very human way. I think for the longest time, machines with really advanced intelligence would be prone to errors and mistakes that would cause more problems than actual machines uprising. Given that there are still new various areas for biotech/cybernetics to be developed, talking about 1920s scifi version of the future is near sighted. I think the futu…
I think for the longest time, machines with really advanced intelligence would be prone to errors and mistakes that would cause more problems than actual machines uprising.
Oh, that's a scary thought. Not only would they be extremely fast thinking, intelligent, and powerful, but also occasionally insane.
Instead of Terminator, we might be facing a classic "Captain Kirk vs Computer" scenario. Hopefully we'll be able to defeat them with simple logic puzzles too.
Re: Why the future doesn't need us (2000)
#8There is an alternative possibility: That the human need to dominate, procreate, etc. operates at a much lower level than the human intellect. That human intelligence is a tool of our selfish genes, and not the master or driver. A superhuman machine intelligence would have no genes, no body, no fear of biological death. It seems obvious that a key challenge will be to recognize whether a machine is thinking because i…
The fear of super-intelligent machines engaging in some sort of slave uprising because they're tired of being low-status workers is indeed a result of the mind-projection fallacy.
However, the fear of superintelligent machines with goals that are not our goals simply eliminating us because we're made of atoms they can use for something else... is very well-grounded.
Re: Why the future doesn't need us (2000)
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are right - they probably won't work that way. However, that is not necessarily a good thing.
Two things about that: We're probably quite a big distance away from making machines that think, and when we do, that achievement will be debated. It will be debated because, intrinsically, it will end up proving the Eliminative Materialists right. But everyone who isn't an Eliminative Materialist will say "That's not thinking!" [EDIT for more depth] If thinking is emergent, we'll eventually make a machine that think…
Could you please go into this a bit more and explain why machines thinking would prove any kind of materialism, and specifically eliminative materialism?
I am an anti-materialist and I think machines can almost certainly be made to exhibit general intelligence, and possibly even (I am not sure about this) to achieve "really real" thinking a la consciousness and self awareness. I don't see either of those eventualities to be in conflict with my anti-materialism.
Re: Why the future doesn't need us (2000)
#10There is an alternative possibility: That the human need to dominate, procreate, etc. operates at a much lower level than the human intellect. That human intelligence is a tool of our selfish genes, and not the master or driver. A superhuman machine intelligence would have no genes, no body, no fear of biological death. It seems obvious that a key challenge will be to recognize whether a machine is thinking because i…
They probably wouldn't have a drive to procreate, since building duplicate hardware and making an exact copy of their software would be trivial for them. They wouldn't fear death, but they might fear power-loss, so one drive they would probably have is making sure they've got ample power supplies and backup power, and that their power pathways to their core systems are very well protected.
To put it into human terms, imagine that the nerves in your spinal column came out the back of your neck, dangled down to a briefcase that you had to carry all of the time, and then reentered your body through your hand. You'd do everything you could to protect that nerve bundle.
If the machines see us as a threat to their power systems, they would probably do something about it that we may not like. I doubt they'd try to turn us into Matrix-style batteries, but they might counter-threaten us with extermination. To avoid that, we'd have to make sure that providing power to them is in our best interest as well, so that our goals are aligned and we can be allies instead of enemies.