Community post
A.I. and YOU
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It will kill us all! It was save humanity! It will save humanity by killing us all!
The truth is, no one truly knows what genuine artificial intelligence will do once it arrives in force. It is fun to speculate and exciting to theorize about, but not even the master designers themselves have a line on what the outcome will be.
There are plenty of dire warnings from eminent scientists, people such as Stephen Hawking and Neil Degrasse Tyson, Bill Gates, and current Bond-villain in waiting Elon Musk.
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Neil looks worried. Should he be?
But these predictions of doom seem more prophylactic than based on any acute understanding of the consequences. And that's to be figured. Caution is wise, and these are wise men. Humanity's self-destructiveness is always a smart bet.
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However, there are some interesting things happening in the field of A.I. design and development. The most recent may be the revelation that already there are self-learning programs that are too complicated for even the engineers who made it to understand how it works.
What? Don't take my word for it.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/604087/the-dark-secret-at-the-heart-of-ai/
Yes, the wacky geniuses at MIT have designed a self-learning driving program that learns only by watching humans drive. I repeat: it learns ONLY by watching, then doing. And once it starts doing, it does things it didn't see. And it does them well.
M.I.T. made a machine that runs on instinct. What else to call it? There are no instructions telling it what to do, only how to learn. The weirdos who built it are hard pressed to explain how it does what it does. Once the car learned past a certain point, they were more or less clueless.
Maybe that terrifies you. Maybe it should. But I find it kind of awesome.
Instinct? No idea how it does what it does? No idea WHY it does what it does? That sounds like every person I know!
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What's he got that I don't?
I don't mean to be flippant about this, but it does seem to be revealing something about how our own minds work. Since the human brain is still vastly more complicated than that auto-driving program, we can only guess as to what truly motivates us.
Here's the kicker: the auto-car seems to have a certain kind of free will. Free will in the sense that it is expressly not programmed to execute any specific instruction. It observes then decides for itself what is the best course of action to take.
That's exciting!
Especially since deep cognitive research suggests human beings don't have free will at all. We're creatures controlled by desire, primal and otherwise, our choices determined by a deep subconscious process beyond our waking reach.
So they say, anyway. I remain somewhat skeptical, although a lot of first-rate philosophers, old and modern, would disagree with me.
Does the true threat lie not in mankind creating baby-killing robots, but in machines achieving free will where people could not? Considering how life loves to mix insult into its horrors, it only makes sense. What replaces us will have a lot of the things we always wanted but could never attain. If nothing, we will disappear having been doting, if not good, parents.
I'm not scared of the machines, I'm jealous!
Replies (12)
I still think we should be scared.
Interesting take on AI.
There are efforts underway to preclude any catastrophe 'evil' AI might undertake. Elon Musk (Bond villain-in-waiting made me laugh, ty) and Neuralink, for example. Musk states that AI might be problematic, because we can't compete. Neuralink, he proposes, will level the playing field, keeping AI just another player, rather than one that can wipe the floor with the rest of us.
My concern is that the cure might be worse than the disease. The external control of neurons can easily be envisioned to create mind control, rather than simply the increase in capacity.
Given the proven record of constant and increasingly sophisticated hacks and spoofs executed by bad actors for profit, I am extremely reticent about making my mind part of the IoT.
I don't wanna be a tool used to mine cryptos, as cameras, washing machines, and automobiles are being used right now. That's also about the most benign way in which such hacks might be used. The IoT devices surreptitiously used to mine cryptos still perform their functions nominally at present, but there are plenty of ways to make them break, or even use them to harm us.
One observation I will make is that people are increasingly used as products. Facebook and Google are using our data to generate the revenues that make them a couple of the most valuable and profitable companies in the world. Organ harvesters and sex traffickers are using our bodies in even more sinister and barbaric ways. Slavery and forced labor, wage slavery, propaganda, the list goes on and on.
While it is true that such commodotization has been occurring since the dawn of time, new technology creates new means of profiting from it.
If Musk isn't as benign as his actions show him to be, Neuralink could be the end of even the pretense of free will. The problem is that Neuralink's potential to grant superintelligence to ordinary people is not necessary to the technology of hacking brains.
It can be done without any benefits, pretense, or warning, at all. In the 1960's Delgado showed he could stop a charging bull in midstep by controlling it's mind. Given the increase in technological sophistication since then, the subtlety of such control is likely to be stunningly fine grained, inexpensive, and ranged.
Nothing will put the genie back in the bottle. The ability to remotely control our neurons exists. Only our possession of that technology might keep us our free will.
The scary and unavoidable conclusion of these facts is that only by adopting technology that interfaces with our brains to affect our minds might allow us to prevent hackers and bad actors from imposing external control of our minds.
Nothing else (except maybe tinfoil) can.
AI hasn't yet been proven to be our enemy, and I remain unconvinced it is certain to be. Bad people are proven to be, and they are shown to be using every technological improvement to victimize us further.
Maybe Neuralink, or something like it, can keep our free will, such as it may be, our own possession. Maybe Elon Musk isn't a Bond villain. Maybe Trump is actually opposing the deep state, and we have a window of opportunity to reboot our political environment to clear out the bad actors.
That's a lot of maybe's, but it's all we got.
I agree it's not set in stone. I have my doubts about Neuralink as useable tech, though. If the average person can't keep their laptop safe, what chance do they have with wires in their noggins? And I was just teasing about Elon Musk being a Bond villain, although the road to hell is lined with wonderful intentions. And I don't have a lot of hope for "good actors" controlling the tech that does come along, especially from the private sector. We already know every device you own is designed to addict you to it. Why would that be different for more advanced cyborg-style interfaces? Unfortunately, there is no utopia possible when dealing with human beings, and the style of government we have, at least in theory, enables at least some portion of the populace to exist with a modicum of freedom. That might very well be as good as it gets. We're flawed animals. Maybe the machines will do better on their own, but I don't see the singularity as an optimistic reality.
Actually, I just wrote a novel about how the AI of the future is totally magnanimous and gentle towards humans, and the humans can't stand it.
Hi @senderos, rather than be afraid, we should work hand in hand with A.I. Cause imagine the possibilities that can be achieved if humans and A.I work side by side. Nice article
we're hairless chimpanzees, we will always be afraid.
Thank you!
LOL that sounds like a fun read.
As to the singularity, I don't see, except extinction, any realistic option. What could possibly preclude the confluence of the technologies we see oncoming that create it?
Well, here's a short list: We could turn out to be Luddites, and refuse it. We might be late to the table, and those there first keep us from the feast. Ummm.... that's it. That's not just the short list, that's the whole list.
Nothing but time and engineering is between us and that singularity, which is so remarkably different from our present condition that it is difficult even to speculate as to what those differences will be.
I, admittedly, haven't spent an inordinate amount of time on that list, but off the top of my head, that's all I came up with, except extinction. Now, there's plenty of ways to delay it, but even if we're nuked back into the stone age, we'll get to this point again.
You seem to feel either that one of those three is at least fairly likely, or to have a longer list. If your list is longer, please share it with me.
Regarding neural interference, it's no joke, nor fancy. IIRC the name of the bullfighter was Dr. Jose Delgado. Additionally Dr. Nick Begich of the Lay Institute on Technologies, a fellow Alaskan of good reputation (unlike me), has done considerable research into the HAARP program, formerly located in Gakona, AK, which fiddled with radio transmissions aimed at the Ionosphere.
Amongst the things he learned from his investigations into HAARP was that several things do cause our neurons to function per external stimulation, such as binaural beats (audio), pulsed light, and radio waves.
Neuralink is likely to be wireless, and it is not the only effort underway to create computer brain interfaces. Nintendo is working on video game controls, for example.
This isn't not gonna happen, and over 40 years ago has been demonstrated on a charging bull.
It is exactly security issues that matter, as hacking me is far more potential to profit bad actors as my entire being can be recruited, not just used to mine BTC.
We almost certainly don't have a choice as to whether or not we want to make this happen. The only thing we can do about it is security.
I have lost many devices. I don't want to lose my mind.
Oh, I believe neural interfaces work, its just during the course of my research I discovered there are other platforms that might overtake it. Sort of like betamax versus vhs, if you are old enough to recall that famous tech race.
Ironically, the research that led to neural interfaces is very reliant on the same research that keeps suggesting (try as they might to find another conclusion) that humans have little in the way of free will. I think conscious control might be a better way of putting it, because the word "free" suggests the lack of freedom makes you a prisoner of some sinister force. But really, what part of your mind isn't YOU at the end of the day? Who are you really fooling? But that's a fine haired philisophical debate I am ill-equipped to deep dive into.
I cannot conceive of a competing platform to a neural interface that might overtake it. I confess my limited conceptual capacity, and ask you to elucidate briefly as to such competing platforms.
Imma stay clear of the 'free will' discussion. Dunno why..
Well, to put it in Radio Shack terminology, they are already able to radio communicate with certain aspects of the brain. Wirelessly, so to speak. Directly to the neurons in question. If that proves fruitful...no "mesh" is required. No hard link. No hardware. The external influence becomes completely literal. They can simply scan you and then control you.
The theoretics are totally there now. Only some of the tech is, but more than you would like. It's truly frightening to think of that aspect advancing.
You are not wrong.
I suspect the only defense will be proactive.
This is why I think Neuralink, or equivalent, isn't going to be optional, in practical terms.
We'll either adopt it, or be slaves. Probably both, I think, in my most despairing moments.