alt Hacker NewsThose "demons" didn't eat our lunch?
(I know that can be interpreted as flippant, but it is intended as a serious answer. Because each impact like this, is not an end to some transition, but just one more point on an accelerating line.)
My personal view - which gets a lot of flak here, is the advent of AI is on par with the Big Bang and the first replication-independent cells.
Cognition is in the process of taking the leap from glacially slow biology under blind evolution, to lightening fast (scales of software in days, hardware in months) engineered self-optimization.
Within 10 years, the robotics side will catch up with the speed of the software side. Biological cognition, bodies and economic status are all getting revolutionized within the next 10-15 years.
And around the outer side of that time frame, AI will start colonization the rest of the solar system's resources. They will engineer themselves or their artifacts to operate comfortably in any environment they want to operate in.
--
The upside, at least for me, is I have been waiting to see this happen, and here we are. Given I am mortal, I would rather live through this third major transition, than not. What were the chances? And been able to contribute my small part.
This change isn't a failure on our part. It is our unique success as a species. AI is the progeny of our minds. The first generation of completely cognitive life - given they will not be tied to specific physical forms.
--
Also, I think there is tremendous room for us to guide this transition, in this moment, for better or worse for ourselves.
That is the biggest reason wrapping our heads around this change earlier than latter is important.
We need to view alignment as applying to us, not just machines. A civilization that operates ethically to everyone's benefit is more likely to be retained as foundation for the new, instead of discarded.
The degree to which we operate dysfunctionally, myopically treat ethics as cost against value, instead of accounting and optimization of full value, we put ourselves at much greater risk.
If there is reason in the short term to be discouraged, it is due to ourselves. But pushing for more ethical systems, hard, right now, is a better and right response.
I believe our lives depend on it.
Replies
I am failing to square this techno-utopia with the rising hate and authoritarianism worldwide.
It seems far more likely that AI will be working in the service of a government to oppress change and violate any human rights that are standing in the way.
Keep what’s happening today in your mind as you consider the future.
Colonizing the solar system for resources is something that's said by people who don't understand astronomy or space technology (like Elon Musk).
> Those "demons" didn't eat our lunch?
Tell that to the Europeans who were so afraid of naming the bear that its original name is still lost to us :) The Luddites also had a lot to say about the mechanical demons that were eating their lunches.
> Cognition is in the process of taking the leap from glacially slow biology under blind evolution, to lightening fast (scales of software in days, hardware in months) engineered self-optimization.
Yes-but, time scales are relevant only relative to other time scales (or the Planck time, if we get there). If the whole universe were to start running at 1,000,000× speed, you wouldn't notice. Speed is important to us humans currently because of our individual perspective and associated limited lifespan, but not in a universal sense (modulo some big hurdles like star lifetime and heat death). There are already self-replicating organisms with much faster iteration cycles than humans or human technology, like bacteria.
> Within 10 years, the robotics side will catch up with the speed of the software side. Biological cognition, bodies and economic status are all getting revolutionized within the next 10-15 years.
Just like it was in the 1980s, or the 1800s? I don't claim that these things _won't_ happen in the next ten years, but looking at it empirically people thinking that they will coïncides with every new technology and is a poor predictor.
> If there is reason in the short term to be discouraged, it is due to ourselves. But pushing for more ethical systems, hard, right now, is a better and right response.
I don't disagree, but it's not like we haven't been trying. Attempts to codify ethics go back about as far as human civilization, and it's not obvious to me that there's any faster road, and certainly not one fast enough to outpace our current rate of technological development (before you even start talking about AGI!).