https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamin-eidam/ + https://benjamineidam.com/ + https://benjamineidam.substack.com/
More will (probably, at some point) follow here.
Benjamin Eidam
Karma: 22
The universe tends towards more complexity. We cannot alter this. But we decide / influence the exact direction. AI is the next logical step towards this. Which leads to only one question: Where should the compass point? (Argument adapted from David Christensen / Big History)
Humans are godlike to ants because we can solve more problems and have more options. AI will be the same to us. But other than the ant, we can decide how our god will be. (Argument adapted by someone, probably Nick Bostrom)
Would you play Russian roulette with a gun that has one hundred slots and maybe will kill you, but maybe give you the next winning lottery-numbers? Too bad it isn’t your choice anymore, the gun is already here. But the rules of the game aren’t. (Argument adapted by someone, but I honestly don’t know who exactly right now)
Do you think your child could be / is the most precious in the universe? You probably do. With AI, it literally is. Because you would give birth to the first life 3.0. The first life that can alter its own hardware. And you really want to make sure that it understands your values before it accidentally burns your house down. (Argument adapted by max tegmark)
Imagine sitting together with your neighbor and everything you do, he is better and faster than you. You want to cook, and he knows the recipe and cooks better than you. You want to watch some sports, but he knows every player, every rule and everything about the whole event. Furthermore, you show him your hobby-room, but he knows more about your hobby than you, has more experience with it and outclasses you without even breaking to sweat. He says goodbye, only to announce that he will come back tomorrow. And the day after. And you will never get rid of him. What would your house rules look like?
We are absolutely no match for AI in any area that is relevant. Our thinking is infinitely slower. (200Hz vs. at least 2.000.000.000 Hz) Our brain is infinitely smaller. (0.11 m³ vs. 6.1x10^17 m³) We need days—years to alter our brain, alter our habits and routines. AI can do this instantaneously. Just change the hard- and/or software. Human brains are not duplicable, the closest thing to it for us takes 9 months to around 18 years. A computer can do it in an instant. We forget and miss-remember all the time. An AI literally never forgets. We have seven senses. A computer has as many sensors as it / we want it to have. It can see in the night, can “feel” any kind of radiation. It can take any form. Once “alive”, there is literally nothing that you can do to stop it. In any relevant area, we have already created the ingredients of a “god”. A body out of steel and vanadium, sensors for every part of the spectrum. Unmatched in anything that you can think of. And more. The only thing that is missing is the spark, that gives it “life”.
Don’t you think we should make sure it is the right spark?
Based on the data that I put together from various sources, here: https://benjamineidam.com/mensch-gegen-maschine/
(I use storytelling here as I know some politicians and they are absolutely not interested in complicated facts or anything like it. Like not in the slightest. That’s why I choose the more “direct” approach)
Your next line of code could be the last breath on earth. (I feel like this is inspired by someone but I don’t know whom)
Your next line of code could be Elysium / Utopia in 15 years for all of us. (Inversion / other side of my last argument)
There are more than 60 countries with over 700 AI policies out there. At least 10 of them want to be leaders in AI. Across all cultures and states of wealth. Do you still think this topic is not important? Source: https://oecd.ai/en/dashboards, https://medium.com/politics-ai/an-overview-of-national-ai-strategies-2a70ec6edfd
Do you want to be a paper clip? No? Then better work on AI safety! (Source kinda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_goo)
AI is nothing anymore that academia discusses only within its ranks. AI is like a “Joker” for any field from construction to taxing. Come first, serve first. (I was thinking about use cases like this one
AI + x = $$$ (Probably first seen somewhere at Google)
If you don’t act accordingly now, Schrödinger’s cat of AI will probably tend towards dead every day more from now on.
Would you have set a foot on the titanic if you’d known everything about its security? Will you now (with AI)?
Building AI without looking at its proper safety measures is like going on a trip to the Bermuda triangle, looking to retrieve a treasure. Without looking at a weather forecast first.
Do you want to go down in history as the soldier of fortune who gambled away humanity?
Imagine if for every sentence that you speak, for every single word that is not perfectly put by you, 1,000,000 people will die. (Or simply become unemployed.) Would that make you think about your next actions? (Same argument as the code = last breath argument before, but with a little more “batman” in it)
Imagine someone holds your best friend as a hostage and puts a gun to it’s head. You can save him by reading a complete book in a language you’ve never seen before. He will pull the trigger when you say the tenth’s word wrong. What will you do? We don’t have a big margin of error here.
AI can be the key to solving a lot of your biggest problems. But it can be one of them as well. Which one should it be?
You cannot stop AGI from emerging, but you can shape how it will do so. As the telephone was inevitable, the iPhone wasn’t. (Argument adapted from Kevin Kelly)