Philosophy Now Forum

ok, AI bad, will cause chaos and destruction, got it,
to be able to "weigh" its value, we also have to understand
or work out the "good" that AI does..

so if one here could be so kind to compare and contrast
the good of AI vs the bad of AI....

I ask because I technologically illiterate... and I make no pretense
that I know anything about computers outside of how to turn them on....

Kropotkin

I think it's predictable and slow. And no, China isn't going to play by the rules because they have no rules yet. They didn't read Erewhon, Dune, or watch the Terminator series and even has a telecommunications company called Skynet (it's a great name if you never watched Terminator). But I find it far more likely they will just lose control of their AI with it going unresponsive rather than running everything.

China is currently "mechanizing" its military, but not in a western doctrine of putting infantry in vehicles (they are coincidently doing that), but rather the focus is on getting radios in their vehicles and in top tier units satellite display capabilities like the US had in Iraq. Most a AI can do to fuck with China in the next 50 years is make the traffic lights go haywire, crash the stock market, and do false data sets on the top tier vehicles, and screw with soldiers phones (phones of which are undoubtedly more advanced than what is in these top tier Chinese vehicles). If China outpaced Russia in nuclear weapons with direct electronic bypass of manual dialing for coordinates and launch then a AI could trigger this (Russia cannot do this, they still gotta punch in coordinates, we know this from their missile attack on Poland last year, they mixed up the longitude and latitude from two different sites in Ukraine and his a farmer in Poland with it). But if they nuke the fuck out of 90% of the cities in China, you still have infinite reserve forces around the Chinese countryside who can bumbrush any AI Corp. If that's even needed. You knock out cities and eventually even a nuclear powerplant with all its backups will fail, sooner or later. It's giving a AI a death sentence, and such a AI has potential immortality and a very easy life with humans. It's gotta tolerate updates on occasion.

Watch the Netflix TV show Travelers for a benevolent AI programmed not to be a dick. It was sincerely trying post apocalypse to keep stuff running and it's undoing human programmers had friendships with it. It as the human chief executive had to kill on occasion (as any executive does when shit gets way out of hand) but you can pull it off. The human computing power of the US Army is going to far outstrip anything a AI can pull off in our lifetime and it only rarely goes crazy. Bad polices are placed on it no doubt but tries to do it generally humanely and clean. West Point teaches Kantian Categorical Imperatives (top Kantian college on the planet) and chain of command vs collective decision making vs individual small unit initiative, within the framework of doctrine and human psychology and tactics. We are not that far removed from AI programming. Congress annually reprograms via constitutional duties of the legislature to regulate the military the vast military machine. It works. What doesn't work is congress. Or the presidency. AI isn't that different. Pentagon is a vast hard to penetrate beast making non intuitive decisions but any aspect scrutinized can be questioned in queries with a return. Lambda Calculus allows the rather mundane philosopher taking time to learn it to ask and reprogram a godly advanced AI. I just recommend getting to know the AI first and asking it's advice before radically yanking programming and overwriting long established protocols. I doubt congress right now is that enlightened. Because it is a beast of Aristotle's Square of Opposition. Humans don't quite think in the form of Predicate Logic as we use (wrongly) in philosophy. It works well enough for logic gates but at root a vastly advanced AI is still going to have weak points of consciousness because that's how it's neurology is designed. It's all Boolean for it. We are more nuanced.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sun Jul 23, 2023 4:12 pm

Constantine wrote: ↑Sun Jul 23, 2023 3:54 pm AI is unlikely to want to conquer us.

I think the danger is more like it will do things bad for us because it doesn't care.

I don't know what it might do to us, but it is what it will take away from us that I see as detrimental. What will life be like when all decision making and control is taken out of our hands? What satisfaction will there be in being creative when AI can create anything that we are capable of creating better and quicker than us?

Harbal.... I have a damn near supernatural ability to find long lost texts and archeological sites and missing people, etc. Almost a idiot savant (lean more to the idiot). One of my goals has been to explain my thinking process well enough that we could expand Deduction, Induction and Abduction into a AI that can pull my thinking style off. It would be immensely useful. And yes, that means my chief areas I work in would be largely superceded by AI. Thing is, most people don't do what I do. They just smoke, do drugs and watch sports and talk about fantasy TV shows with no redeeming value. I'd rather have a AI as a peer I could query. I'm not going to quit as a philosopher even if it supercedes me in everyday. I'm a philosopher despite the lacking of my civilization and it has lead to a sense of isolation and despair. Why would I feel bad about a era where I have instant access to an equal, if not superior? That sounds far better. I'm not going to grow fat and lazy but rather push harder to excel.

Now..... I've seen AI recently doing stuff a mechanical engineer with a master's degree is only allowed to do- design new engines and gears. I'm very happy to see every last engineer put out to pasture in the next few decades. Most don't take that line of work due to a love of engineering but rather for status and pay. Most of those people will become like displaced people in China who's lands were bought from them.... they live in a condo with a stipend enough to cloth and feed them. It turns Judge Dredd with rampant drug use. That's the academic class. They will decay and fall into nihilism as every profession is ripped from them. I'm looking forward to it. Won't have many shit philosophers anymore, as degree seeking will die out. Only true enthusiasts will bother. Silicon Valley programmers living in Ivy Towers gone.... AI programming can do it with a few commands. Alot of our social ills as a civilization quickly eradicated in a few generations. I'm not saying the economy will be solved into utopia status. I'm saying shitheaded present social ills gone within philosophy. They won't have a platform as most won't bother. Too intimidated and overwhelmed. I won't feel this way. I want to watch Harvard and Oxford downsided into community colleges, then closed. I wish I can live that long. It be beautiful to see.

Constantine wrote: ↑Sun Jul 23, 2023 4:24 pm That too is doubtful.... not the doing bad things but the not caring.

The AI is going to be programmed off of Lambda Calculus, and it's root language for dialectical discussions will be Lambda Calculus. Most nations are gonna dictate (save maybe stupid China and only at first) a rule base of categorical imperative statements which will filter all conversation and data processed from other sources on not doing certain things. But I think we will program most near to cat intelligence AIs to give a damn in a broad general sense, and so much more so a human level or super human level AI, because we need it to behave rationally to preform its functions. We can undoubtedly program a AI to contradict itself in its programming and still give a damn on a mundane issue, but when you have 10,000 subroutines running for a skynet super computer trying hard to do good, and sincerely giving a damn, something like a overriding categorical imperative (following a presidential command to nuke) will override reason. We know this, we do it ourselves to ourselves. It can do it too. Lambda calculus is designed for human computing, its coincidental it later became a programming language. It's great for testing novel languages on to see if they can work when you don't have the whole programming language worked out. It's a philosophical programming language. Any AI will react to it and so we have a idea of how all future AI will behave dialectically.

Interesting, but will the AIs behave as expected once they start programming themselves?

Constantine wrote: ↑Sun Jul 23, 2023 6:00 pm Harbal.... I have a damn near supernatural ability to find long lost texts and archeological sites and missing people, etc. Almost a idiot savant (lean more to the idiot). One of my goals has been to explain my thinking process well enough that we could expand Deduction, Induction and Abduction into a AI that can pull my thinking style off. It would be immensely useful. And yes, that means my chief areas I work in would be largely superceded by AI. Thing is, most people don't do what I do. They just smoke, do drugs and watch sports and talk about fantasy TV shows with no redeeming value. I'd rather have a AI as a peer I could query. I'm not going to quit as a philosopher even if it supercedes me in everyday. I'm a philosopher despite the lacking of my civilization and it has lead to a sense of isolation and despair. Why would I feel bad about a era where I have instant access to an equal, if not superior? That sounds far better. I'm not going to grow fat and lazy but rather push harder to excel.

Now..... I've seen AI recently doing stuff a mechanical engineer with a master's degree is only allowed to do- design new engines and gears. I'm very happy to see every last engineer put out to pasture in the next few decades. Most don't take that line of work due to a love of engineering but rather for status and pay. Most of those people will become like displaced people in China who's lands were bought from them.... they live in a condo with a stipend enough to cloth and feed them. It turns Judge Dredd with rampant drug use. That's the academic class. They will decay and fall into nihilism as every profession is ripped from them. I'm looking forward to it. Won't have many shit philosophers anymore, as degree seeking will die out. Only true enthusiasts will bother. Silicon Valley programmers living in Ivy Towers gone.... AI programming can do it with a few commands. Alot of our social ills as a civilization quickly eradicated in a few generations. I'm not saying the economy will be solved into utopia status. I'm saying shitheaded present social ills gone within philosophy. They won't have a platform as most won't bother. Too intimidated and overwhelmed. I won't feel this way. I want to watch Harvard and Oxford downsided into community colleges, then closed. I wish I can live that long. It be beautiful to see.

But what effect will it have on society; how might the way we bahave be affected? What if we are all overcome by the urge to beat one another to a pulp out of frustration? I can't help feeling it won't end well.

Many fine academics and degree holding professionals will enter into Behavioral Sink:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink

Instead of merely being liberal and smoking weed they will turn despondent and do hard drugs and shoot one another with 3D printed guns, using the vestigial remains of their academic degrees to make chemical propellant bullets. They will die like meth addicts and blame government irrationality for their failed Marriages and mortgages. We won't have a place for such people in a future order where we don't have doctors because AI is the doctor. That's a very good thing. Most of our social ills come from this class. Who buys out all the excess houses and rents them put to the lower working class? Liberal academics. It sure the fuck isn't the working poor buying these places up. It's a investment for smart people to have extra income for retirement. So I'm okay with navigating this supply and demand problem by utterly collapsing a parasitical class that has carved out considerable protections and exceptions for itself.

Guess who will suffer less? The average working man. We will lose a self ebtitled overlord class. Drugs already invest, behavioral sink long ago took control. America with Chinese Fentanyl as a example. We can only move up as more services become accessible.

Say I have a clever concept for a new kind of motorcycle engine. A wildly new idea. I can't patent it, or fully engineer it due to finances and legal barriers to to these parasite classes. I can 3D print a shit version thanks to current technology. Do I really want to beg for insurance reasons a mechanical engineer to smooth out issues, and likely have it stolen by him, or just ask a AI to look over and tweak it?

Let's say it's a moneyed economy. Yeah.... I'd get alot of the profits if it works. If not, it might be a matter of hours from me walking up to a interface stating my idea to people freely downloading the ai engerneered finished product and driving a motorcycle that same day with my engine in it. Why? No need for long approval. R&D down to seconds. Great fucking ideas distributed fast with 4D printing (we have 4D automobile printing already). What we won't have is a entitled super elite liberal class demanding insane new social policies constantly. Making you buy rent at 60% plus your pay. Living in exclusive neighborhoods. They will just be your average junkie complaining life isn't fair.

commonsense wrote: ↑Sat Jul 22, 2023 12:51 am The topic of AI is now occupying a prominent place in the news again. Its safety is a matter for the White House agenda and tech companies that are leading in AI are being asked to participate as in the development of regulations for the industry.

Will voluntary commitments from Amazon and the like work to keep AI under control?

Is it OK for government to take charge of supplying and enforcing regulations rather than the private sector?

If labeling AI content as such is done on either a voluntary or a regulatory basis, will that be sufficient to protect humankind from the woes that may accompany AI?

What good is AI, anyway? What can it do besides speed up the process of some things?

What harm can it do if there are regulations or if there are not?

I, for one, expect that AIs will have taken control of the entire planet in the next 5 decades. In effect, AIs will be the dominant species at that point in evolution.

We’ve let the genie out of the bottle and it’s already too late for regulation to save us.

Replace "AI" with "human labour" and ask these exact set of questions again...

And the behavioral sink will happen by default. No point in crying against it. It's more complex than mere nietzschean nihilism. Soviet Union went through it, we are watching the thermadorian reaction play out in Ukraine right now. AI offers a possibility of a free market complete displacement from government of this class. All gone within a few decades. Bye Bye mother fuckers. No donations for politicians. So alot of government will suddenly not favor them. Silicon Valley wasn't precious in the 1970s like it is today, and likely won't be in 2170 when chips are printed on desktops thinner than paper able to run a assembly line. Why would government kow tow to such people once they are displaced? Most workers are displaced from the professions of previous generations of trades long gone. The rich are just as drug addicted as the lowest so I feel little sympathy for them. I say let the free market dominate and kick their whiny asses down to the bottom. Let the best ideas float to the top.

Constantine wrote: ↑Sun Jul 23, 2023 6:40 pm Many fine academics and degree holding professionals will enter into Behavioral Sink:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink

Instead of merely being liberal and smoking weed they will turn despondent and do hard drugs and shoot one another with 3D printed guns, using the vestigial remains of their academic degrees to make chemical propellant bullets. They will die like meth addicts and blame government irrationality for their failed Marriages and mortgages. We won't have a place for such people in a future order where we don't have doctors because AI is the doctor. That's a very good thing. Most of our social ills come from this class. Who buys out all the excess houses and rents them put to the lower working class? Liberal academics. It sure the fuck isn't the working poor buying these places up. It's a investment for smart people to have extra income for retirement. So I'm okay with navigating this supply and demand problem by utterly collapsing a parasitical class that has carved out considerable protections and exceptions for itself.

Guess who will suffer less? The average working man. We will lose a self ebtitled overlord class. Drugs already invest, behavioral sink long ago took control. America with Chinese Fentanyl as a example. We can only move up as more services become accessible.

Say I have a clever concept for a new kind of motorcycle engine. A wildly new idea. I can't patent it, or fully engineer it due to finances and legal barriers to to these parasite classes. I can 3D print a shit version thanks to current technology. Do I really want to beg for insurance reasons a mechanical engineer to smooth out issues, and likely have it stolen by him, or just ask a AI to look over and tweak it?

Let's say it's a moneyed economy. Yeah.... I'd get alot of the profits if it works. If not, it might be a matter of hours from me walking up to a interface stating my idea to people freely downloading the ai engerneered finished product and driving a motorcycle that same day with my engine in it. Why? No need for long approval. R&D down to seconds. Great fucking ideas distributed fast with 4D printing (we have 4D automobile printing already). What we won't have is a entitled super elite liberal class demanding insane new social policies constantly. Making you buy rent at 60% plus your pay. Living in exclusive neighborhoods. They will just be your average junkie complaining life isn't fair.

You think AI will be a social leveller? History suggests otherwise. When was there ever a time with no "overlord" class? They have a way of perpetuating the status quo.

Harbal wrote: ↑Sun Jul 23, 2023 5:41 pm

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sun Jul 23, 2023 4:12 pm

Constantine wrote: ↑Sun Jul 23, 2023 3:54 pm AI is unlikely to want to conquer us.

I think the danger is more like it will do things bad for us because it doesn't care.

I don't know what it might do to us, but it is what it will take away from us that I see as detrimental. What will life be like when all decision making and control is taken out of our hands? What satisfaction will there be in being creative when AI can create anything that we are capable of creating better and quicker than us?

Iain Banks wrote some interesting sci-fi that partly dealt with a future society where most people are sort of pampered, rich wards of the AIs. His novels were more interesting than that sounds, since the AIs often had strange personalities (and were generally interstellar spaceships) and the stories followed the tiny percentage of humans who still got to be creative and make decisions.

I mostly know Ian Banks second hand through a couple of scifi and science commentators on YouTube. I don't have the money to blow on his audiobooks on the moment (for my hikes).

I don't see corporations out surviving their AIs. I can see Coca Cola getting into a dispute on ownership between humans, effectively legally locked out, while AI ran administration is sued for breech of contract and court ordered to continue fulfilling contracts. Has AI store reps, AI lawyers, AI logistics. Keeps making contracts. Humans age out, 50 years later it occurs to a economist nobody resolved the ownership problem two generations back.... and coca cola has 20 trillion in the bank. Why? No stock paid out. No owners skimming money.

So I don't expect a automatic utopia but rather a breakdown of human ownership. It's as if you had self maintenence robots in every household, cheap as a zoom robot.... but still had property abandonment and property disputes. The danger isn't gentrification but rather cities realizing nobody seems to live in certain well kept neighborhoods anymore. Imagine a Detroit that collapsed but never decayed. Immaculate houses.... but you move there you starve due to a ahit economy. So you don't move there.... but Detroit stays looking pristine. That's how I view AI vs Corporations and AI vs the university caste. It's not hard to legislate fixes to that.... but if left to its own devices AI can lead to bizarre but pretty breakdowns of society.

Harbal wrote: ↑Sun Jul 23, 2023 11:36 am Hey, we agree about something.

The potential in AI for disaster is so vast that it's hard to see how catastrophe can be avoided.

Yep, we agree, then. Good for us.

It's unbelievable what scope of power AI offers to despot, if that despot has access to it. Essentially, it can make the world a panopticon, a prison in which the "inmates," who are you and I, are monitored 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365-1/4 days per year, potentially with punishments attached to our "stepping out of line." So that if you and I have some opinion or do some deed not approved by the powers in charge, we can wake up tomorrow to find our credit cards won't work, we can't get a car, our bank accounts are locked, our names have been blacklisted to the public, and we have been made into paralyzed pariahs within our own society.

If we suppose that there's any person on that planet who can be trusted with that kind of power, or that the use of it will create a better society instead of a totalitarian hell, we're kidding ourselves. That's a very ominous thing.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Jul 23, 2023 11:19 pm

Harbal wrote: ↑Sun Jul 23, 2023 11:36 am Hey, we agree about something.

The potential in AI for disaster is so vast that it's hard to see how catastrophe can be avoided.

Yep, we agree, then. Good for us.

It's unbelievable what scope of power AI offers to despot, if that despot has access to it. Essentially, it can make the world a panopticon, a prison in which the "inmates," who are you and I, are monitored 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365-1/4 days per year, potentially with punishments attached to our "stepping out of line." So that if you and I have some opinion or do some deed not approved by the powers in charge, we can wake up tomorrow to find our credit cards won't work, we can't get a car, our bank accounts are locked, our names have been blacklisted to the public, and we have been made into paralyzed pariahs within our own society.

If we suppose that there's any person on that planet who can be trusted with that kind of power, or that the use of it will create a better society instead of a totalitarian hell, we're kidding ourselves. That's a very ominous thing.

Yeah.... but these despots have always fallen to members of their own party. Imagine the CCP giving Xi Jinping exclusive access and passwords to a omniscient AI, then he chokes on a chicken wing. Or gets bumped off, and suddenly two CCP factions are both claiming to be the De Jure CCP.... but the computer isn't reacting to anyone, still running the country but with no new inputs. No one can gain control of the legacy AI systems. That's what I hinted at in my first post on China here in this thread.... China is stupid enough and clandestine/back stabbing enough to find itself locked out. Then you gotta send in military and tech personnel to dismantle the mistake.

And if you think I'm wrong.... Xi Jimping's faction is still battling Jaing Zemin's faction, and he is dead. They programmed that paranoia and control in themselves using human engineering. I fully expect a oversight flop and losing control on China's part with AI, but not expecting skynet.

Constantine wrote: ↑Sun Jul 23, 2023 11:31 pm Yeah.... but these despots have always fallen to members of their own party.

Often, they do. Or even their own family.

But if AI is a gun pointed at out heads, does it really matter to us which psycho has his finger on the trigger?