alt Hacker NewsIt’s hard to take seriously a statement like this that’s grounded in “the last three years” when trends have tended to play out over decades. The fact the goal posts have moved from thousands to hundreds to decades to single digit years for massive transformation should give you a moment of pause in your bag saying.
I would however agree there are no experts. Not because of some prediction made on a short time scale not landing 100% but that there are literally no experts because expertise takes experience which takes time. There are no experts and no one knows what happens next. We are on the verge of where the foresight of science fiction effectively -ends-, the advent of AI is when things go a thousand possible directions and the stories stop there (sans a few like accelerando, but even then the story just plays out the end of thinking mass). No one knows what’s next, or when.
In fact I’d assert in many areas being discussed -it has already happened- and we don’t know it, and by the time we do it’ll be over. Not to be breathless, but there’s no reason to believe today some AI researcher somewhere didn’t build the first AGI and not be totally aware. And once they are there’s no reason to believe it’s going to be on the evening news or hacker news. By the time it’s ready for commercializing and disclosing it’ll be around for a while. Likewise with general purpose robots, autonomous weapons (btw already tested by Ukraine), etc.
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I said 3 years, because that’s how long ago ChatGPT was released to the public. Since then we’ve been told that all of us should be out of a job in 6 months, every 6 months, for those 3 years.
I agree that change happens on a longer timeline. This is why I’m so tired of statements like this…
“Within a couple of years, possibly much sooner…”
These “experts” are pulling timelines out of the sky, and these predictions are leading to reckless behavior from CEOs and executives which have a material impact on people’s lives. But they get clicks on their blogs and funding for their startup… I guess that’s all that matters.
Autonomous weapons are actually a really interesting branch of this and deserves a little more.
Yes, autonomous weapons were explored and were found to be poor performers compared to actual pilots. The breakthrough is in terminal guidance and dozens of other little techniques to get quality human control extended into the far reach of the battlefield. And of course, AI assistance in logistics and analysis. But actual autonomous weapons making any more of a choice beyond "something is moving, kill it" have been, at least for now, mostly a dead end.
This is because it's very difficult to economically load the rather sizable compute requirement into the compact one-use weapons, and of course reliable communications aren't assured either.
That will probably change some day, but for now, cheap automous command drones making battlefield analysis e.g. mapping out enemy movements from afar and launching cheap autonomous kamikaze drones is not a thing beyond occasional limited testing.