I believe this could be the most important century ever for humanity, via the development of advanced AI systems that could dramatically speed up scientific and technological advancement, getting us more quickly than most people imagine to a deeply unfamiliar future.
The most likely prediction is that we’ll see more of what we saw in the 20th century, only the knowledge driven forces will be larger and come online faster.
So on one hand we’ll see a tidal wave of positive miracles, just as were spawned by 20th century developments. On the other hand we’ll see ever larger threats which arrive on the scene at an accelerated rate, just as happened in the 20th century.
What seems missing from most of the commentary here and elsewhere is that well meaning academics and other intellectuals such as are collected here will not have control over anything other than their own work.
So while researchers from this forum are painstakingly designing their AI systems to align with human values, researchers in places like Russia, China, North Korea and Iran etc will be designing AI that aligns with their values.
The key thing to understand is that as the scale of such powers grows, the negative forces will gain the upper hand, because they will use their AI resources more ruthlessly, and will be in a position to blackmail the rest of us.
A good example of this from today is the war in Ukraine. Putin is getting away with his ruthless land grab because, thanks to the existential scale of a 20th century technology, nuclear weapons, nobody can touch him without bringing on the end of times.
The attempt to design existential scale technologies like AI or genetic engineering to play nicely is well intended, but lacking in an understanding of the human condition.
One guess is that this may be explained by the ages of many of those discussing these issues. It’s possible to have impressive technical knowledge in one’s 20s and 30s, but an understanding of the human condition requires life experience.
The most likely prediction is that we’ll see more of what we saw in the 20th century, only the knowledge driven forces will be larger and come online faster.
So on one hand we’ll see a tidal wave of positive miracles, just as were spawned by 20th century developments. On the other hand we’ll see ever larger threats which arrive on the scene at an accelerated rate, just as happened in the 20th century.
What seems missing from most of the commentary here and elsewhere is that well meaning academics and other intellectuals such as are collected here will not have control over anything other than their own work.
So while researchers from this forum are painstakingly designing their AI systems to align with human values, researchers in places like Russia, China, North Korea and Iran etc will be designing AI that aligns with their values.
The key thing to understand is that as the scale of such powers grows, the negative forces will gain the upper hand, because they will use their AI resources more ruthlessly, and will be in a position to blackmail the rest of us.
A good example of this from today is the war in Ukraine. Putin is getting away with his ruthless land grab because, thanks to the existential scale of a 20th century technology, nuclear weapons, nobody can touch him without bringing on the end of times.
The attempt to design existential scale technologies like AI or genetic engineering to play nicely is well intended, but lacking in an understanding of the human condition.
One guess is that this may be explained by the ages of many of those discussing these issues. It’s possible to have impressive technical knowledge in one’s 20s and 30s, but an understanding of the human condition requires life experience.