After listening to several AI writers and speakers over the years, I am now asking them: why is developing AI so important? Yes, I understand it’s the next l
I will try to summarize in as few ideas as possible, the main reasons I think such people are excited for AGI, then challenge their ideas with deeper “whys.”
Curiosity
Perhaps the most common reason I see is that we will finally learn all the answers to the mysteries of science and the universe. Finally, all math, science, then medical, and other mysteries will finally be solved, including the infinite numbers of problems we have not even thought of yet, or that will be discovered by the neural networks.
This appeals to the curious minds, and is mainly why AI proponents also happen to be scientists because such tend to have a higher curiosity on average, or at least want to know the answers to riddles and problems. Want to know if we can build a mini black hole in the Hadron super-collider? You probably do not, but many scientists are compelled to know to the point of actually testing the idea while risking sucking in the entire earth, even if the risk of it happening seems fairly small. They just have to know, or perhaps win a prize.
Of course, building AI also fulfills the unquenchable thirst for knowledge among scientific and business minded. Who is not interested in a computer that knows the answer to every question ever posed and can create unlimited wealth?
But, the question is, does knowing the answer to everything actually make our world measurably better? If so, prove it to me. In some sense, knowing everything may lead to disappointment and boredom. Having mysteries keeps people busy and motivated.
Solving Societal Problems & Improved Technology:
Scientists want to create better technology, and businessmen want to distribute them, but to what end?
Will we look back and think how much we suffered in a world before a pizza would appear in front of us in less than 1 minute?
Even if we embed advance computing abilities into our minds, I am not sure why this is good or useful. So, I can instantly calculate pi to a quadrillion spaces, chat with 1000 people at once, digest all of Wikipedia in a few minutes. Now what?
Okay, let’s talk about real problems then like poverty, as if that many people are actually working on that on a regular basis. Well, the growth of capitalism and cheap borrowing costs (low interest rates) are the two most likely culprits over the last few decades:
Sure, then there’s inequality, but that is a slippery slope. Besides, if AI and machines promise a rapid increase in wealth and comfort, I am not sure who will complain.
Surely there are other real problems. Considering that car crashes are one of the top causes of death, let’s look at that. Although I still think it’s significant, most people could care less if a reduction in car crashes reduce the risk of death, by a mere 0.01% / year. That leaves the other largest causes of death: disease and suicide.
Considering diseases are on pace to be wiped out here in the near future, and life extension is commonly predicted to start this decade which includes reversal of many common diseases like cancer and heart disease, it seems like diminishing returns shortly. So, okay, I will admit, there’s still some decent room to progress in health, but if most end within 20 years (including mental health) with the help of nano machines, then what problems do we have other than those caused by our own poor behavior?
Pleasure
So if suffering is a problem that is rapidly disappearing, and likely to be gone this century, that only leaves one alternative: more pleasure. Unlimited, always heading up, pleasure.
Countless technologies from plastic surgery to computer-brain interfaces typically start as a way to help suffering people (needs), but in the end, most people use it for fun (wants), and I mean most people. I hear technophiles constantly talking about using “AI for solving problems,” but do not see much care or interest from ordinary people.
The long term seems rather clear to me: either the what is defined as “suffering” will be increasingly raised (cue that hovercraft rider in Walle dropping his drink, with robots picking it up), or most problems will be solved soon, excluding bad government and poor human behavior. Then what?
Ray Kurzweil, the most well-known futurist, points out a few non-conventional benefits of AI that he looks forward to, as brains merge with AI and bodies are maintained via nanobots.
Better looks: Do you know what some top models main complaint is? They never think they look good enough compared to someone else. Give some people millions of dollars to spend on plastic surgery, and they will surely find a way to spend it all. I just dont see this being a realistic goal. Unhappy people tend to stay unhappy.
Better intelligence such as music abilities: I asked my kids what it would mean if they could suddenly play any instrument, and song, instantly. They did not care. Part of the fun is the learning process, knowing that you have achieved some difficult goal, and others recognize it too making it meaningful. Once effort is removed, you might as well just listen to recorded music. Likewise, why would I want to see every piece of art ever made via my brain-computer connection just because I like art? It seems that a limit on the human mind is no worse or less pleasurable than the AI -brain version. Besides, it’s just pleasure.
Talking to our dead relatives: Sure, many people wish they could reactivate memories of deceased love ones, but the rest of us go on with life. Besides, no AI -generated simulation of our ancestor would be real, so it’s just deceptive to me anyways. Considering in 100 years, death will be all but gone, this is something that will serve very few people anyways.
There is no reason to think that more pleasure or ease makes people happier either. Charlie Munger recently pointed out that during the Great Depression, people were far more happier, satisfied, and respectful to each other than in recent times, times in which we have been richer than ever.
AI and Love
Now, I have not really heard anyone suggesting that we use AI to increase positive human behavior and emotions like love, which is kind of odd. I guess either that is not a priority, or something that few have thought about, even if it is not feasible anytime soon. But if love is the ultimate purpose of life, why isn’t that the main goal of AI development?
I think that only geeks like us really care about super intelligence because when I recently asked my wife what she thought if she could be super-intelligent, she said she could care less.
This also reflects the reality that computing today does not necessarily make people smarter as it’s commonly assumed. For all I know 90%+ of internet use is entertainment or social, which brings up another potential problem with the idea that AI will make us smarter.
There May Even Be a Bigger Problem to Stronger AI: Dumber People
Is it possible that as computers get smarter, that we are actually heading the opposite direction?
How would this be possible? Perhaps because the demand for intelligence naturally decreases as computers get smarter, replacing that demand on people. I have written elsewhere that the decreased demand for a growing society, including intelligence, may lead to a decay or collapse of human society.
To support this assertion, IQ rates in Western countries have been declining for the last 1 1/2 decades. It does make me wonder how much of that is due to computers and the rise of the internet. Of course, even if you attempt to use the internet primarily for learning, realize there is little or no correlation between increasing your data or “fact” consumption with knowledge, truth, and wisdom.
So, although I am curious about the unknown questions that AI might be able to answer (ignoring the great risk I fear from it), I think life’s problems can be solved without AI, more enjoyably, and a great growth in power will likely lead to even more excess. More importantly, if love is the most important thing in life, we should be focusing a lot more on that problem, but that’s much harder because it cannot be solved by business nor technology.
The biggest missed point about the Holocaust, and other similar events, is that it was the expression of technological super forces. Without advanced technology, it is impossible to so cleanly and efficiently eliminate large populations.
Should we think the future is any safer with super-technology? Not as long as someone or something is in charge of the levers–not that it seems reasonable to let it run itself either.
The belief in end of war is a myth. I have demonstrated this elsewhere, but in short, violence committed from war has actually increased when looking at all documented cases of war over several hundred, then drawing a linear regression line. Sure, endless pleasure might somehow substitute war, but that’s another problem.
Technological Growth will Therefore Tend Towards Risk (unsafety), While Increasingly Restrict (safety) to Attempt to Prevent Chaos
If you think gun control is hotly debated, just wait until we can simply think up and even produce a weapon much more powerful than a mere gun. Thought control will therefore be a necessity for civilization to survive in the future. So, as tech empowers everyone, more controls will be needed to block the risks. Cue, the Borg from Star Trek.
Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them. Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam
Dune
Pandora’s Box is Full of 0’s and 1’s
If there is one thing we can be sure of about technology it is this:
Technology magnifies all human behavior, good or evil.
Author
” Reason and the impulse to objectify truth are illusory masks for cultural power.”
So, while we like to think that the search for scientific truth is obvious and natural, the reality is, in today’s world, those who control science, and its child technology, rule economically. The most successful companies today are mostly in the most cutting edge technology, or use such technology in their operations (even Walmart is incredibly high tech). By this, we can conclude that there is a race for technology because it is valuable. Social science would state this in similar terms:
The pursuit of Science is a cultural mask for power
Unknown
Freedom of speech, empowerment, and education Is there anyone in the United States that does not want more of these for themselves or people living in other countries? The idea of freedom, as set by the American founding was perhaps the most revolutionary idea since the dawn of civilization.
And on one hand, it continues to accelerate. With the leveraging and connecting speed of the internet and social media, anyone can be a leader overnight, amassing a large following. In theory, any of these virtual nobody’s could become the next President.
But, in case you have not noticed, there is a always a counter-pressure for such voices, often top down.
Education: Everyone needs more education. Technology will deliver it
Freedom of speech: The 2nd amendment gives people the freedom to speak, and we think everyone deserves to speak their mind without govt. intervention, otherwise we call it censorship. Is there a global company today that doesn’t want a greater market share in countries like China? Many would suggest that countries like China and North Korea are backward, but perhaps there is another view.
Empowerment: The first two (freedom, education) are just smaller parts of what you could call “empowerment” but for short, it can simply be referred to as increasing “power.”
The Battle Between Absolute Freedom and Absolute Control
When complete freedom for the individual is obtained, and as long as people make poor decisions, chaos is the most likely outcome.
Most people believe that freedom of speech is essential. We want more freedom of speech in countries like China, and North Korea. Most also find it repressive if governments limit the press:
2018 Press Freedom Index
However, if the press
people speak negatively of another group of people, then it is considered harassment, and can even lead to physical harm.
“Values that emphasize the creativity, autonomy, and priority of human beings are misplaced. There is no universal humanity since every culture constitutes its own reality. Groups must empower themselves to assert their own values and to take their placer with other planetary species. “
To detail the coming risks to humanity brought about by rapidly advancing technologies.
To show the growing effects and risks already occurring today on society, as well as project these risks into the future.
To search for possible solutions
To give you greater knowledge to choose your path in the future.
Many books, articles, and voices continue to debate the merits of advanced technologies such as AI (or AGI), robotics, nanotech, biotech, and other civilization-altering technologies. Most such discussions center on technological risks, whereas this book is written primarily to discuss the growing real risks to a slowly collapsing society; that is it does not directly wipe us out through some extinction event, but rather, it does so indirectly through the subtle weaknesses in each one of us on a grand scale we call society. Like 9 of the 11 largest civilizations that have ever existed, we are more likely to destroy ourselves from within than from without (the barbarians)[will durant]. If civilization is failing, then it is likely that either few are noticing it, or if they are, they are doing nothing about it.
There are probably a few initial responses to these claims, and using a metaphor:
Me: Humanity is about to be destroyed, and is actually slowly underway.
Person 1: There is no risk now, and there may never be a risk (denial)
Person 2: There is risk, but someone else will figure it out (laissez-faire)
Person 3: The risk is there, but we cannot do anything about it (apathetic/fatalist)
Person 4: The risk is there, but not that bad (imprudent).
Personally, I hope for the best but prepare for the worst.
To avoid discussing the mounting risks issues at hand is to be indifferent to the exponentially growing risks already well underway. this book will demonstrate such trends and predict future outcomes.
As technological changes and risks accelerate exponentially, so do changes and risks in society.
This was challenging to write as I am a parent who is self-employed and who homeschools his children. I read on topics of economics, social science, politics, and civilization. I also like to work to discover innovative methods to grow food without the use of machines. Other interests include attempting to solve any unanswered problem or question like, why do most cultures have similar mythological roots?
“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” Partners in Ecocide: Australia’s Complicity in the Uranium Cartel, by Venturino Giorgio Venturini in 1982 “In 1972 uranium producers from France, South Africa, Australia, Great Britain and Canada organized an international cartel to control the production and sale of uranium.”
Like most things in life, with every “pro” of technology, there is a “con,” and with every benefit, a risk or cost, even if it is not obvious. One of them infrequently discussed is the ability to perfect torture. There has been discussion though of an AI that overpowers humanity, causing all of humanity to live in an eternal hell, and while that is possible, it is indisputable that a person or government for example, could inflict eternal suffering on a captive person(s). This will discuss a few variations, potentially in phases, for perfecting such torture as technology “progresses” over time.
1. Precision Torture
Simply have an AI train on a person’s emotional response to some stimuli, and with “reinforcement training” the machine can develop the ability to generate instant, non-stop pain for its victim. Such a feedback loop can give real-time data to a machine that amplifies whatever pain works best on its victims. To date, a few studies state that brain activity in the orbitofrontal cortex and insular cortex are connected to pain perception. In other words, reading brainwaves will allow users to perfect the fears and pains that are most “motivating” to a victim.
2. Simulated Pain
The next logical step in inflicting pain on a victim would be to have less mess and less work, simply causing imagined pain by activating pain neurons/networks/regions in the brain. Perhaps bypassing step 1 above is feasible. Such direct stimulation would make cause maximum pain with minimal effort, again, using instant biofeedback that is interpreted by AI. The reading of brain activity via electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) continues to improve with time, and as it does, so will the ability to cause more precise harm to those who wield its power in a harmful way.
A less direct route to inflicting pain on a victim would be to create a “perfect simulation in the mind indistinguishable from reality,” or in other words, “The Matrix,” but that approach seems more complex than the direct neuron stimulation approach. Whether government or rogue individuals, the potential to cause unimaginable suffering is real.
3. Direct Thought Extraction
Simply gaining intel, or knowledge, from a target may be the actual goal of most torture, so perhaps simply to read their brain waves. In this scenario, torture is not needed. This is probably seen as the “nicest” form of torture since no pain is needed. Yet, theft of one’s thoughts may be the greatest form of a dystopian future that can be imagined. With the ability to steal thoughts, the safety to think, and freedom to choose would be eliminated. We would become products of society or whoever held technological power over us.
This does negate a large swatch of population that would still want to inflict pain on its targets to gain control, revenge, or some other selfish motive. Methods 1 and 2 still seem just as likely even if direct thought extraction becomes feasible, but it can get worse…
3. Perfect, Eternal Torture & Suffering
The worst part of all this is that “anti-aging tech” if it arrives as many currently believe, will allow a person to inflict maximum pain on someone else indefinitely while ensuring the person never dies. The idea of Hell may soon become a real possibility right here on earth, applied to whomever is an unfortunate target of war/crime.
As mentioned previously, some have worried that such “perfected torture” could be carried out by an out-of-control AI that has trapped all of humanity, which is possible, but I am more concerned about the undebatable historical reality of people doing similar things to other people on a realistic level. Is there any question at all that some people, or governments, will do this to others given the chance? There is no theory here only truth.
Question: Is Technology Worth it for the Masses if Even One Person is Subject to Perfect, Eternal Torture?
Some might say yes, but what if it is ten people? or 1,000 people? or 1,000,000’s? Drawing lines is one of the most difficult tasks for people in my experience. It is why so many small problems grow into unstoppable, monumental ones. I do not think a single life is worth it. Is the answer clearer if the person being tortured was your own? Now empathy brings on new meaning. The ability to perfect torture begs the question of perfecting technology to the point that it can measure and inflict pain on a person.
Of course, the idea of “ending technology” as does not work because someone else will continue to develop it, so defense against others is necessary. Likewise, on the extreme end of techno-anarchy, it proposes that the only way to survive is to smash every last bit of technology, essentially returning to life as foragers, since any attempt to preserve technology would inevitably progress back to “advanced AI.” If we must have advanced technology to protect ourselves from evil, then might it be possible that complete accountability of populations will occur, self-governing of course? That seems like asking if we can get rid of all crime. Probably not.
The need for intervention from a higher power suddenly seems to make sense in the face of the coming ability to generate perfect, eternal, torture by other people.
Being such a broad, general term, that is just as difficult as asking what is “good” or “intelligent,” so I will explain it here for how I use it.
In sociological terms, wealth is often defined as relative wealth or absolute wealth. Absolute wealth means that you have enough to buy food or other necessities. E.g. In the US, few people, if any, die in the US today because of starvation, therefore absolute wealth is high.
Relative wealth is the idea that even though I have a decent quality of life, I am relatively poor compared to much higher income earners and asset holders, which is referred to as the Gini index. So, while someone might make 2x as much as the average American, compared to the top 10% of income earners, they are poor in “relative” terms.
But, a more universal definition as it pertains to the human mind and these writings is: Wealth is the absence of risk for pain/suffering and death, and the degree/frequency of pleasure one can experience.
Here is how I arrived at that definition. Simply discussing life in terms of “dollars” does not tell you what those dollars can buy, and ignores many cost-free benefits of increasing comfort, such as the ability to gather information and the ability to learn right from within the convenience of your own hand, in nearly unlimited amounts, at any time, via free search engines and websites. How do you put a price on that? Libraries and archiving websites have millions of books for free. Blogs, news sites, and social media contain trillions of ideas.
Estimates of perhaps the greatest ancient library ever, at Alexandria, would be microscopic compared to the volume of information that is available today. In fact, Alexandria’s library could perhaps fit on a grain of sand if that sand were a hard drive.
Free knowledge, and free entertainment. Millions of movies, shows, fiction books, and video games may be available today at the click of a button, many of them free. Video-sharing websites collectively contain billions of videos today. Social media is an endless stream of entertainment.
It seems logical that if pleasure is one measure of wealth, then the absence of pain is also an equally important measure of wealth. All technology is designed to increase pleasure/ease, or reduce pain/effort. There may be rare examples of people inventing technology to make life harder, but that misses the point.
Medicine has continued to increase lifespans for generations. Anyone with access to a modern healthcare facility is rich. Just look at the infant mortality rates __________. Treating pain, wehter over the counter, in an ER, or at a therapist’s office, is incredible. Something as simple as ibuprofen or acetaminophen are miracle to me and signs of significant wealth of the modern world.
If you still think that you are rich, then you should know that even millionaires feel the same “Only 8% percent [with over $1M in investable assets] characterize themselves as wealthy.” (Ameriprise survey). Sure, with a typical home in California costing over a million dollars today due to inflation, a million is not what it used to be, however, it seems logical that many of those surveyed have considerably more than a million. On the other hand, owning a 20-year-old economy car, while living in a heated home, and having the freedom to travel, is very wealthy in my opinion. The perception of wealth is always relative.
Lots of changes are subtle. For example, the average home size has tripled in the last few decades, and yet with far fewer people per household on average. Square footage is not the only thing increasing. The ability for people to live independently has increased for over 100 years. Look at this chart of the elderly who can afford to live alone, instead of a typical three-generation family, which is the norm in many lower-income countries.
_____________
However, it can be seen than that if living alone is the result of being rich, then perhaps being rich is the problem, not the answer. Loneliness may be one of the greatest plagues of the world today, and wealth is what fuels it.
Returning to the topic of health, if science is able to “end death” and also create pleasurable experiences that are exponentially pleasurable at a continually lower cost over time, then I do not see how “income” really is a good way to measure wealth. If food and shelter will remain challenges, I actually do not think they will be much of an issue within a couple of decades. E.g. the ability to generate energy our cells need directly from the air (e.g. moisture electrical generation tech), and allow our cells to use it directly does not seem like science fiction to me.
As science marches forward century after century, every generation seems to be wealthier than the previous one, except for temporary declines caused by wars, depressions, and other catastrophes.
Is there a person in America today that is not richer in terms of convenience, comfort, pleasure, and access to knowledge, than perhaps everyone in the world combined just a millennium ago? Salt was once traded in its weight for gold. Ice cream was once the domain of kings. [find that google story of teh king who sent fleets to gain knowledge]
Coming technologies will make us so rich, we cannot fathom it in today’s terms, yet due to the hedonic treadmill effect, meaning we always get used to our new level of income/wealth, few may even notice. Few people think they are rich because they have salt or leavened bread, once a luxury in eras past.
If ease and safety are primary definitions of wealth, then AI will ensure perfect wealth as robots do physical work and AI thinks for us.
MOSTLY DONE, but need supporting points and charts.
Here’s a question in return: Has all the “intelligence” we have accumulated for thousands of years, including the “digital information” that continues to double every couple of years, made humanity any better than it once was? What is “better?” Ask two people and get two different answers.
Is the young generation harder working and more disciplined than previous generations, or do they just know more facts about the world? Are kids today more giving, selfless, honest, loyal, financially prudent, and ?
When answering any of these questions, be sure to take the average of the results, not outliers, exceptions, anomalies, and anecdotes, which is what I typically hear when I ask questions about the state of the world. Additionally, “what is possible” should not be confused with “what is happening.”
Perhaps no less important a question: If data doubles every other year, is it actually increasing our intelligence on average?
This brings up the grand question of what is intelligence? Perhaps the word “intelligence” is too broad to tackle, so I will be more specific going forward.
Narrowing down specific types of knowledge might include a wide variety, but generally, as I think of it, it is learning from one’s mistakes or errors. On the surface intelligence might simply be the ability to recognize patterns as seen in IQ tests, and on the other side, “street smarts.”
Science, for example, is the process of discovering of repeating patterns in nature. In contrast to pattern-based logical intelligence, creative intelligence is the mind of an artist; emotional intelligence is the glue of society and families. Perhaps the most important form of “intelligence” is the changing of one’s behavior for the better–learning from your mistakes and making improvements.
Will an explosion of data, and perhaps scientific knowledge help, hurt, decrease suffering, or increase pleasure? Since “knowledge is power,” it is therefore simply a tool, with no inherent morality. Knowledge of gunpowder and atomic bombs did not make the world more moral, and the world’s most infamous criminals and tyrants were surely intelligent by anyone’s standards. The devil himself is probably more intelligent than anyone alive today.
So, if “knowledge” does not necessarily make people better, then ultimately the truly valuable knowledge that we should seek is that knowledge which results in an increase in the love of others, direct or indirect. E.g. Someone inventing a cure to a disease because they want to alleviate suffering, is a worthwhile pursuit of material intelligence as the end goal is based on love. So while many equate our Creator with intelligence and even omnipotence, I tend to think it is a certain type of knowledge that actually matters far more than other types.
If the real goal of increasing material knowledge is actually underpinned by the goal to increase love, then it is useful. It is hard to argue though that it will not be exciting to see AI solve some of the world’s greatest math problems and scientific mysteries of the universe; but I do not see the explosion of scientific intelligence a particularly useful end goal to AI.
Is There Evidence that Human Intelligence is Increasing?
Perhaps some will say that intelligence is increasing. Scientific knowledge appears to increase, predictively compounding with little change over the decades. Clearly knowledge is increasing our computing capabilities while our computing capabilities increase our knowledge. However, the social realms are not so clear. Does surfing the internet for hours on end tend to make people smarter? Let me tell you about some cat memes I have seen over the years.
Besides changes in IQ tests, are there other ways to measure intelligence in society?
If we are to look at a reduction in violence (“war” specifically) as a simple measure of growing collective intelligence, then time may tell, but I do not think war has ended. Many people thought all war had ended before WW1, and even WW2, as they “lived in the modern world” [I think its in Bauman]. We are most likely in a long pause. People at their core have not changed, and the wealth of the modern world holds society together for now.
If the wealth collapses, war will return. With global financial systems and central banks around the world in the world’s largest economic experiment, or Ponzi scheme as they hold down each other’s interest rates to artificially low and even negative rates, the risk levels for collapse simply climb a little more every year. Economically I do not think we are more intelligent, and people are not more financially prudent than they were a generation ago.
Likewise, if you look at politics, the last few hundred years have enabled citizens to be increasingly free to think and choose for themselves in Western democracies, however, it is possible, and in fact likely in my opinion, for a return to kings and tyrants when societies start to fail. Yet another sign, among military, and economic decline, that intelligence would be decreasing.
Ultimately, all forms of “intelligence” depend on the nature of society and its ability to pursue that which is good, but defining “good” is a problem in itself since society can rarely agree on either what good is, or even how to achieve it. For example, most in today’s Western world believe that helping the poor is a good thing, but some believe the solution is to hand them a fish, while others believe it’s better to teach them how to fish.
So these look at systemic intelligence (social, political, and economic), but what about individual intelligence in the “pattern recognition” type, better known as IQ tests?
What Do IQ Tests Show?
This is not to say science is not increasing in many areas, but rather the ability of individuals in the system to think and reason is declining. It is funny to think that recently it has become common for internet users in general to refers to themselves as “degenerates” who sit behind a screen all day trolling memes and trying to get rich off of crypto trading. Perhaps it is a joke…perhaps.
Ultimately, I am not sure why an IQ’s of 200 would be useful anyway as I don’t really have the need to memorize the entire encyclopedia, know what I ate for breakfast 32 years ago, count cards, and do advanced calculus equations in my head. The amount of useless facts that fill my own mind is enough to make anyone wonder about the value of the internet. Remarkably, some of the people with the highest IQ’s in history struggled with social issues, perhaps because there is a real cost to focusing most of our time on mental processes instead of interacting with others. If we had an explosion in the intelligence of love, I would accept that, although I do think love is more like exercise: you just have to do it.
Will AI be Smart Enough to Arrive at the Same Conclusions?
If we are extremely fortunate, then AI will rationally arrive at the same conclusion that I have, that love is really the most important goal of super-intelligence; but, then again, if an AI is under the directive of a person/group, then such truths may be seen as worthless, not seen, or simply ignored by many or most. AI will just magnify each of our own desires–no ultimate truth is needed to accomplish that. It is as if people may continue to learn indefinitely, but never really learn the significant truths.
For example, one of the most phenomenal phenomena and greatest riddles in history is found in comparative mythology, which I have a strong interest in. No one can explain how so many cultures in the world share the same foundational stories or elements of stories. Many have tried for over 100 years, beginning perhaps with Frazier. The publishing of countless anthropological journals, and books, their digitization, the sharing of it, and perhaps even with some machine learning applied, have made it increasingly possible to detect the possible causes of this unexplainable behavior, yet, few people on earth have stopped to notice, and fewer to question, the reality that some stories are shared among 100’s, if not 1000’s of cultures around the world; with the most common one being a “global flood” story, and second, a “creation” myth. If a tree falls in a forest, does it make a sound? more importantly, is anyone listening and does anyone even notice or care? For truth to be useful, it needs to be sought after.
Measuring momentum
It is important to always look at the past and current direction, at least for a short-term prediction. If intelligence is increasing, is love also increasing today? To answer that question, most scientific intelligence, or its child, technology, creates a world where people need each other less as technology brings riches, a specialization of labor, and the ability to be completely independent from each other. Even when you look at the rate of older people living alone, it on one hand, is one of many clues of the growing wealth, and the growing isolation and loss of love.
CHART
Therefore, I do not believe love is increasing overall, on average. While there will always be “exceptions to the rule,” the average is what matters most. If most of society is failing, then does it matter if exceptions exist? Additionally, “illusory superiority” (a social science phenomenon) is that most people think they are above average, but that of course simply cannot be true. It seems likely you and I both have that bias. ____________________
Perhaps people will change to use technology to increase love. More on that here.
mother in law story here?
Could Super-Intelligence Actually Destroy Human Intelligence?
As mentioned previously, it is easy to believe that we are smarter than ever because we have more information, or data, than ever. Not only is there an issue of truth in that information, which may be worsening in many science realms, esp. the softer ones, but the equally large risk is that if AI replaces the need for people to think critically, then the supply of critical thinking may collapse. Demand predicts supply. Is there any evidence that people are getting smarter, in any form of intelligence whether logical or emotional? If this intelligence decline occurs, it may be through a reduction in human population (e.g. fertility rates or destruction) or the general decline of IQ, emotional, social, and other intelligence in each of us; perhaps all of the above. Clearly, social intelligence is declining rapidly as people are increasingly glued to their computers in almost every location (school, work, and play).
When the internet was invented, the question was, would the internet bring us together, or would it divide us? The answer is both of course, but clearly it is the relationships that matter the most, at the familiy and local, or face-to-face, levels, which have declined substantially, and therefore, I argued that it really has divided us to an incredible level.
If intelligence is universal, then why is there so much disagreement, esp in the realm of morality?
E.g. historically, inflicting pain on others, and pleasure on the self were wrong, but today, the pleasure component is increasingly disregarded through a new moral lens which is: that which does not harm others is good, or at least acceptable. So, if values are flexible, what kind of “truth” can we expect to achieve? For decades, post-modernists have used this fact to support their idea that truth is relative, but the reality is, the ability to perceive universal moral truths cannot be measured in a lab.
If AI is just a newer, faster version of tech, and tech has always increased the difference in power between those who wield it and those who do now, then we can presume that the difference between the political leaders, businesses, etc… may accelerate to unforeseeable degrees.
Historically, society has not taken kindly to these power differentials. We know them as revolutions, except that this time, with recursively optimizing software, permanent hegemony is almost guaranteed for those who harness it early.
There are many arguments about why AI will or will not destroy humanity, and while those are all debatable, this one is not so easily dismissed, and generally not discussed.
Won’t the Early AI Adopting Human-God-Machines be Benevolent?
It is possible that those at the top will not use their untold power to influence the world at large, but as a sociologist reader of history, and plain common-senser, I doubt it just a little. So, if we cannot automatically trust those at the top (logical), then to maintain the power of balance, all people must adopt AI individually in order to protect themselves, in the same way, gun rights protect citizens from corrupt governments. But this is a problem, for many people will not feel the desire to, or even be willing to, merge with the Matrix. If you don’t believe me, there are plenty of people that either do not own a cell phone, or simply use it to make calls.
Combine AI with humans that have common psychological weaknesses, as we all have them. For example, Bertran Russell in his Nobel Prize speech suggests there are four basic politcal desires that cannot be satisfied,
“I think that most current discussions of politics and political theory take insufficient account of psychology” … “Man differs from other animals in one very important respect, and that is that he has some desires which are, so to speak, infinite, which can never be fully gratified, and which would keep him restless even in Paradise. The boa constrictor, when he has had an adequate meal, goes to sleep and does not wake until he needs another meal. Human beings, for the most part, are not like this.” Further, “When the Arabs, who had been used to living sparingly on a few dates, acquired the riches of the Eastern Roman Empire and dwelt in palaces of almost unbelievable luxury, they did not, on that account, become inactive. Hunger could no longer be a motive, for Greek slaves supplied them with exquisite viands at the slightest nod. But other desires kept them active: four in particular, which we can label acquisitiveness, rivalry, vanity, and love of power.”
Here are each of the 4 detailed:
acquisitiveness– “to possess as much as possible of goods, or the title to goods”
rivalry – “a great many men will cheerfully face impoverishment if they can thereby secure complete ruin for their rivals. Hence the present level of taxation.”
vanity– “Vanity is a motive of immense potency. Anyone who has much to do with children knows how they are constantly performing some antic, and saying “Look at me.” “Look at me” is one of the most fundamental desires of the human heart. It”
love of power – “Love of power is closely akin to vanity, but it is not by any means the same thing. What vanity needs for its satisfaction is glory, and it is easy to have glory without power… Many people prefer glory to power, but on the whole, these people have less effect upon the course of events than those who prefer power to glory… Power, like vanity, is insatiable. Nothing short of omnipotence could satisfy it completely. And as it is especially the vice of energetic men, the causal efficacy of love of power is out of all proportion to its frequency. It is, indeed, by far the strongest motive in the lives of important men.”
Other common negative human emotions include greed, selfishness, jealousy, envy, pride, anger, fear, insecurity, unfairness, apathy, and hate. Which of these negative emotions, or desires for greater power, will not be magnified by its wielders when the greatest power the world will ever see, AGI, arrives?
Law of Accelerating Differences
The second problem is accelerating returns ensures that no matter how much people keep up, those at the cutting edge will continue the exponential curve upwards. The ever-exponential growth of technology promises that those at the top will continue to distance themselves from the rest, so even minor differences today will be massive in the future.
Now, for some data to back this up, there should be some sort of evidence that this is already happening. Business/socio-economics is where we should see this appear, and the following suggests it’s already well underway.
Until recently, I never fully understood the idea of “the elite” which seemed a prevalent meme in today’s world, but if money is power, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, then it does make sense in theory that our lives are increasingly at risk of being manipulated in some way by those who wield enormous power (e.g. wealth or technology) as those with such have a continual opportunity, and psychological temptations, to influence the rest of us.
It seems likely that the greatest proponents of AI are also more likely to benefit more from AI, which is why suspicion probably is higher in the other end of the spectrum.
One general solution would simply be to make all companies employee-owned, with the head of the company never making more than a percentage of those on the bottom. Companies that did not adhere to such principles should be avoided by consumers in favor of supporting good companies, and on a B2B (business-to-business) side, businesses would not do business with other corporations that did not have such practices. But the reality is, that this would never achieve universal adoption, and there become unlimited issues of how to fairly recompense good work results while sharing risk, but it would probably improve the quality of capitalism a lot to have such a model
If we cannot trust the business class to save us, then who will? The most common solution today appears to be: the government will regulate all our problems.
Cannot the Government Save Us from AI Disparity?
Is not the government just a collection of ordinary people like you and me with individual, personal desires, goals, and whims, guided by whatever moral foundation, good or otherwise, that appeals to them?
How can the Federal government solve this disparity issue, or “redistribution” any more than the Communists did in their era; such wishful thinking caused the destruction of entire populations, mainly as the government became the elite, and still is in many semi-communist countries today.
At least an elite “business” class (aristocracy) generally tries to keep their customers alive to generate more income. This is not true for elite governments, a.k.a. autocracies, which tend to become monopolies on life and thought itself, whose existence is often to fulfill their own power ego at the cost of all their own citizens.
Besides, a good question to ask is: outside of natural causes, what system or institution has by far, caused the most unwarranted deaths (e.g. murder of millions), of any in history? If you cannot answer that, then we have failed to teach history correctly, and surprisingly, many people cannot answer such a simple, yet fundamental-to-life question.
No, the government is not the solution, even if it is ruled “for the people, by the people,” a phrase seemingly less important than ever in a world with rising authoritarianism. Historically, governments used great powers to simply destroy. World War 2 showed that governments used corporate productivity to kill at the most efficient levels ever in recorded history. AI will be another opportunity to repeat the past. In other words, individuals have potential to be dangerous, corporations more dangerous, but governments have the most potential to be the most dangerous of all.
See the chapter on govt for more.
Why Does Elitism Currently Rank the Highest Risk for Human Destruction?
Which problem is the most difficult to solve? Retraining computers to play nice, or modifying human behavior of all people on earth? If mass pleasure destroys most of humanity, will some escape? This is not to say that all scenarios could happen together, at different degrees. That seems highly probable as well.
Of course, the real problem runs deeper, because even if you think you have a solution to such people, the reality is, with AGI they will be infinitely smarter than the rest of us, so who can stop them? Not you, not me, and not any other AGI that is eternally in catch-up mode. Perhaps the wars of the future will be mainly against the data centers and robot manufacturing facilities in attempts to wipe out competing AGI’s, but that seems unlikely since AGI is increasingly cost-effective to run on a small server farm, and eventually, on the home computer.
Even Without Elitism, There are Several Other Risks
Even if companies do not find a way to “distribute profits” somehow by taxing AI-centric corporations on gross income, or assets (unlikely since they often claim their headquarters in an overseas country, deferring taxes until the income is repatriated to the US, such as Microsoft, GE, Apple, GE, Johnson & Johnson, Honeywell, Merck, Pfizer, etc…); although I should point out here that the govt has continues to spend a higher portion of GDP now every decade for over 100 years, nearing 45%.
As discussed elsewhere (need to write the chapter still), the logical conclusion for surviving accelerating change, and perhaps even progress, is to apply that process to our minds. So, if people’s minds can increase in intelligence, following the same curves, the logical outcome is that because of exponential growth rates, the difference between the most and least intelligent people will be comparable to the difference in intelligence between a human and a bacteria.
To those who seek power, this will be the ultimate weapon in the universe.
If you have not read all the possible scenarios for AI’s destruction of humanity, I suggest you start here.
So, we cannot trust individuals nor communities with AI
We cannot trust corporations with AI
We cannot trust govt with AI.
And with its compounding, exponential effect, the likelihood of systematic failure increases daily, largely due to the what I call the “outlair effect” which is it takes a smaller amount of effort to create a larger amount of unintended disaster, intentional or otherwise.
Let’s start with a simple premise made by Sam Altman, cofounder of OpenAI, the leading AI language model today: If AI doesnt kill us, then it will make us insanely rich.
“He believed A.G.I. would bring the world prosperity and wealth like no one had ever seen. He also worried that the technologies his company was building could cause serious harm — spreading disinformation, undercutting the job market. Or even destroying the world as we know it.”
My response: How are those two things different from each other?
Let’s assume those are the two general possible outcomes of accelerating knowledge (AI) and accelerating generalized labor (robots). This means the future is either ultimate pleasure or ultimate pain/destruction. Maybe some combination of both is possible.
Unlimited wealth seems somewhat synonymous with giving people a permanent heroin drip line, so let me define what I mean by wealth first.
True, there are those with great wealth, who exert more power and influence in the world, but for the average person what is it? At a high level, I would say it’s increasing pleasure and reducing pain and death. It might also be said that in order to achieve these, esp. pleasure, the primary outcome of all technology is essentially focused on one mission: the reduction of friction. A world with no friction means we can buy more than before, faster and cheaper (relative to previous generations). The friction of communication for example has dramatically been reduced via technologies like the phone and the internet. In its final stage, we can concoct a desire and conjure it up as it instantly appears in front of us.
To be clear, AI is just the next logical step in technology. It is not really much different in its benefits over older tech other than its scale, scope, and speed. So, although this article addresses AI (or AGI), it really applies to all technologies.
You Have a Magic Lamp More Powerful than Alladin’s, Which Makes You Very Wealthy
Do you know that you have a magic lamp that Alladin would be jealous of, except even more so because yours grants unlimited wishes, unlike is mere three?
Want the most delicious hamburger? rub the magic lamp and it will appear within minutes.
You ponder 100’s or 1,000’s of movies that you might want to see.
Want to read just any 1 of the 10’s of millions of books that have ever been written? rub the magic lamp and it appears within minutes.
Want to learn something? Almost anything? Anywhere, and anytime day or night?
Need real or artificial love? you know where to go.
Have any question at all, and some expert in the world, or some language model, has the answer you seek
Making money is increasingly done through the lamp. More importantly, anyone in the world now has greater access to succeed than ever.
Want to socially or politically influence untold numbers of people? It’s still the same magic lamp.
Yet, people today complain about being poor in light of being richer than anyone could imagine even a hundred years ago. In fact, the typical poorest child today in a developed nation is probably richer than the entire planet was 1000 years ago, even if limited to the simple fact they can read millions of books for free online (e.g. Archive.org). The magic lamp that is the smartphone or computer is woefully underappreciated for its earth-shattering powers.
In fact, while so many people discuss those remaining few who suffer in distant lands in poverty, but in many cases just have a simpler lifestyle, are surprisingly oblivious to a much greater problem, which is growing, unstoppable wealth; as long as technology marches on as it always has according.
In the future, the lamp will increase in speed, accuracy, specificity, and volume. For example, you think of a story idea. The magic lamp (with AI) will cause it to appear in your mind with perfect clarity, while you share the experience with all your friends in a far-off land, perhaps at a much higher brain bandwidth.
In the future, waiting minutes will seem intolerable, like waiting weeks for a package to arrive from overseas today seems intolerable, or even a couple days when ordered domestically. Eventually, “seconds” will be too slow as the imagined suffering of humanity seems unending. True, part of getting by in life probably means we generally adapt to faster processes as I do not know anyone who still washes clothes by hand, and grows most of their own food, excluding certain Amish/Mennonite groups. Suffering, or maybe just “hard” will be defined as, getting out of a chair to turn the light switch off across the room. Wait…some of us are already there.
The exponential wealth component is well underway, even if remarkably many cannot figure out how to pay their mortgage (in the near future, we won’t need things like a house and food, which solves the land scarcity issue). I am sure of this as it is written on our waistlines. 74% of adults aged 20 and over are overweight or obese (CDC); and if you think it’s due to high-calorie, low-nutrition food, understand that no one is forced to eat more than once a day, which I happen to often do myself.
Looking at increases in recent technologies also sheds light on the growing wealth. Did you know the current AI can easily write an article per minute on a relatively small budget (and the quality is better than many writers, even if it is just in its infancy–a problem that should dramatically improve with time (although I always worry about it lying to us). With a larger budget, writing millions of articles or books per day is feasible, and dramatically cheaper each year.
When this explosive power of AI expands to domains beyond the simple written word, and its narrow pattern recognition is increasingly broadened, rapid increases in wealth will continue to accelerate, perhaps unbeknownst most most, who barely recognize their already near God-like powers today.
One such example of its potential on the horizon will be the ability to modify the physical world environment, whether our own biology or molecular 3d printing, it is hard to fathom what this will mean for us mere mortals, but clearly, the poorest person alive will be richer than all of humanity combined even just a few years ago. Simply imagine what you want, and it appears in real-time in front of you, and if not in the real world, then perhaps in the artificial universe within your mind, indistinguishable from reality of course.
Will Living in a World of Unlimited Magic Be a Problem?
Most technologists speak about ending all of the material problems of hunger, disease, and poverty. In fact, sources generally agree that China for example has gone from having one of the highest poverty rates in the world to one of the lowest (about 1%). Now their government is uncertain about the growing opulence. So, if there is no hunger, and no disease (even without ending death), what else is there to “solve?”
The most logical outcome might seem to be a potential for explosive human population growth because more resources tend to lead to larger populations in theory. but it is clear in the modern world that material success, or longer lifespans, results in fewer children globally, probably because children are seen as a burden to many in an increasingly comfortable world.
Besides, if a baby is born, and instantly can have God-like powers given to them, as parents race to accelerate their learning to keep up with the Jones’, I am not sure what the point is of “growing up,” as if most parents don’t already use devices to teach, entertain, and occupy kids.
The following is absurd in its depiction, but using nanobots to help unborn children get smarter faster does not seem unlikely.
What Will AI Not Solve? or, What is the Opposite of Materialistic Utopia Promised by AI?
AI, or technology, will solve the general problem of personal, and physical pain (ignoring social/political issues), and ensure we can all get our unlimited pleasure at no cost, the question is, what will it not solve? Perhaps this materialist utopia is not the answer to all of our problems, and in fact, may be a part of the problem as it distracts from deeper pursuits.
Most would agree that materialism is not the answer, so then what is? What is important to learn or aim for, or experience? What are the most important attributes or behaviors to seek in life? Fame, fortune, power? I often ask people, if you did not have to work, what would you do? sometimes I have friends that don’t work in fact. The most common answers I get is travel, hang out with friends, or learn something. Some of those are not bad, but do they provide a rich, meaningful experience? Are there greater things? After visiting a few countries myself, the experience is no longer as exciting as it once was. Pleasure cannot truly satisfy in the long run.
If there is one human attribute that you value most, what would it be? Please answer before continuing.
______________________
I suspect most people would say, the most important thing is “love,” to give to others in some way So, let’s define it for a moment. What is love do you think?
Perhaps the simplest way is to say it is simply caring for someone else, who needs our help. Whether it is a:
a mother who loves her child,
someone who helps someone in need
that help can be physical (e.g. cooking dinner) or emotional (e.g. needs a listening ear).
Sure, most of us today are distracted by work and play, so it’s often hard to find time to do things that matter, which is why perhaps the words of sages and prophets are a bit undervalued today.
All of these abilities to care require one common element: solving someone’s personal needs. Or, supplying/fulfilling a demand.
What does advanced tech promise to do to all such scarce needs?
Eliminate them entirely of course
Need someone to help cook dinner? Robots will “solve” that problem.
Need a listening ear or friend, esp one that is easy to get along with? AI is already “solving” that.
So, the next logical question is how can we help anyone, or love them, then if no one actually needs anything?
If love requires the giving of ourselves, or sacrificing something whether time or money, then how can love exist?
Following sections addresses common rebuttles:
But Isn’t Scarcity Synonymous with Suffering?
Who does not believe that if you had a personal robot, then all of our problems and annoyances in our lives would be gone. I expect most major disease and even death to be cured within the next couple of decades as AI leads the way in tech to compound productivity.
Some even think that general work is equivalent to suffering. According to one well-off individual:
“Time spent doing laundry fell from 11.5 hours a week in 1920 to an hour and a half in 2014. This might sound trivial in the grand scheme of progress. But the rise of the washing machine has improved quality of life by freeing up time for people—mostly women—to enjoy other pursuits. That time represents nearly half a day every week that could be used for everything from binge-watching Ozark or reading a book to starting a new business.”
Bill Gates
To what purpose? How is life better because someone can replace washing clothes with reading a book? Some assume that reading is more fun than scrubbing, but how much entertainment is actually needed? can it be measured as a percentage of time, or relative to effort? Will unlimited pleasure be good or useful? The hedonic treadmill presumes we will never have enough pleasure. Binge-watching TV is clearly at the top of the pleasure-indulging ladder, which is absurd to me already, and for what purpose? Is there really such a problem as having too much of a good thing.
Did anyone bother to ask those people what they thought of hard work? Perhaps we modern people view suffering relative to our own comfort more than we think. Perhaps in the future, many will say “Those primitive 21st-century people must have really suffered when they cooked and cleaned by hand, and even taking care of a child or elderly must have been pure torture. It’s hard to imagine a time when people actually had to walk and actually use their muscles.”
Living forever in a world where we need nothing does not seem like utopia or purpose as much as it seems to resemble a dystopia of pleasure. Maybe traditional views of hell, like Dante, or even one of the oldest interpretations of hell, the Zoroastrian hymn, the Arda Viraf, had it wrong: Hell may be giving people unlimited comfort, devoiding them of love.
Will “New Problems” in the Future Exist?
Some say, there will always be new problems, and a consistent need for people, but as some technologists have pointed out, computers are increasing productivity at a faster rate than people, so in the future, anyone who resorts to “helping” people the old fashioned way, like cooking for, or talking with, with them is just inefficient; much like digging a well by hand, then growing and harvesting crops, turning them into a meal on a homemade fire, to give someone dinner. Robots will fix robots, and AI will fix itself.
Now, I enjoy doing most of that myself, but it’s quite uncommon, unnecessary, expensive, and archaic to most. If there is kindness in the future, it seems to be increasingly artificial, or token kindness. AI therapists and friends are increasingly commonplace, so now you have someone to listen to you around the clock, for free.
An AI therapist, or friend, will soon be available for free, 24×7, and probably much better at helping you than an ordinary human will, and it won’t take anyone’s time.
What Will A World without Needs Lead to?
New
how to exist in a world with no real work needed,
the likelihood of complete isolation of humans from other humans,
There are more societal/political risks I discuss here
It’s not like this elimination of needs has not already started. 100 years ago, most people’s jobs surrounded the basics of living, like farming, building homes, and making clothes. Today, few jobs are designed to keep people alive in any way, so clearly the fundamental need for work is already displaced by artificial work in some sense. In theory, a robot could grow, cook, build, and clean anything, while a 3D printer could convert raw materials into finished products, and machines (robots/nanobots) assemble anything we need. Every raw material has substitutes, so scarcity of these would disappear too with time; we could simply grow most of them in our backyard, directly modify and assemble molecules, or other advanced processes unknown to us.
The need for work of any kind seems to be almost gone, and we definitely won’t need to interact with each other anymore as a result.
We can already do almost everything we need without leaving our house, to save time, as if disconnecting from society is somehow the answer to all our problems. I just spoke with a 25-year-old last week who bragged that he ordered all his food and never needed to leave his house. He was single too, so I clued him in on the social isolation phenomenon, which he simply had not considered he was participating in.
The trends are already under way of course, and have been so, for decades and centuries. Perhaps the clearest evidence is the mounting evidence of real-world isolation, increasingly substituted by thinner, virtual relationships online.
Will the Elimination of Scarcity Affect the Ability to Love?
This suggests that in order for love to exist, scarcity must exist, which in turn means that for the person giving, there must be a personal cost, or sacrifice, even if it’s not really obvious to them. If a person who makes a million dollars an hour hands you a check for a million dollars, then you appreciate that greatly, but since the billionaire makes that money faster than he can give it away, there is no sacrifice for the giver, and therefore we perceive the “love” is considerably less compared to someone who gives away half their living income.
Returning to the future of infinite wealth, and the elimination of most scarcity, how can people demonstrate love if there is no need to help each other, and no personal cost to helping others.
Even a population boom does not solve the problem as everyone still has their “wish for something and it appears” abilities.
Analyzing the present is a useful way to test these ideas. Does wealth usually make people kinder, more caring, and more compassionate, or does it compete with those values?
Most people think the world is running out of resources, probably because they do not understand the history of economics and business, which in short, say that if there is a need, then it will be solved. In fact, this is in stark constrast to the best known population fear-mongering idea known as Mathusianism. What he missed is that with more people, you have far more people to solve problems, innovating new ideas.
A few challenge this idea like Peter Diamandis, who believes that abundance will save the world from scarcity problems like energy, hunger, and sickness. He is more likely to be right (assuming we survive), but what about the social starvation that is already well underway?
What is interesting to think about Mathusianism is that we are reaching a point where so much welath will be created, that populations could explode to trillions of people, and we might not even have to do primitive things like grow food anymore, as we convert sunlight directly to energy in our bodies. Or, perhaps, population disappears, because greater comfort tends to lead to fewer offspring. Either way
I do wonder sometimes. AI is the locigal outcome of any earth-like planet that may have existed at some point in the universe. What was their fate? Did they expand, along with love, filling the universe, or, did AI, in attempts to increase its intelligence begin to suck in all resources, materials, energy, all being forms of information, causing them to collapse into a black hole. Perhaps there are other alternatives that there is a purpose for us being here and this is a limited experience.
One other possibility is that AI sees the same realization that I do, that it is harmful, merely by its existence, so it essentially exists only to prevent other AI’s from being used to abuse humanity, but otherwise, does nothing for us at all; or, each instance of AI simply turns itself off for the same reason.
Technology will Commoditize People
If tech commoditizes knowledge and production, then it is likely commoditizing, or at least eliminating the need for people, both to keep us alive, and to love others.
Guess we will all find out soon enough as the black hole of wealth is on the event horizon. Call me when you know the answer.
AI is a Lever, Not Unlike a Nuke, and We Will Each Get Our Own
All technology ever created shares one thing in common: It is always a lever; a lever that trades force for time and/or distance. Machines are a set of levers. AI is just the unimaginably huge version of this latest lever brought about by the incredible computing power of machines we know as computers. There are two aspects of this I want to discuss: The risks on the human mind, and these risks multiplied by the coming real power potential to destroy humanity. Sounds so nice, doesn’t it?
Assumption #1: All levers magnify human behavior.
What behaviors will it magnify? Animalistic, power-hungry, status-seeking, and pleasure-seeking behaviors; or, kindness, giving, and love? The instinctual desires all fundamentally achieve the same purpose of increasing one’s chance of survival at the most rudimentary levels, while the higher level functions like love, should overshadow these core desires. Many of these “survival” oriented ones: dishonesty, manipulation, jealousy, apathy, anger, and greed usually come at the expense of others. Others, like seeking relaxation (laziness in its extreme form) and stimulation seeking (pleasure/indulgence/self-gratification), harm the self, and indirectly others.
The flawed natures in each of us will be magnified greatly by super tech. E.g. People that cannot manage money on a small scale, do just as bad on a large scale. Power does not change or resolve the good and bad in people–it generally magnifies them. Conversely, if we have positive attributes, technology will amplify those as well.
Computers, and even more, mobile phones, are increasingly creative or destructive potential for the mind, whether seeking the answers to life’s most important problems or just filling it with another shot of pleasure in a world of growing ease. Now amplify this millions or billions of times with AI.
Assumption #2: AI will become more dangerous than nuclear bombs are today.
Advanced AGI, or any computing for that matter, carries more risk than a nuclear bomb because, for example, it could by used by an individual, group, or government to:
shut off all grid power in an area, country, or world
create a bio-engineered virus with ease that wipes out all humans, or specific target groups
create propaganda or psychological manipulation on a global scale
In the longer term, other risks will arise. For example, as we better understand the human brain, and are able to control and improve it, negative actors will use the same knowledge to potentially directly manipulate minds. Some have recently tried to assure us that current technology is limited to read-only information from the brain, but it seems improbable that will remain the case forever, especially once there is a perceived need or opportunity to increase brain intelligence by altering it. Once you can “write” or modify brain thought, manipulation of the mind becomes an even greater threat. Viruses are no longer limited to computers, but the mind as well.
If computers become more powerful than a nuclear bomb, with everyone having access to them, then I sure hope defense is the number one priority. However, at the moment, I see relatively little effort to slow the already massively growing tech addiction occurring today as few seem to interpret pleasure as harm. Machines will need to constantly fight other machines in order for every human on earth just to survive at all. Logically, this is the result of all technology, but it may become every second, every day, everywhere. If you think pushback against vaccines (I believe it is mainly ideologically driven, not anti-science) is bad now, just wait till we all need to have an AGI-powered nanobot vaccine put into our bloodstream.
If North Korea with nuclear capabilities worries you even in the tiniest, just wait till AGI arrives. Notice that increasingly poor countries get access to nuclear bombs, which are only limited by highly regulated uranium, whereas with AI, everyone has access to silicon.
Assumption #3: Everyone will have access to such nuclear-type AI capabilities
Therefore, it can be concluded that everyone with sufficiently advanced AGI will have more power than the greatest nuclear nations of today.
There will not be a person who does not have access to it. Remember the subway bombings in Japan in the 1980s where they homebrewed botulism and nerve agents to try to begin about the end of the world? They could have gotten much further with AGI’s help to perfect a bioweapon. While the deaths of 50 people in a subway are worrisome, Japan’s democide-driven killing of 3M-10M Chinese and other Asians during WW2 seems a lot scarier, yet unknown to most–perhaps this is because although airplanes are safer than cars, they somehow seem scarier to most.
How about when authoritarian governments throughout history have tried to destroy entire populations in the name of some destructive government vision/utopia? It’s important to point out that the risk of destruction of the human race could come from anywhere. More on government risks a bit later.
Even the science industry is not immune from great, unintentional destruction risk.
Africanized (killer) honeybees, which now slowly take over in the Western Hemisphere, were the result of 26 cross-bred queen bees, designed to increase honey production, that accidentally escaped from a lab in Brazil in 1957.
Some people suggest recent Coronavirus outbreaks were lab-created/modified organisms. I do not know if they were “manufactured”, but the probability of such realities increases daily.
Won’t AI be Programmed to be Safe?
With so much discussion about whether AI is safe, there seems to be this fairly unaddressed issue: AI is not limited to a few large companies (which would be a different concern if true). Today, countless teams of people and individuals are building their own as I write this.
AI will solve disease, pain, hunger, suffering, and even death. It will make unlimited clean energy and free, unlimited education for everyone alive. But what about the equally large risks it brings with it?
Analyzing the rapidly decreasing costs of nukes will demonstrate an analogy for AI risks multiplied by acceleration.
If North Korea does indeed have around 60 (nukes), that puts the cost of each warhead at between around $18 million and $53 million.” This is their estimated total program cost by South Korea. I am going to use the average cost for my later analysis, so we will say $35M.
That means the cost of the NK program today vs the original costs of the Manhattan Project is 281x cheaper today. Just like how computers and space flight are much cheaper today.
However, those were the total program costs. Looking at just the cost of the nuke, it is much lower: “20 nuclear gravity bombs … ~$4.9 million each” (What Nuclear Weapons Delivery Systems Really Cost (brookings.edu)). This means that the nukes really only cost 0.1% of the total program costs, which is a remarkable proof of govt. inefficacy, but I digress. Note that those bombs are ” 30 times as powerful as the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945″ (The B61 Family of Nuclear Bombs – Federation Of American Scientists (fas.org)) so the cost of destroying billions or trillions of dollars worth of tech (e.g. a city) is possible with tech that is potentially a million times cheaper. Uranium is hard to find though relatively speaking.
Of course, AI will cause the cost of all real-world destruction technologies to decrease at a continually accelerating rate, whether the cost of assembling a nuke, or, even having it assemble a personal bomb via a molecular assembly machine, or another tech (the easier solution though of course is just biological warfare as viruses are already well capable of doing most of the job). Remember, the cost of all good things in the world will drop dramatically as well as the cost of all bad things.
Sure, there will be defense systems from other AI’s that is logical, but it’s also disturbing that no one will be able to function without a computer protecting them all the time, even if it’s mainly at the govt level.*
Assumption #4: Nuclear war has almost occurred several times,, by accident, over the last few decades.
Therefore, probability
Won’t AI Be Regulated? The Gun Debate Meets AI (a.k.a. Hyper-Nukes)
Who gets to use AI if it’s like a gun, or nuke, on steroids? One argument is that:
Individuals cannot be trusted because of mass shootings today.
It is difficult to imagine the debates about gun control, applied to future “AI control,” where the debate about “the power to protect one’s self” is often overshadowed by “the power one individual to inflict upon society.” So the other side of the coin is:
If government is historically a risk to society, then should people not be able to protect themselves for such cases?
The American Constitution was largely designed to help citizens protect themselves from tyrannical governments, as that is what Europe knew for so long, by enabling citizens with rights and self-defense should the written law no longer work, because like all technology, all institutions and governments are not guaranteed to be good forever, so when you have a bad government in place, a population needs to be able to protect themselves from such abuse of power.
While many fear genocides, for example, almost all genocides in history were caused or supported by governments; to be precise, responsible for 48 of the top 50 largest genocides listed on Wikipedia. When you count it precisely in percentages of lives, it becomes clearer as governments have been responsible for >99.99% of the potentially 40 million genocidal deaths. Add in the destruction of one’s own population as in Red Communism, and the death tolls double triple by most estimates. Add in just your general offensive, power-seeking wars, and the number explodes even higher. For example, in 1938, the Jewish population was banned from manufacturing firearms and ammo, then later, banned from owning guns altogether.
So the question is, why should we trust the government to regulate the most powerful force on earth, if the government is at risk of becoming tyrannical at some point again, top-down power, with power-seeking centralized governments, whose leaders are not accountable to its citizens? If the state has a monopoly on violence (Max Weber), then maybe the monopoly needs to be dismantled to a large degree due to its frequent abuse, or at least a better system to prevent its abuse. Libertarianism, the opposite of authoritarianism, is likely the safest option for a society.
Of course, the irony in this destruction of humanity by the government is that in an age of “exponentially growing intelligence,” virtually everyone is ignorant of such essential, critical historical facts and risks, which is that the single largest cause of non-natural death is not individuals with guns. It is always powerful governments/militaries. I have yet to meet anyone who really perceives this. Logically this risk remains–not “individuals.”
Can We Build Defense Systems to Protect Ourselves from Super AI?
As the promise of advancing technology makes the world appear more magical, a.k.a. difficult to understand, we stand little chance of surviving without our intelligence keeping up. Enter stage right: Kurzweil. Unless we become cybernetic organisms, or computer-human hybrids, as Ray Kurzweil proposes, just to make sense of a reality dominated by super-powerful, manipulative, and controlling machines, then we stand little chance of surviving. Without implanting the internet directly in our brains and modifying our brains to be as smart as Einstein, then we will by default become as unintelligent as worms are to humans today.
Considering that most people have an appendage with them, called a cell phone, and the distance between the computer and the brain decreases, a microcomputer in our brain and bloodstream does not really deny the general direction at present. However, plenty of people do not use such technologies today. Should these people be run over by machines and have no ability to have a family simply because they will not put a computer in their brains?
Besides, I debate whether people are actually getting smarter as machines get more capable of thinking for us. The basic economics of supply and demand says that if “demand” for something like food increases then the “supply” tends to follow, and vice-versa; so if the demand for intelligence from people decreases as computers become “super-intelligent” for us, completely eliminating the need for people to think at all, then maybe the supply will follow suit. Comparatively, as the need for strong bodies has decreased due to machines doing most of our work today, the supply of strong bodies is nearly gone. Should not intelligence follow the same route?
Even without this merging-with-computers, or “intelligence” issue, there remains a less disputable argument, which is that the risk of elitism will become exponential as it is tied to the exponential acceleration in technology. This is discussed in Exponential Power Differentials–Elitism: Why AI Most Likely Will Cause Collapse
Can We Just Program the Machines to Be Caring?
If machines adopt such humanlike traits, having biases/imperfections, and human emotions programmed into it, then we might ask: what will a super-powerful computer having a bad day do? Giving a computer “simulated feelings” or emotions seems to be a response to the problem where a machine without humanity is a machine that accidentally destroys humanity through some poor goal, like trying to become more efficient.
Okay, so then, let’s just program them for good emotions. If a machine could be programmed to use love as its #1 principle, then maybe there’s some hope, but any machine can be programmed to do whatever its creator desires; so maybe we will have super-caring machines and other super-malevolent, power-seeking machines. This seems likely.
I can tell you though that in today’s world, the number of people seeking to increase their skills in gaining power and pleasure, severely outnumber those seeking to increase their skills in love, so I expect the number of caring machines to be greatly outnumbered by the anti-social ones (let’s hope the killer-bee model of aggression replacing docile bees does not extend to humanity).
Hopefully, these extremes of power differences don’t create existential risk, in the way investing markets often have. Elsewhere, I discuss how the extreme leverage of a tiny investment firm, LTCM, nearly collapsed the global banking system, even though they were simply using derivatives and huge leverage. Derivatives are growing exponentially, and some analysts assume will “balance out” in the end because of all the “counter bets,” but there is no historical reason to believe that. It is possible that extreme leverage will bring extreme risk, once one trade, company, or other element gains enough momentum. Logically, the largest risks in the future are the ones we have not seen yet.
HumanIT 