Climate change is wrecking the planet, Putin is trying to start World War Three and the middle east is turning into a blood bath. Mean while some people hide from reality and worry about a perceived threat from the latest tools that humanity has invented.
Is their intelligent life on earth? I see little evidence to support that argument.
What is wrong with the reasoning here? Yes there’s a lot of things wrong with the world, but the extinction (total—no survivors) we’re actually likely to get is from AI, this decade, unless we do something to stop it.
Thanks for for reply. The only threat to humanity comes from humanity. AI, like any other tool such as atomic weapons or dynamite will be used for good or bad by humans. AI is powerful and because its a new technology, it’s impact on the future debatable, but this has been the case ever since humans invented flint tools.
I say the fundamental problem is how to steer humanity away from improper use of technology, which can be achieved by first understanding human behaviors and motivations, then by the widespread dispersion of this knowledge and finally by exposing the futility of such behaviour in our globalised, interconnected and interdependent society.
If the end of humanity does happen, it will not be due to AI, pandemics or atomic weapons, it will because one group of humans, decided it wanted to get an advantage over another group of humans and ignored all other considerations. Understand why and we may be able to find a solution.
No. AGI is different. It will have it’s own goals and agency. It’s more akin to a new alien species than a “tool”. What we are facing here is basically better thought of as a (digital) alien invasion, facilitated (or at the last accidentally unleashed) by the big AI companies. Less intelligent species don’t typically fare well when faced with competing more intelligent species.
Thanks Greg, I’m sixty years old and grew up when every one said the world was going to be destroyed in a thermonuclear war, then it was acid rain, then it was nano technology (covering the world in a layer of scum!), then it was the millennium bug, currently its climate change and it looks like people are starting to worry about AI. Even the Prime minister is at it, perhaps as a cover for his failed short term policies. Humans are fundamentally neurotic—perhaps it gives us an evolutionary edge, always being on the lookout for new threats, but if you step back and take an overview of humanity, maybe you will see what the real problems are.
However, my point is, take care of today (with an eye on the mid term), the current problems and the future will look after itself. Who can predict the future with any degree of certainty anyway, so why worry? Its correct that long term thinking is needed to tackle climate change, but not problems like Palestine / Israel or Putin’s and Xi Jinping’s ideology that threatens Europe and Asia or Trumps attack on democracy, all of which are trying to drag us back to repeat past failures. Long term thinking should not be used to avoid tackling short term problems.
From what I’ve read of science, biology, neurology, psychology, politics, economics, history, philosophy we are on the verge of a breakthrough in new thought and maybe because AI can pull vast pools of knowledge together and perhaps eliminate our biases and prejudices, bring about great change for the better. This is not something to be afraid of, but something to embrace, but of course caution is needed and a simple fail safe button should be built in if we don’t like the outputs.
Thanks for reading.
Regards and good luck with your endeavours. Never stop learning, but keep it real.
Climate change is wrecking the planet, Putin is trying to start World War Three and the middle east is turning into a blood bath. Mean while some people hide from reality and worry about a perceived threat from the latest tools that humanity has invented.
Is their intelligent life on earth? I see little evidence to support that argument.
What is wrong with the reasoning here? Yes there’s a lot of things wrong with the world, but the extinction (total—no survivors) we’re actually likely to get is from AI, this decade, unless we do something to stop it.
Thanks for for reply. The only threat to humanity comes from humanity. AI, like any other tool such as atomic weapons or dynamite will be used for good or bad by humans. AI is powerful and because its a new technology, it’s impact on the future debatable, but this has been the case ever since humans invented flint tools.
I say the fundamental problem is how to steer humanity away from improper use of technology, which can be achieved by first understanding human behaviors and motivations, then by the widespread dispersion of this knowledge and finally by exposing the futility of such behaviour in our globalised, interconnected and interdependent society.
If the end of humanity does happen, it will not be due to AI, pandemics or atomic weapons, it will because one group of humans, decided it wanted to get an advantage over another group of humans and ignored all other considerations. Understand why and we may be able to find a solution.
No. AGI is different. It will have it’s own goals and agency. It’s more akin to a new alien species than a “tool”. What we are facing here is basically better thought of as a (digital) alien invasion, facilitated (or at the last accidentally unleashed) by the big AI companies. Less intelligent species don’t typically fare well when faced with competing more intelligent species.
‘No. AGI is different. It will have it’s own goals and agency.’ Only if we choose to build it that way: https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/Reframing_Superintelligence_FHI-TR-2019-1.1-1.pdf (Though Bengio was correct when he pointed out that even if lots of people build safer tools, that doesn’t stop a more reckless person building an agent instead.)
People are very much choosing to build it that way unfortunately!
Thanks Greg, I’m sixty years old and grew up when every one said the world was going to be destroyed in a thermonuclear war, then it was acid rain, then it was nano technology (covering the world in a layer of scum!), then it was the millennium bug, currently its climate change and it looks like people are starting to worry about AI. Even the Prime minister is at it, perhaps as a cover for his failed short term policies. Humans are fundamentally neurotic—perhaps it gives us an evolutionary edge, always being on the lookout for new threats, but if you step back and take an overview of humanity, maybe you will see what the real problems are.
However, my point is, take care of today (with an eye on the mid term), the current problems and the future will look after itself. Who can predict the future with any degree of certainty anyway, so why worry? Its correct that long term thinking is needed to tackle climate change, but not problems like Palestine / Israel or Putin’s and Xi Jinping’s ideology that threatens Europe and Asia or Trumps attack on democracy, all of which are trying to drag us back to repeat past failures. Long term thinking should not be used to avoid tackling short term problems.
From what I’ve read of science, biology, neurology, psychology, politics, economics, history, philosophy we are on the verge of a breakthrough in new thought and maybe because AI can pull vast pools of knowledge together and perhaps eliminate our biases and prejudices, bring about great change for the better. This is not something to be afraid of, but something to embrace, but of course caution is needed and a simple fail safe button should be built in if we don’t like the outputs.
Thanks for reading.
Regards and good luck with your endeavours. Never stop learning, but keep it real.
Unfortunately it’s no longer a long term problem, it’s 0-5 years away. Very much short term!