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wccrawfordtoday at 9:41 AM4 repliesview on HN

I feel like that's like saying amoeba have no intent and no motivation. Or plants.

And those cause quite a bit of damage.

AI has all the intent that we gave it, and we continue giving it. That's always been the fear. Not that it will randomly wipe out humanity.

The fear is that it will decide to do that, with a purpose. Whether we tell it to protect us and it goes too far, or it decides that it can't achieve the purpose we gave it because we'll interfere and it removes that interference...

The fear is that we will set it on that path and can't stop it.

I'm sure there have been some scifi books that have it just be random, but they're far, far less worrisome.


Replies

rajnathanitoday at 10:24 AM

Well, an amoeba just like all other living beings, maximizes self-preservation/propagation for which the article mentions as a trait which AI models do not have.

singularity2001today at 10:53 AM

AI has all the intent that we gave it. I'd go a bit further and say it has the intent that it develops through the context, which may not be intended by any human if the context grows 'organically' from the environment. So yes, I strongly disagree with the OG and I'd say they do have an intent encoded in their states.

xg15today at 9:58 AM

Was thinking the same. Air, water and fire have no intents and yet we get hurricanes, flash floods and wildfires.

Also, repeating a point from a similar thread: Software can have "intent" in the sense that it steers itself towards a predefined goal without having to be "alive" or "conscious" in any way. Some classic examples are thermostat control loops, navigation systems and chess engines.

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pythonRontoday at 10:30 AM

An AI agent can't make decisions, so there's that. But, as for purpose, it's not the purpose of an AI agent we need to fear, but the person wielding it.

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