DT: Cryonics or Cremation?

[_honorentheos]

What do you think is the biggest barrier to this being a realized threat?

I should add, I don't think this discussion on this message board matters so it's really irrelevant if the average reader is more concerned about getting cancer which they should be. When those of influence speak about it as a concern, their audience is people in positions that matter in some way to ensure they do exercise caution, don't engage in shortcuts or behave with too much arrogance and assume they are or always could be in control. For us, perhaps it is mental masturbation to engage in it as a subject for debate given the stakes are high and yet also zero as we have skin in the game...but at a significant remove from it being meaningful enough to care. Like trying to tell a healthy 20 year old they should buy health insurance all they see are the costs hitting their wallets for what seems like no real return.

Shrug.

[_Some Schmo]

What do you think is the biggest barrier to this being a realized threat?

Basically, I don't see the program self actualizing in any way we'd consider sentient. The CPU's in computers today are already massively powerful thinkers, but in a very specialized way. That's the way firmware and software is written - for very specific, specialized tasks. Other than the basic, inherent issues with a self-replicating computer program that makes decisions for it's own evolution, I guess my problem is with the idea of a computer A.I. evolving into a generalist.

For us, perhaps it is mental masturbation to engage in it as a subject for debate given the stakes are high and yet also zero as we have skin in the game...but at a significant remove from it being meaningful enough to care.

I'm not saying it's not worth talking about. I don't think it merits any panic at this point, but there's much to be said for discussing the topic just so everyone can voice what they believe are the important design considerations.

[_subgenius]

Subbie -

When a soldier gives their life it isn't to protect and extend the cause of grasshopper kind.

Your argument is lacking. You seem to be unable to grasp just how alien self-aware, self-learning A.I. will be from that of human consciousness rather than a derived and therefore subordinate version of it.

a toaster oven is not a basic alien. A.I. can never escape being man-made, it will always be "derived", because it did not spontaneously come into existence...but again, maybe you have some evidence to support your assertions?

[_honorentheos]

https://A.I..google/our-work/#?modal_acti ... Hvf7Tagt18

[_Some Schmo]

https://A.I..google/our-work/#?modal_active=yt-bHvf7Tagt18

That was very cool. There's no doubt we've taught computers to do some really incredible things.

[_honorentheos]

Google A.I. is interesting and has been in the news recently due to their employees speaking out against work they are doing for the US military. My understanding is that it had to do with drones and recognition software, and the employees speaking out weren't cool with their working on something that will be used to help the government target and kill people. So there are ethical demands being made by people working on it at least when it comes to traditional questions such as state-sanctioned killing of human beings. But the flip side is that the company took that contract and was/is more than willing to do that work.

I don't know if or when self-learning A.I. could cross the singularity but I think the more people voice concern about the ethical issues and potential risks involved the more brightly those ethical boundaries will be illuminated. God knows the people profiting off of the pursuit won't be looking for those ethical boundaries themselves.

[_Some Schmo]

I don't know if or when self-learning A.I. could cross the singularity but I think the more people voice concern about the ethical issues and potential risks involved the more brightly those ethical boundaries will be illuminated.

Yep, in just the course of having this conversation, I've thought this was the biggest benefit. Get people voicing what the ethical concerns should be during the process of designing this thing.

[_subgenius]

...(snip)...the people profiting off of the pursuit won't be looking for those ethical boundaries themselves.

which means those boundaries do not exist....but profit isn't always the mud on an ethical window....just ask Oppenheimer. Ethics never innovated anything.

[_honorentheos]

...(snip)...the people profiting off of the pursuit won't be looking for those ethical boundaries themselves.

which means those boundaries do not exist...

subbie, ladies and gentlemen.

[_subgenius]

subbie, ladies and gentlemen.

please, put your presuppositions and prejudice to the side and explain 2 simple points:
1. why those how are profiting off the pursuit would necessarily not be looking for ethical boundaries? (which I assume these boundaries must be as you define them to be and not as they may define them).
2. Why you assume ethical boundaries exist in that context?