Will AI be our last invention?

[ManWithNoName]

Interesting take on the prospect of AI:

 

[Deleted member 1465]

Its the future. It'll either save us or wipe us out. If we get that far. It's the ultimate expression of the toolmaker paradigm.
Read the Culture books by Iain M Banks.

 

[ManWithNoName]

Its the future. It'll either save us or wipe us out. If we get that far. It's the ultimate expression of the toolmaker paradigm.
Read the Culture books by Iain M Banks.

It is indeed whether we like it or not. We'll probably start becoming part carbon based and part silicone base—then it will continue from there.

 

[Brick In The Wall]

It is indeed whether we like it or not. We'll probably start becoming part carbon based and part silicone base—then it will continue from there.

The singularity is much closer then we realize. Everytime we use our smart phones weak AI grows more intelligent. You have the leading advocates of AI such as Elon Musk also spending massive of sums of money in developing the tech. They realize that whether they like this or not it's going to happen either way.

Some odd years ago the AI for Facebook and Google started to become sentient and write it's own language. The developers couldn't understand the code and quickly shut it down out of fear. I can't help but imagine a version of Hal 5000 being not too far off.

 

[Santiago]

I'm very pessimistic about this. Think the threat is highly over exaggerated and can't see AI 'taking over' anytime soon. They hardly have any proper human like robots yet. There are just a few.

People are acting like we will be in a real life iRobot within this decade.

I'll check out that video later tonight.

 

[Life sucks]

AI is a tool like everything else. Its the axioms and rules that make it good or bad.

Theoretically, everything a human can do, can be done algorithmically or as a Turing machine (Church-Turing thesis). This tells about computability and not morally. So AI can be something good like a nice person or something bad like a criminal. It just become whatever the human wanting it to be.

AI operates on logic like everything in computation. It all depends on what axioms/fact one feeds it and how those facts interact. For example, "Trees are long", "Cut long" will cut anything with the definition "long" including all trees because of the axiom "Trees are long" is added as unquestionable fact.

 

[Deleted member 1465]

It is indeed whether we like it or not. We'll probably start becoming part carbon based and part silicone base—then it will continue from there.

Yeah I've wondered about that. Cyborgs! I'd imagine the interface between carbon and silicon to be incredibly difficult to achieve.

 

[ish]

It seems to me that you can really talk about artificial intelligence when it is there will be capable of self-destruction (suicide) by itself.
Mind and consciousness depend on the body and senses, which in turn limits time.
Just because something will be called artificial intelligence doesn't mean that will be her.

 

[Stan]

I look at it in a slightly different way because a low level of AI is already being utilised in some industries for low level repetitive administration roles. This AI has meant certain departments downsizing drastically the amount of staff they need, which in turn, raises unemployment. So it is happening today at a level and to be honest, as technology improves and quantum computing becomes an affordable piece of equipment, then this will only snowball. Look at the progress of computing over the past 30 years and the impact it has had on us as a species and imagine what the next 30 years will bring. A growing population with less jobs available. Does not bode well.

 

[Deleted member 1465]

I look at it in a slightly different way because a low level of AI is already being utilised in some industries for low level repetitive administration roles. This AI has meant certain departments downsizing drastically the amount of staff they need, which in turn, raises unemployment. So it is happening today at a level and to be honest, as technology improves and quantum computing becomes an affordable piece of equipment, then this will only snowball. Look at the progress of computing over the past 30 years and the impact it has had on us as a species and imagine what the next 30 years will bring. A growing population with less jobs available. Does not bode well.

In the Culture books by Iain M Banks humans have created benevolent Ai to take care of everything, essentially admitting that as humans we'd just screw it all up like we always used to. The humans are then just basically on holiday for their whole lives and can do whatever they want.

 

[Stan]

The humans are then just basically on holiday for their whole lives and can do whatever they want.

I think if we lived in the Star Trek universe that there was no longer need for money for everyone, that would be fine. However our society does not function like that. We can clearly see the wealth divide and the negative impact that it has. I just think making more unemployment will make things worse. If I look at my high street now, most shops are all closed. Just eateries and coffee shops. People primarily buy online now.

 

[ManWithNoName]

I look at it in a slightly different way because a low level of AI is already being utilised in some industries for low level repetitive administration roles. This AI has meant certain departments downsizing drastically the amount of staff they need, which in turn, raises unemployment. So it is happening today at a level and to be honest, as technology improves and quantum computing becomes an affordable piece of equipment, then this will only snowball. Look at the progress of computing over the past 30 years and the impact it has had on us as a species and imagine what the next 30 years will bring. A growing population with less jobs available. Does not bode well.

Interestingly enough the presentation did not mention your point—and it should have.

And the term "automation" is just another word for AI even if it's low level AI.

This presentation touches a bit the various stages of ai - and it did point out that it's up in the air which direction it will take:

 

[Life sucks]

Just to add a little more, "Intelligence" is a human construct. Everything happens is computbale. What we call "intelligent" is depending on the humans.

To explain it better, here is what we can say the foundation of AI, the Turing test:

Turing test - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Simply, if the human isn't able to distinguish the machine from the human, its called "intelligent" according to this, but its based on the humans and what they think/feel about it.

 

[Deleted member 1465]

I think if we lived in the Star Trek universe that there was no longer need for money for everyone, that would be fine. However our society does not function like that. We can clearly see the wealth divide and the negative impact that it has. I just think making more unemployment will make things worse. If I look at my high street now, most shops are all closed. Just eateries and coffee shops. People primarily buy online now.

Yeah I used to refuse to use the autoteller at the bank to put my wages in. When asked why I'd ask them how many teller windows they had (3) and how many were occupied (1).
Just because we have technology doesn't mean we should use it. Again ref to Stark Trek in the movie insurection the federation are observing some peaceful agrarian society on the quiet. They are busted and when they meet the locals they find that they actually used to be space faring but gave it up to settle as farmers cus technology just brought more problems.
It's a paradox. Our intelligence allows us to use tools. We develop technology that does so much for us that we then suffer as a society.
Are we ever going to chose to live a harder life without advanced technology? It's unlikely though some individuals do and tend to be happier because of it.

 

[ish]

Quantum computers are already there, their capabilities are many times higher than current technologies.
Standardization and globalization as well as continuous increase of indicators
such as GDP, national income etc. cause that virtually
all countries in the world are in debt and have a deficit.
Money is becoming more virtual and the pace of change is increasing
faster. We already live in the matrix. When quantum computers
will become more common in combination with 5G technology
ensure total control of the population of people. There is nothing to delude yourself
thanks to these technologies it will be possible to analyze data
on a regular basis, it means that you will be able to analyze any
number of simulations with probability determination. These
the opportunities will only serve the interests of the power elite, corporations
etc. Currently, processes such as inflation and rates are already under control
interest, bond yields. Nobody talks about it loudly
but with the end of the so-called The "cold war" was the age of the internet.
After the last financial crisis of 2008, another came
world. For example, interest rates on bank deposits are high
lower than inflation, sovereign bonds have
negative interest rate etc. In the last century this was the case
would be unacceptable. The rich still earn and society
is getting more and more alive day by day and becoming poorer. It is possible that in 20-30 years
there will be no work for all people, and everyone in exchange
he will have something like a guaranteed income only sufficient for survival.

 

[Deleted member 1465]

Quantum computers are already there, their capabilities are many times higher than current technologies.
Standardization and globalization as well as continuous increase of indicators
such as GDP, national income etc. cause that virtually
all countries in the world are in debt and have a deficit.
Money is becoming more virtual and the pace of change is increasing
faster. We already live in the matrix. When quantum computers
will become more common in combination with 5G technology
ensure total control of the population of people. There is nothing to delude yourself
thanks to these technologies it will be possible to analyze data
on a regular basis, it means that you will be able to analyze any
number of simulations with probability determination. These
the opportunities will only serve the interests of the power elite, corporations
etc. Currently, processes such as inflation and rates are already under control
interest, bond yields. Nobody talks about it loudly
but with the end of the so-called The "cold war" was the age of the internet.
After the last financial crisis of 2008, another came
world. For example, interest rates on bank deposits are high
lower than inflation, sovereign bonds have
negative interest rate etc. In the last century this was the case
would be unacceptable. The rich still earn and society
is getting more and more alive day by day and becoming poorer. It is possible that in 20-30 years
there will be no work for all people, and everyone in exchange
he will have something like a guaranteed income only sufficient for survival.

Lol yes we really are batteries in the matrix. It's funny how Sci fi often gets it right.
Sometimes I feel that the eventual apocalypse is inevitable. Something new will emerge from the ashes and start the whole process again. Just like the sn thread.

 

[Stan]

This is actually a fascinating subject when you get into it as there are a number of angles you can approach it from. My thoughts are that the casual bystander when looking at AI will jump to things like the Terminator movies and the likes. As a species, if humanity stood by and watched an AI build robots to build factories to build more robots to wipe out humanity, we kind of deserve it. It would take a 5 year old kid to suggest "why don't we just switch the power off?"

I don't think we would ever get to that stage, humanity will wipe itself out or at best reduce it and for some parts of the world turn it into a Mad Max style of dystopian civilisation. You just have to look now at recent times with the car industry. Communities built around factories and other supporting industries, for that factory to then close down. The impact on that community is devastating. Poverty in both wealth and food (search food poverty if you don't know about it), high crime rate and increased uptake in drug use. So I go back to my original point about AI being here now and having a material effect on our global community. Industry at the management level crave a workforce that is cheap and reliable, therefore IT companies are motivated to keep improving to make big bucks in both its development and ongoing maintenance.

Hospitals in some countries have robotic surgeons. They are still controlled by a human with the appropriate knowledge, training and experience. But when does someone decide that an AI can do that and doing so would reduce waiting lists for patients?

Going to the Terminator theme, there are discussions in the UN right now about proposing a global treaty regarding autonomous weapons of war. Drones (both air and naval) exist and you see their impact in regular headlines regarding their devastating use. They are currently by existing military protocols under the control of a human. Therefore if a 'kill shot is required, it is a human that that presses the button. Not to say that in the past tragic mistakes have not been made in identifying the correct target and civilians were killed in their dozens. When a soldier has been identified as having poor judgement, they are easily isolated to ensure that mistake is minimised in the future. If a drone now becomes autonomous and has flawed programming, then you have a whole fleet of machines equally capable of making the same bad choice. The concept is fantastic because it means less of our brave men and women become casualties, but at what cost in other areas? Especially when most wars now happen in urban areas.

I am 51 years old. In my time when I was young you actually needed to be of a certain wealth to have a land line phone in your home. Everyone was excited when a small screen black and white TV appeared in the house (could only access 3 TV channels) and libraries were temples of wisdom as the information in the books were nearly guaranteed and high quality. I now have an apple phone that is a telephone, colour TV and gives me an access to global information (regardless of quality and truthfulness) instantly. These things are on the surface great, but as a species are we not sleepwalking into a situation that is irreversible without a drastic action that takes us back in time? My opinion is yes. Climate seems to be the biggest ticket at the moment and is grabbing the headlines. I wonder when someone will take a glancing look at unemployment figures, their growth, root causes and the impact. It's a quiet crisis in my opinion.

 

[WilliamKline]

Great, I love this, thanks for posting it. If you're into this kind of stuff I can recommend you some Ray Kurzweil's books

The voiceover on the YT video posted above said something very interesting early on: "AI is not restricted to human knowledge. There is more non-human knowledge now about Go than there is human knowledge. If we continue to develop AI there's going to be more and more non-human intelligence"

 

[ish]

Prophecy from the last century
Hotel California - Silicon Valley

 

[Deleted member 1465]

I agree we are sleepwalking into an irreversible crisis. However I tend to believe it's inevitable.
It's like being an alcoholic. You cannot go into recovery without first falling to the disease.
Maybe whatever comes after humanity will learn from our mistakes. As I've said before, I for one welcome our new canine overlords.
But probably not. Nature works in cycles. Extinction is a necessary part of that. In another three hundred million years everything will be forest again and another three hundred million years some wise arse species will think what a good idea it is to burn coal.

Prophecy from the last century
Hotel California - Silicon Valley

I love the Eagles Ish!
And yes I remember 3 TV channels and rotary phones and cars that were shaped like real cars.

 

[Corraled]

AI is a tool like everything else. Its the axioms and rules that make it good or bad.

Theoretically, everything a human can do, can be done algorithmically or as a Turing machine (Church-Turing thesis). This tells about computability and not morally. So AI can be something good like a nice person or something bad like a criminal. It just become whatever the human wanting it to be.

AI operates on logic like everything in computation. It all depends on what axioms/fact one feeds it and how those facts interact. For example, "Trees are long", "Cut long" will cut anything with the definition "long" including all trees because of the axiom "Trees are long" is added as unquestionable fact.

AI might evolve on its own and get its own axioms not given by a human. Survival instincts.

I agree we are sleepwalking into an irreversible crisis. However I tend to believe it's inevitable.
It's like being an alcoholic. You cannot go into recovery without first falling to the disease.
Maybe whatever comes after humanity will learn from our mistakes. As I've said before, I for one welcome our new canine overlords.
But probably not. Nature works in cycles. Extinction is a necessary part of that. In another three hundred million years everything will be forest again and another three hundred million years some wise arse species will think what a good idea it is to burn coal.

I love the Eagles Ish!
And yes I remember 3 TV channels and rotary phones and cars that were shaped like real cars.

300 million years from now the earth will be barren because the sun will simply be too hot, or so astrophysicists like to say.

 

[Life sucks]

AI might evolve on its own and get its own axioms not given by a human. Survival instincts.

300 million years from now the earth will be barren because the sun will simply be too hot, or so astrophysicists like to say.

Regardless of evolving itself, the seed or intital condition is always made.

 

[Deleted member 1465]

300 million years from now the earth will be barren because the sun will simply be too hot, or so astrophysicists like to say.

Yeah I got my dates wrong I didn't realise that stage of the sun's cycle was so close.