alt Hacker NewsI think there's another problem with AI doomerism, which is the belief that superhuman intelligence (even if such a thing could be defined and realised) results in godlike powers. Many if not most systems of interest in the world are non-linear and computationally hard; controlling/predicting them requires pure computational power that no amount of intelligence (whatever it means) can compensate for. On the other hand, dynamics we do (roughly) understand and can predict, don't require much intelligence, either. To the extent some problems are solvable with the computational power we have, some may require data collection and others may require persuasion through charisma. The claim that intelligence is the factor we're lacking is not well supported.
Ascribing a lot of power to intelligence (which doesn't quite correspond to what we see in the world) is less a careful analysis of the power of intelligence and more a projection of personal fantasies by people who believe they are especially intelligent and don't have the power they think they deserve.
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> Ascribing a lot of power to intelligence (which doesn't quite correspond to what we see in the world)
Which animal would you say has god-like power over all other animals?
I don't agree with you. Lets assume intelligence is not what ascribes power but probably another thing. In your opinion, what would a superhuman be like? On what dimensions would they be better than us in?
Do you not agree that there could be entities more powerful than us?
Political power is the bottleneck for most shit that matters, not computational power.
Most of the stuff that sucks on the us sucks because of entrenched institutions with perverse interests (health insurers, tax filing companies) and congressional paralysis, not computational bottlenecks. Raw intelligence is thus limited in what it can achieve.