Lovable Sidekick

Spit out the binky, you’re under arrest!

Weird to see a minor rave culture fad return after all this time.

No. There’s a gigantic difference between nazis speaking freely and nazis running the country.

That’s the spirit - we’ll win if we just post enough memes! C’mon, who’s with me? Let’s get scrollin!

Bingpot!

So say “we” as if we are in charge.

Yeah we beat them when they were them, but now they’re us.

Okay here are my estimates:

1: 100% but I don’t have a timeline. It’s not going as fast as the cultural hype presents it. We don’t even really understand human thinking yet, let alone how to make a computer do it. But I’m sure we’ll get there eventually.

2: Also 100%. AI doesn’t need to decide on its own to kill all humans, it could be assigned that goal by some maniac. The barrier to possessing sophisticated AI software is not nearly as high as the barrier to getting destructive nuclear weapons, biohazards, etc. Sooner or later I’m sure somebody who doesn’t think humanity should exist will try to unleash a malevolent AI.

3: At or near zero, and I only include “or near” because mistakes happen. Automated systems that could potentially destroy the human race should always include physical links to people - for example, the way actually launching a nuclear missile requires physical actions by human beings. But of course there’s always the incompetence factor - which could annihilate the human race without the help of AI.

You need not only propose a “plausible” scenario, you also need to present a reason to believe it will happen. It’s plausible that a rogue faction could infiltrate the military, gain access to launch codes and deliberately start WWIII. It’s plausible that a bio lab could create an organism that overcomes the human immune system and resists all medications. A nonzero chance of any of those happening isn’t proof that they’re inevitable, with or without AI.

Or how about you don’t assign me tasks and I don’t do them? Cuz I don’t remember signing up for a class.

I’m sarcastic because I would assign the same probability as a zombie apocalypse. At the nuts and bolts level I think they’re both technically flawed on a Hollywood fantasy level.

What does an AI apocalypse even look like to you? Computers launching nuclear missiles or what? Shutting down power grids?

Yes I know, the robot apocalypse people seem desperate to be afraid of is always just around the corner. Geoff Hinton, while a definite pioneer in AI, didn’t kick anything off, he was one of a large number of people working on it, and one of a small number predicting armageddon.

The trick is to judge things on their own merit and not on the hype around them.

Exactly, and as automation gradually makes profits obsolete, the wealth tax and UBI should evolve from money into a basic right to receive goods produced by the automation. Money is really just a middleman. If everything is available we won’t need it.

Yes, we’re going to have these surveillance capabilities. Anti-AI memes and boycotts won’t stop it. The rational choice is to develop authority structures the public can trust. Instead of treating the whole concept of authority as the enemy by default, we have to figure out a way to make it trustworthy. The question is how, and I don’t have that answer but I know that’s the question. I see it as kind of analogous to how providing basic income, healthcare, etc. for everybody would cut down on crimes of survival. When people aren’t desperate they don’t do desperate things. If making laws didn’t attract money and prestige, greedy people wouldn’t be part of it but public-spirited people would.

The AI haters will hate this, but I think AI is gonna provide the push that forces the fundamental changes we want. You can only replace so many people with AI and robots. The theoretical point of zero employees also means zero customers, because nobody has any money to buy anything, so making employees obsolete makes business and profits obsolete. In the real world the system will change long before that point, because it will have to. It might be from food riots and social breakdown, or political movements finally taking hold, I don’t know, but AI will make the profit system eat itself. I’m just not looking forward to the extremely difficult transition period.

No political orientation gives you unlimited time to clean the bathrooms.

It also involves the fantasy that you and your freedom buddies will survive a serious encounter with US armed forces because you have camos and tactical boots.

There’s more lemonade by volume in Lemon Pledge furniture polish than in Country Time Lemonade.

[That’s why the small print says “Lemonade flavored drink”]

To them “the machine” is the liberal shadow state, wokeness etc. which they think controls the world.

He’s using the spatula sideways to the grill.