Artificial Intelligence (AI)

[WigstonWanderer]

I know there are loads of potential benefits to this tech (the Star Trek/abundance/Garden of Eden outcomes) but given the huge number of possible dystopias, I think that’s very unlikely.The movers and shakers just want regulators out of the way even though they themselves have no idea how it will all turn out. They either think they’ll muddle through somehow, or that they themselves will manage to avoid the dangers.

 

Coupled with other threats (nuclear, climate change, Trumpism and its offshoots, combinations of these) it makes me glad I’m nearer the end of my life than the beginning.

 

 

Edited 13 February by WigstonWanderer

[Zear0]

9 hours ago, WigstonWanderer said:

I know there are loads of potential benefits to this tech (the Star Trek/abundance/Garden of Eden outcomes) but given the huge number of possible dystopias, I think that’s very unlikely.The movers and shakers just want regulators out of the way even though they themselves have no idea how it will all turn out. They either think they’ll muddle through somehow, or that they themselves will manage to avoid the dangers.

 

Coupled with other threats (nuclear, climate change, Trumpism and its offshoots, combinations of these) it makes me glad I’m nearer the end of my life than the beginning.

 

 

I have zero confidence in regulation of this stuff. We've not even started appropriate regulation social media 20 years on.

 

Time to go learn dry stone walling. 

[danny.]

16 minutes ago, Zear0 said:

I have zero confidence in regulation of this stuff. We've not even started appropriate regulation social media 20 years on.

 

Time to go learn dry stone walling. 

It's too late already, it's already well in progress in many industries. We needed to legislate 5 years ago minimum.

 

Just need to find customers who can pay for the stone walling that have an income stream still. And fight off all the photographers, videographers, software engineers, coders, copywriters etc who are also dry stone wallers now.

[Grebfromgrebland]

I outsourced my back office to AI.  That's right it's All Indian. I've a couple of staff in Bangalore doing my admin.

[WigstonWanderer]

3 hours ago, Zear0 said:

I have zero confidence in regulation of this stuff. We've not even started appropriate regulation social media 20 years on.

 

Time to go learn dry stone walling. 

Agree. The only way to have regulated this tech would have been some sort of international treaty years ago rather like nuclear weapons treaties in the past. Presumably verification would be significantly more difficult however. Perhaps the trajectory we’re on now was always inevitable.

Edited 13 February by WigstonWanderer

[leicsmac]

13 hours ago, WigstonWanderer said:

I know there are loads of potential benefits to this tech (the Star Trek/abundance/Garden of Eden outcomes) but given the huge number of possible dystopias, I think that’s very unlikely.The movers and shakers just want regulators out of the way even though they themselves have no idea how it will all turn out. They either think they’ll muddle through somehow, or that they themselves will manage to avoid the dangers.

 

Coupled with other threats (nuclear, climate change, Trumpism and its offshoots, combinations of these) it makes me glad I’m nearer the end of my life than the beginning.

 

 

That's about the size of it, yes.

 

But there's still a way through, if enough people have the power and will, and luck, to find it. 

[worthosoriginals]

Ai is going to take over the world and kill us all, much like what was said about microwave ovens, the Internet  mobile phones the year 2000,  but no 

this next thing  will certainly  do the job

 

[worthosoriginals]

Clint Eastwood will surely be along soon with proof that all this bull and more is real this time

[Sampson]

8 minutes ago, worthosoriginals said:

Ai is going to take over the world and kill us all, much like what was said about microwave ovens, the Internet  mobile phones the year 2000,  but no 

this next thing  will certainly  do the job

 

I mean… the internet has caused division, war, democratic backsliding, untold economic inequality, political upheaval, driven age of authoritarian populism, created and mass spread worldwide political movements, destroyed the international world order, ruined people’s attention spans, changed our relationships, how and where we live, our language and our culture, ruined many people’s mental health, addicted just about every person on the planet, meant humans have less friends and less sex, affected culture, demographics and brain chemistry and affected every single job on the planet within the space of a single generation. So that one definitely did take over the world.

Edited 13 February by Sampson

[worthosoriginals]

Just now, Sampson said:

I mean… the internet has caused division, war, democratic backsliding, untold economic inequality, political upheaval, driven age of authoritarian populism, destroyed the international world order, ruined people’s attention spans, changed our relationships, ruined many people’s mental health, addicted just about every person on the planet, meant humans have less friends and less sex, affected culture, demographics and brain chemistry and affected every single job on the plager within the space of a single generation. 

Fair points but it didn't kill us all like a lot of early doomongers predicted, I wonder if this is similar to the ai will deffo do us all in this time metchants

[danny.]

12 minutes ago, worthosoriginals said:

Ai is going to take over the world and kill us all, much like what was said about microwave ovens, the Internet  mobile phones the year 2000,  but no 

this next thing  will certainly  do the job

 

Painfully clueless. But I envy your ignorant bliss right now, although you’re going to be in for a shock. 

[worthosoriginals]

1 minute ago, danny. said:

Painfully clueless. But I envy your ignorant bliss right now, although you’re going to be in for a shock. 

Enjoy and sprouting doom to gullibles

[leicsmac]

AI is a potential threat to human civilisation, I'm not sure how it can be seen that it isn't. 

 

But it is one of many, and may be a contributor to other threats as well as one in its own right. A balanced approach is needed. 

[CornwallFox]

13 minutes ago, worthosoriginals said:

Fair points but it didn't kill us all like a lot of early doomongers predicted, I wonder if this is similar to the ai will deffo do us all in this time metchants

Which doomongers said the internet would kill us?

[Sampson]

28 minutes ago, worthosoriginals said:

Fair points but it didn't kill us all like a lot of early doomongers predicted, I wonder if this is similar to the ai will deffo do us all in this time metchants

I mean, no one thinks AI will kill us tomorrow. People are scared of the path it will lead us over a lifetime. The internet within the space of about 25 years certainly has led us down a way scarier path where a major world war that seemed unthinkable a generation ago certainly feels far from unthinkable anymore and the head of MI6 is actively telling British people that they have to start coming to terms with their children might have to prepare to go to war.

 

AI is certainly going to accelerate this path. In fact a lot of this political upheaval is caused by social media algorithms from the past 10 years which are sort of proto-AI anyway 

Edited 13 February by Sampson

[worthosoriginals]

Just now, CornwallFox said:

Which doomongers said the internet would kill us?

At the time plenty, apologies if I can't name all the names

[CornwallFox]

1 minute ago, worthosoriginals said:

At the time plenty, apologies if I can't name all the names

One name?

[worthosoriginals]

Just now, CornwallFox said:

One name?

John Smith 

[danny.]

41 minutes ago, worthosoriginals said:

Enjoy and sprouting doom to gullibles

I don’t enjoy it at all. It’s bizarre how confident you are in your uninformed opinion when you’re at odds with a lot of very intelligent and qualified experts who I would wager understand AI a lot more than you do.

[brookfox]

Let’s be honest, AI the technology isn’t the threat, it’s the people controlling it.

[Sampson]

1 hour ago, brookfox said:

Let’s be honest, AI the technology isn’t the threat, it’s the people controlling it.

Partly agree, partly disagree. Having Elon Musk types at the top who want to smash regulations because they have weird corporate libertarian dreams certainly doesn’t help, but unlike all other technology in human history, the point is we have no idea how AI works or what’s going on behind the scenes.
 

Most of the problems with the internet also came from weird unintended consequences of content recommendation algorithms or forums and social sites that were designed to connect us that we had no real way to predict the issues they’d cause years later rather than deliberate bad faith decisions, it will be the same with AI - a lot of it’s biggest threats will come from weird unintended and unknowable consequences of unrelated stuff over bad faith human decisions 

Edited 14 February by Sampson

[Trav Le Bleu]

1 hour ago, Sampson said:

Partly agree, partly disagree. Having Elon Musk types at the top who want to smash regulations because they have weird corporate libertarian dreams certainly doesn’t help, but unlike all other technology in human history, the point is we have no idea how AI works or what’s going on behind the scenes.
 

Most of the problems with the internet also came from weird unintended consequences of content recommendation algorithms or forums and social sites that were designed to connect us that we had no real way to predict the issues they’d cause years later rather than deliberate bad faith decisions, it will be the same with AI - a lot of it’s biggest threats will come from weird unintended and unknowable consequences of unrelated stuff over bad faith human decisions 

Tim Berners-Lee has said that he despairs about how the www has turned out. Not at all what he envisioned. Mankind has a way of turn any new technology to either war or selfish gain.

[Sampson]

9 minutes ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

Tim Berners-Lee has said that he despairs about how the www has turned out. Not at all what he envisioned. Mankind has a way of turn any new technology to either war or selfish gain.

To an extent, but I also think we just don’t know how new technologies affect human brains over multiple decades until it’s often too late. I don’t think many would’ve predicted that this internet which opens up the world to social communication around the world would actually make it much more difficult to be social and make friends - and that itself then affects peoples outlooks and has 1,000 knock on effects on people’s mental health, culture, society, politics etc. 

 

Even now - just look how much of the discussion over AI is about how it affects the job market in the next 5 years, it’s not about how it will affect our governance system, the birth rate or justice system or people’s mental health or ability to socialise and make friends in 30 years time and how those things are often all connected.

[danny.]

9 hours ago, brookfox said:

Let’s be honest, AI the technology isn’t the threat, it’s the people controlling it.

What do you mean? It’s the applications and people using it that are the thread. 

[brookfox]

3 hours ago, danny. said:

What do you mean? It’s the applications and people using it that are the thread. 

As you’ll know, the technology has the potential to solve a plethora of humanitarian challenges; healthcare, drug development, water management, climate change etc. However these make up 5-10% tops of current AI applications. Where it’s being used today is marketing, trading, automation, media generation, chat bots etc. ie the things that make the current holders of the keys richer. So it has the potential to enhance human existence but the way it’s funded and governed is being used to make rich people richer potentially completely destabilising economies as it goes.