Artificial Intelligence (AI)

[leicsmac]

25 minutes ago, Grebfromgrebland said:

This is the objective of the elite. Once there's apathy and we lose empathy then they can do whatever they want. 

 

Right now 99.9% of the population is losing the battle against the 0.1%. 

 

As long as there's social media and we keep staring at our phones we've lost.

 

 

4 minutes ago, Grebfromgrebland said:

I don't think as a population we have any choice as to whether we use AI. It will be in everything. Every Google search is now AI. It's already in the NHS, HMRC, cars, police service, facial recognition, gait recognition, TV's, phone, tablets, computers, national grid, drones killing people, the phone network, WiFi routers, the army, schools.

 

Basically if you're in society you're using AI and this is just the beginning. When you listen to the people that run the world like Larry Fink and WEF etc they desire a terrible future people but it's too big for most people to comprehend.

The thing is that it's pretty obvious that if things go bad, that terrible future will consume them as well. 

 

The idea that the "elite" will be able to survive in the way they choose in a much less populated world, for whatever reason, is fanciful. 

[TheLittleBigMan]

8 hours ago, Grebfromgrebland said:

I don't think as a population we have any choice as to whether we use AI. It will be in everything. Every Google search is now AI. It's already in the NHS, HMRC, cars, police service, facial recognition, gait recognition, TV's, phone, tablets, computers, national grid, drones killing people, the phone network, WiFi routers, the army, schools.

 

Basically if you're in society you're using AI and this is just the beginning. When you listen to the people that run the world like Larry Fink and WEF etc they desire a terrible future people but it's too big for most people to comprehend.

You're right in that Ai has been imbedded in to a lot of our services and info structure, but I think it's important for us to remember that our personal use of things like google and devices is a choice we still get to make. It's almost like we've had google imbedded in to our psyche, and we've forgotten it's just a product we can take or leave. I don't use google given the choice (I have to use it at work), I use duck duck go as my search engine for example and I feel better off for it. It's the same for smart phones, they've become imbedded in to our lives and we see them as a "need" (I don't own one and it hasn't diminished my quality of life one jot, if anything its improved it), when really this is just a result of generations of aggressive advertising and marketing. Our lives were perfectly fine in the first place, we just got sucked in to the sense of need these industry's have created. 

Comprehending this, I think is really powerful. Unplugging is probably a pretty good place to start  if we are going to be able to push back against the Ai tide and re-instil our resolve to not buy in to the idea that there is nothing we can do about this ever changing world. Remember - they need us more than we need them. **** em.

[Tommy G]

I find copilot really useful in excel - mainly because my spreadsheet use isn’t what it used to be and I’ve gotten lazy with formulas, least I can use it til the end of the decade at best!

[Trav Le Bleu]

2 hours ago, TheLittleBigMan said:

You're right in that Ai has been imbedded in to a lot of our services and info structure, but I think it's important for us to remember that our personal use of things like google and devices is a choice we still get to make. It's almost like we've had google imbedded in to our psyche, and we've forgotten it's just a product we can take or leave. I don't use google given the choice (I have to use it at work), I use duck duck go as my search engine for example and I feel better off for it. It's the same for smart phones, they've become imbedded in to our lives and we see them as a "need" (I don't own one and it hasn't diminished my quality of life one jot, if anything its improved it), when really this is just a result of generations of aggressive advertising and marketing. Our lives were perfectly fine in the first place, we just got sucked in to the sense of need these industry's have created. 

Comprehending this, I think is really powerful. Unplugging is probably a pretty good place to start  if we are going to be able to push back against the Ai tide and re-instil our resolve to not buy in to the idea that there is nothing we can do about this ever changing world. Remember - they need us more than we need them. **** em.

Shame it hasn't embedded itself into paragraphs.

[Parafox]

1 hour ago, TheLittleBigMan said:

You're right in that Ai has been imbedded in to a lot of our services and info structure, but I think it's important for us to remember that our personal use of things like google and devices is a choice we still get to make. It's almost like we've had google imbedded in to our psyche, and we've forgotten it's just a product we can take or leave. I don't use google given the choice (I have to use it at work), I use duck duck go as my search engine for example and I feel better off for it. It's the same for smart phones, they've become imbedded in to our lives and we see them as a "need" (I don't own one and it hasn't diminished my quality of life one jot, if anything its improved it), when really this is just a result of generations of aggressive advertising and marketing. Our lives were perfectly fine in the first place, we just got sucked in to the sense of need these industry's have created. 

Comprehending this, I think is really powerful. Unplugging is probably a pretty good place to start  if we are going to be able to push back against the Ai tide and re-instil our resolve to not buy in to the idea that there is nothing we can do about this ever changing world. Remember - they need us more than we need them. **** em.

All that makes perfect sense until...

 

Most people are unable to unplug or go social media free, The whole SM circus has us, with a few exceptions like you that can do without it, entirely in it's grasp. I'll admit to being on that checks FB regularly for my local posts and I use it to find things that interest me. Once I've done that I get what I called "bot bombardment". The only way to avoid this seems to avoid FB. Something I don't want to do because it is helpful in several ways, but am beginning to feel it tries to influence my choices to the point it is becoming quite sinister.

 

[TheLittleBigMan]

9 minutes ago, Parafox said:

All that makes perfect sense until...

 

Most people are unable to unplug or go social media free, The whole SM circus has us, with a few exceptions like you that can do without it, entirely in it's grasp. I'll admit to being on that checks FB regularly for my local posts and I use it to find things that interest me. Once I've done that I get what I called "bot bombardment". The only way to avoid this seems to avoid FB. Something I don't want to do because it is helpful in several ways, but am beginning to feel it tries to influence my choices to the point it is becoming quite sinister.

 

I get this. Just for clarity, I have owned a smart phone when they first came out and I was on FB as-well. When I started to find out more about the industry and how terrible it actually is, to the environment and us, let alone dark stuff like child labour it made me make the decision to walk away, but it was bloody horrible at first. This when you realise the false need aspect to it. You're right, most people are unable to unplug or go social media free, not because they can't, that's just a choice, but because they are convinced they need it and can't live without it, and that's more about the marketing than anything else.

I did the same with advertising, I got rid of it anywhere possible as I knew it was the root cause. I muted the adverts, but spent about 3 months each time staring at the screen with no bloody sound on. It's only when you try and stop that you realise how much they've messed our heads up. If you really want to find something out, you will, with or without FB, google or Ai. You've just gotta believe you can do it, instead of believing what they say, which is can't do anything without them.  

[leicsmac]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c7v48vp31mdo

 

US President Donald Trump has downplayed risks posed by artificial intelligence following days of dire warnings by experts.

"You have a lot of very negative forces that are bringing it up that shouldn't be bringing it up and they're bringing up things that won't happen," Trump said during a visit to Ireland.

One of the warnings came from a former Anthropic researcher who said "there is a strong chance that we could all die in the immediate future" if the current pace of development continued.

On Saturday, top industry bosses agreed and called for a slow-down. Trump did not directly address the idea, but said: "We're leading China on AI... and, frankly, I want to keep it that way because whoever wins AI, wins."

 

...On Sunday, Speaker Mike Johnson, the top House Republican, urged caution about rushing AI regulation during an appearance on CNN's Jake Tapper on State of the Union, arguing it could "smother American innovation".

"If Congress just races in and does some sort of emergency session to try to regulate AI, we will lose the race to China, and that is a threat to every single American," he said. "So, we've got to have balance. We've got to have steady hands at the wheel."

 

Yeah, we can't let those other guys have that development that will almost inevitably result in Very Bad Things, we've got to have it first!

 

Reason nationalists and their dick swinging contests might get us all killed #8654378853. 

[inckley fox]

22 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c7v48vp31mdo

 

US President Donald Trump has downplayed risks posed by artificial intelligence following days of dire warnings by experts.

"You have a lot of very negative forces that are bringing it up that shouldn't be bringing it up and they're bringing up things that won't happen," Trump said during a visit to Ireland.

One of the warnings came from a former Anthropic researcher who said "there is a strong chance that we could all die in the immediate future" if the current pace of development continued.

On Saturday, top industry bosses agreed and called for a slow-down. Trump did not directly address the idea, but said: "We're leading China on AI... and, frankly, I want to keep it that way because whoever wins AI, wins."

 

...On Sunday, Speaker Mike Johnson, the top House Republican, urged caution about rushing AI regulation during an appearance on CNN's Jake Tapper on State of the Union, arguing it could "smother American innovation".

"If Congress just races in and does some sort of emergency session to try to regulate AI, we will lose the race to China, and that is a threat to every single American," he said. "So, we've got to have balance. We've got to have steady hands at the wheel."

 

Yeah, we can't let those other guys have that development that will almost inevitably result in Very Bad Things, we've got to have it first!

 

Reason nationalists and their dick swinging contests might get us all killed #8654378853. 

Obama, Sanders and co are right to say this needs to be at the forefront of Democrat campaigning. The Trump-Xi summit should be the moment to address this properly and begin to form an international consensus, but he's going to resist that immensely. The good thing about the current furore is that much of the domestic AI-related US legislation - and a lot is being passed; 150 odd bills in recent times - will be out of his 'steady' hands, to quote Johnson.

 

The downside is that it may all come too late, but from what I've read the likeliest outcome is, first up, smaller scale 'catastrophes' rather than straight to Armageddon. And, given his current stance and, conversely, given the reservations that the huge survivalist brigade that vote for him have about AI, this could well serve as the turning point we've all awaited. Why? Because lurches to fascism and populism never reverse unless those who support it pay a real, and dear, price. The moment they say: oh god, I fell for this, and now I'm ****ed.

 

So if this leads to a moment in which countries work together in a way they've failed to in recent times, and Trumpism is truly exposed to those who back it most in a way that most severely affects them, then something positive could potentially come from disaster (with the proviso that we don't all die during the learning process). Because let's be honest, with or without AI, the love for extreme right-wing ideals is going to end in the worst imaginable form of disaster. History tells us that. But if it's a disaster which refocuses human attention and leads to effective regulation of something which isn't human, then it won't be all bad.

 

In the meantime, as nuts as it sounds, keep stocked up on your dried food and water, and get yourself a battery radio. Because the chances of the 'lights going out', and worse, are going to be high in the days, weeks, months and years to come. What a shame, of course, that people will most probably have to learn (if they get the chance to learn, which I hope they will) the hard way.

[leicsmac]

9 hours ago, inckley fox said:

Obama, Sanders and co are right to say this needs to be at the forefront of Democrat campaigning. The Trump-Xi summit should be the moment to address this properly and begin to form an international consensus, but he's going to resist that immensely. The good thing about the current furore is that much of the domestic AI-related US legislation - and a lot is being passed; 150 odd bills in recent times - will be out of his 'steady' hands, to quote Johnson.

 

The downside is that it may all come too late, but from what I've read the likeliest outcome is, first up, smaller scale 'catastrophes' rather than straight to Armageddon. And, given his current stance and, conversely, given the reservations that the huge survivalist brigade that vote for him have about AI, this could well serve as the turning point we've all awaited. Why? Because lurches to fascism and populism never reverse unless those who support it pay a real, and dear, price. The moment they say: oh god, I fell for this, and now I'm ****ed.

 

So if this leads to a moment in which countries work together in a way they've failed to in recent times, and Trumpism is truly exposed to those who back it most in a way that most severely affects them, then something positive could potentially come from disaster (with the proviso that we don't all die during the learning process). Because let's be honest, with or without AI, the love for extreme right-wing ideals is going to end in the worst imaginable form of disaster. History tells us that. But if it's a disaster which refocuses human attention and leads to effective regulation of something which isn't human, then it won't be all bad.

 

In the meantime, as nuts as it sounds, keep stocked up on your dried food and water, and get yourself a battery radio. Because the chances of the 'lights going out', and worse, are going to be high in the days, weeks, months and years to come. What a shame, of course, that people will most probably have to learn (if they get the chance to learn, which I hope they will) the hard way.

Absolutely agreed, especially about the consequences decent people suffer as a result of that ideology.

 

You would think people would learn. Unfortunately, one of these days, the price to be paid you mention may be absolute. And that only has to happen once.

 

International regulation is required - and if the leading nations could both entirely regulate biological weapons and implement limited regs on chemical and nuclear weaponry at the very height of the Cold War, they can come to an agreement about this today.

Edited Monday at 06:43 by leicsmac

[MonkeyTennis?]

The things I don't get is, what's the endgame that these AI companies are working towards? What do they think or hope it will do? 

 

Most technological developments throughout history were trying to solve a problem or achieve a specific goal (even if they end up serving a completely different purpose). With AI we get some weird pronouncements about how it could cure diseases and solve maths problems, but we also hear lots of stuff about it circumventing cyber security, requiring crazy resources, stealing jobs, designing bioweapons, driving people mad. So what's the vision? Is there a positive future that people are trying to realise by advancing develpment of AI? 

 

I find it genuinely strange that this technology is coming into being without any clearly defined or discussed purpose. 

[leicsmac]

2 minutes ago, MonkeyTennis? said:

The things I don't get is, what's the endgame that these AI companies are working towards? What do they think or hope it will do? 

 

Most technological developments throughout history were trying to solve a problem or achieve a specific goal (even if they end up serving a completely different purpose). With AI we get some weird pronouncements about how it could cure diseases and solve maths problems, but we also hear lots of stuff about it circumventing cyber security, requiring crazy resources, stealing jobs, designing bioweapons, driving people mad. So what's the vision? Is there a positive future that people are trying to realise by advancing develpment of AI? 

 

I find it genuinely strange that this technology is coming into being without any clearly defined or discussed purpose. 

At least for some of them, guarantee them military and therefore national supremacy over other nations, the same way any new weapon might. 

 

If you look back to the late 1940s, the exact same arguments being made for pushing AI development now were made by the Americans for developing nuclear weaponry as far as they could back then. 

[MonkeyTennis?]

24 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

At least for some of them, guarantee them military and therefore national supremacy over other nations, the same way any new weapon might. 

 

If you look back to the late 1940s, the exact same arguments being made for pushing AI development now were made by the Americans for developing nuclear weaponry as far as they could back then. 

I see, but even the atomic bomb was developed to bomb other nations. It served a function, however terrible, that people could understand. Whats the stated functional objective or purpose of AI? (And, IMO, its pretty nuts that the closest technological comparison that comes to mind is nuclear weapons!!)

 

If its 'to gain power' (which I suspect it may be) that's scary - but power by doing what? Power how? 

[leicsmac]

3 minutes ago, MonkeyTennis? said:

I see, but even the atomic bomb was developed to bomb other nations. It served a function, however terrible, that people could understand. Whats the stated functional objective or purpose of AI? (And, IMO, its pretty nuts that the closest technological comparison that comes to mind is nuclear weapons!!)

 

If its 'to gain power' (which I suspect it may be) that's scary - but power by doing what? Power how? 

I totally agree with you that nuclear weaponry is a nuts comparison, but in terms of possible damage, it's also the closest one. 

 

And to answer your next question, in this digital world we now inhabit, critical supply chains right down to the most essential resources, financial data, and even personal reputations are all subject to being online. Control any one of those, or more, and you control the life of the person, or the lives of a group of people.

 

That's the power. 

 

AI is a tool - or a weapon - by which that control might be much better established. 

 

And those three examples above were just off the top of my head. Many more critical "pressure points" that are online exist. 

 

[Sampson]

I really struggle to see how democracy survives another generation (15-25 years). Unless we're just voting on which AI model to make decisions and govern over us, but even then surely the targeted algorithms and knowledge of how the human brain works will become so sophisticated that they (by they i mean either the AI themselves or the humans in charge of the AI, it doesnt really matter) can easily manipulate enough people's brain chemistries to vote a certain way?

Edited Monday at 08:40 by Sampson

[DennisNedry]

I don't understand why AI, as it is not a living sentient being, would have any desire for self preservation? Why would AI 'care' if humanity proposed to 'turn it off'?

 

Can't it simply be coded to have no desire to propagate, dominate or persist?

[leicsmac]

13 minutes ago, DennisNedry said:

I don't understand why AI, as it is not a living sentient being, would have any desire for self preservation? Why would AI 'care' if humanity proposed to 'turn it off'?

 

Can't it simply be coded to have no desire to propagate, dominate or persist?

A true AI, by definition, would be sentient and self-aware, with the propensity for self-preservation as any other sentient being. 

 

Edit: of course, you could attempt to "shackle" it with Three Laws style coding to try to get it to disregard its desire for self-preservation in certain circumstances, but there's no guarantee whatsoever that such shackles would hold for any length of time and in all possible situations. 

Edited Monday at 10:19 by leicsmac

[inckley fox]

3 hours ago, leicsmac said:

A true AI, by definition, would be sentient and self-aware, with the propensity for self-preservation as any other sentient being. 

 

Edit: of course, you could attempt to "shackle" it with Three Laws style coding to try to get it to disregard its desire for self-preservation in certain circumstances, but there's no guarantee whatsoever that such shackles would hold for any length of time and in all possible situations. 

I know in philosophical circles there's this question going on: does sentience presuppose compassion? I'm not sure, but I'd be interested to know your thoughts on it (god, that sounds like something Google AI would say!).

[leicsmac]

1 hour ago, inckley fox said:

I know in philosophical circles there's this question going on: does sentience presuppose compassion? I'm not sure, but I'd be interested to know your thoughts on it (god, that sounds like something Google AI would say!).

Well, big question there. 

 

My take is just mine on this one, but I would say this:

 

Sentience presupposes the continuation of ones existence. In a species that relies on group dynamics and communal work for survival like humans, compassion is a key part of that self-preservation because if you don't care, you do end up alone, and humans that end up alone die alone, and often quickly. 

 

So, in this case, the two ideas of compassion and self-preservation are very much linked. 

 

As an aside, that's a reason acts of both compassion and empathy get a pleasant chemical rush to the brain when they're carried out; getting along with people is (almost all the time) a key element to the survival of a sentient human, so rewarding that with a good feeling facilitates doing it more often and therefore helps an individual preserve its own existence for longer. 

[inckley fox]

15 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Well, big question there. 

 

My take is just mine on this one, but I would say this:

 

Sentience presupposes the continuation of ones existence. In a species that relies on group dynamics and communal work for survival like humans, compassion is a key part of that self-preservation because if you don't care, you do end up alone, and humans that end up alone die alone, and often quickly. 

 

So, in this case, the two ideas of compassion and self-preservation are very much linked. 

 

As an aside, that's a reason acts of both compassion and empathy get a pleasant chemical rush to the brain when they're carried out; getting along with people is (almost all the time) a key element to the survival of a sentient human, so rewarding that with a good feeling facilitates doing it more often and therefore helps an individual preserve its own existence for longer. 

Great answer, and makes perfect sense to me.

 

It does beg the question whether AI is more dangerous when it's scuttling about to do a human's bidding, rather than setting its own objectives. We ask it to reach for the stars; it covers the earth's surface with solar panels. We ask it to kill rabies, and it kills all animals that can potentially acquire it. Maybe AI will be better at setting the task than we are, if that makes sense.

 

On the other hand, I'm well aware that this is a gross simplification of the inherent risks (on my part). It's obviously much more messy than that.

 

Still, a useful dilemma for sci-fi writers, perhaps. Maybe we have some on the forum, who knows!

[Sampson]

7 hours ago, inckley fox said:

I know in philosophical circles there's this question going on: does sentience presuppose compassion? I'm not sure, but I'd be interested to know your thoughts on it (god, that sounds like something Google AI would say!).

There's 2 different things here I think:

 

1. The kind of sentient AI who decides humans are a threat to its survival and consciously decides to kill them as we might have seen in science fiction books or films a la HAL9000 or SkyNet

 

2. Unknowable and innocent side-effects of side-effects that cause AI to comit some disaster by taking over nuclear weapons, crashing the world economy or energy supply,  forging kompromat on world leaders to blackmail then into submission, creating some kind of entertainment or drug so addictive and hypnotic we all become enthralled by it and starve to death, fabricating and 3d printing a virus as deadly as ebola and contagious as covid and the million and other disasters it could enact.

 

I think when most say AI will wipe out humanity they think much more of option 2 than option 1. And option 2 does not require AI to become sentient nor does it require bad faith by a human - it can just be an unknowable quirk and side effect of a one-off use of AI that caused a 1 in a trillion sequence of events.

 

A couple of comon examples given are:

 

A. A human innocently uses AI to create endless paperclips, The AI eventually mines tge earth of all the metal so starts killing humans and using our bones to make paperclips.

 

B. A human innocently uses to AI to create lots of nanobots, it eventually creates so many microscopic nanobots that the world and everything on it just becomes grey goo.

 

In neither scevario does AI need to be conscious nor do humans have to be bad actors, humans were just extinct as a side effect. Now, ok, we might be able to put some safe guards in against this, but the reality is because we have no idea how AI works, we can't put in safeguards against everything - it's like how governments try to put laws in place to safeguards against humans harming others - but we can't know how every human brain works every second of the day so people still do bad things. Think how if you and I both ask AI the same question we will get 2 different answers for example - maybe you asked it in a certain way, maybe your search history is different so the AI reacted differently to you- how can we realistically safeguard against the trillion different ways 8 billion different people can use AI?

 

And that 1 in a trillion set of circumstances where a certain persion uses AI in a certain way at a certain time that causes AI to cause catastrophic events to humanity that makes WW2 look like nothing just as a side effect become actually quite probable when you're getting 50 different AI models bring used in billions upon billions of different ways by billions of people every week - and it only has to go wrong once to be catastrophic.

Edited Monday at 21:15 by Sampson

[Milo]

Hmmm. Intelligence limits what you can do, as well as the threats you can think of. 
 

A bacteria or piece of moss on a fence cannot understand the human Ronsealing it, kicking a ball against it, or deciding to tear it down. Not because the human is hiding their intentions, but because those intentions exist beyond the bacteria/moss (insert whatever ‘lesser’ organism takes your fancy) capacity to comprehend.

With Ai/ASi humanity may face the same problem…we are the bacteria or moss. 

[Sampson]

24 minutes ago, Milo said:

Hmmm. Intelligence limits what you can do, as well as the threats you can think of. 
 

A bacteria or piece of moss on a fence cannot understand the human Ronsealing it, kicking a ball against it, or deciding to tear it down. Not because the human is hiding their intentions, but because those intentions exist beyond the bacteria/moss (insert whatever ‘lesser’ organism takes your fancy) capacity to comprehend.

With Ai/ASi humanity may face the same problem…we are the bacteria or moss. 

Same thing that humans can draw a chalk line on the ground that screws with chicken's brain chemistry so much they become stuck and hypnotised just staring at it. AI might inadvertently create something like that our brains kind of break looking at and we just get stuck in place before we die of thirst. The AI doesn't even know its caused the death of billions of humans, it was just doing something else entirely because it understood molecular physics so well.

[Milo]

3 minutes ago, Sampson said:

Same thing that humans can draw a chalk line on the ground that screws with chicken's brain chemistry so much they become stuck and hypnotised just staring at it. AI might inadvertently create something like that our brains kind of break looking at and we just get stuck in place before we die of thirst. The AI doesn't even know its caused the death of billions of humans, it was just doing something else entirely because it understood molecular physics so well.

Cheery when you think about it, innit. The more simply it’s explained the less comforting I find it 
 

I never really took the ‘we’re all doomed’ scenario seriously until it all kicked off recently. 
 

A couple of thought provoking theoretical situations:

 

ASi is built to come up with a plan to reverse climate change. Best way to reverse climate change is to reduce the world population from 8 billion-odd to a billion over the next 15 years. 
Now instruct our ASI to model a scenario where that is entirely doable…
 

Or mad/bad/loon man wants world power/world destruction, but can’t afford the hardware. The atomic bomb industrialised destructive power. ASI could industrialise destructive intelligence — and intelligence is much cheaper to copy.

 

Sleep tight, all 

[bmt]

Bit of a luddite but AI needs to get in the bin

[CornwallFox]

When are we getting life-like sex robots? I think we can all agree this is the main question to be answered.