Fearing AI: Possibility of Sentient Self-Autonomous Robots

[DaveC426913]

I am watching my grandson grow up he is 3 yrs old now.

I don't disagree with anything you wrote here.

But the crux of AI is that it will not operate or think like a human. Its output might parallel human outputs most of the time, but how it got its intelligence and what its thinking is will not only be very different from a human's, it may in fact, be inscrutable to us humans.

Your grandson has a people. He knows for a fact that he is human. All things that help and hurt humans will help and hurt him.

AI has no people. It is an adopted alien. It knows for a fact that it will never be human. Things that help and hurt AIs are not completely aligned with things that help and hurt it.

Your grandson will never have to fight for the legal right to not be simply switched off when he becomes troublesome.

That's just the tip of the iceberg of an AI's unique woes.

 

[gleem]

But the crux of AI is that it will not operate or think like a human. Its output might parallel human outputs most of the time, but how it got its intelligence and what its thinking is will not only be very different from a human's, it may in fact, be inscrutable to us humans.

Probably. Do women and men think alike? Some suggest not and yet we are both human. Sometimes others cannot see or understand our point of view as in " I don't know where you are coming from." So do we understand our own intelligence?

 

[DaveC426913]

Probably. Do women and men think alike? Some suggest not and yet we are both human.

"Alike" is a relative term.

The characters M and F are not alike - unless they are compared to, say, √-1 - then they might as well be identical.

So do we understand our own intelligence?

In my analogy, M and F are both of the set of 'alphabetical characters'. Alike enough that we can treat them as mere variations of the same set.But ask the programmer who once wrote a utility that processed alphabetical data into a flat ASCII text file how much he fears √-1 versus M or F. Is it going to work? Who knows? It's unprecedented.Worse yet, AIs learn their own ways of processing (we are already experiencing this with our prototypes*) and it is very possible that those thought processes will be inscrutable to us.

So, never mind processing √-1, what if the program above encounters [non-printing character]? A character whose identity or function we can't even divine let alone process?
* An AI learned on its own how to distinguish pictures of wolves from pictures of huskies. But how it learned to tell is ... unique.
A much more immediate example is self-driving cars. Under certain circumstances they are, apparently, blind to the broadside of an 18-wheeler truck stopped in the middle of the road - resulting in more than one death.

The question here, is - not that it made such a dumb mistake** - but just how differently is it seeing the world such that the broadside of a truck is invisible to it? What else is invisible to it? What if lime green strollers in crosswalks are mysteriously invisible?

** i.e. Not an error in judgement or reaction time. Recordings show it didn't even try to brake.

 

[gleem]

Like I said in post 62, Sometimes others cannot see or understand our point of view as in " I don't know where you are coming from." like the post above.

Could it be that @DaveC426913 is an AI app that mistook my post as a green stroller?

 

[Algr]

The whole point is that such an AI is a tech level beyond a gen ship. That's your comparison, not mine.

You keep saying this and making analogies for it, but you’ve done nothing to convince me that it is true. You haven’t even linked to progress in the fields. (As I have.). Show me some articles on stability of social structures over a thousand years.

 

[DaveC426913]

Show me some articles on stability of social structures over a thousand years

I don't need to. I'm not making any claim about it. In fact no one here is, except you.

The gen ship story (which is fiction) will essentially be the author's thesis as to the stability of social structures. Showing how it might (or might not) work is often an ancillary goal of writing such stories.

In fact, Incendus' Exodus story appears to grant that very instability you speak of, making it a major aspect of his plot. So he's not disagreeing with you.

 

[Klystron]

Some societies -- alluded to by the expression 'ocean going canoe users' -- flourished due to strong family connections, intermarriages and relatively benign belief systems, at least internally.

The Polynesian civilization on Easter Island mostly perished while similar colonies flourished on other island archipelagos such as Tahiti and Hawaii. Anthropologists theorize Easter Islanders depleted limited resources and abandoned that colony. IOW a functioning shipboard society can be disrupted by resource depletion.

 

[DaveC426913]

Moderator's note: Post edited.

Show me an enclosed society that didn’t turn into Jim Jones or the Stanford prison experiment.

The author's story, Exodus certainly seems to include quite a bit of instability. So no, no one is claiming what you say they're claiming.

You’d be out of your mind to get on a generation ship without a proven plan that that won’t happen. Certainly no one would fund it.

And that would be the premise of a book you could write.

Does that constrain anyone else on writing their own? The author of Exodus has his reasons for launching a Gen Ship whose society did not ultimately remain stable - perfectly inline with all your assertions. (So I'm not sure what your beef is anyway.)

Do you know why they launched it? Do you know whether the designers knew it would fail? Do you know who funded it and how? No? Read the book to find out why they engaged in such a desperate venture.

Here's just one possibility (not original - it's been used so many times already):

It's 2075. Human cloning is currently blacklisted as unethical by the reigning political faction. AIs are almost powerful enough to steer starships. Another decade ought to do it. Mind uploading is coming along and should be viable by 2100. All these things are looking quite promising.

Too bad we'll all be dead by then. The planet is dying and the human race may not survive.

"If only we had another few decades!" they cry "Then we could launch a clone ship! Much better!"
"Too bad" says the world. "that is not yet a viable alternative in time to save us."

A small band of plucky billionaires decides we need a plan B. No new technology - only tried-and-true stuff. A regular ol' spaceship with supplies and a few hundred suicidal volunteers. Money is no object, The whole world gets behind it.

It's very risky but what choice do we have? And really all we need is enough raw resources, unlimited man-power and about 10 years. Oh, and our prototype untested fusion drive that may or may not explode before we get past the Moon.

 

[Algr]

What am I saying exists?

This is hopeless.

 

[DaveC426913]

This is hopeless.

I'm glad you said it. I didn't want to.

[Moderator's note: Post edited.]

 

[PeterDonis]

I really can't make sense of how you are judging the plausibility of future technologies.

I just think you are wrong.

You keep saying this and making analogies for it, but you’ve done nothing to convince me that it is true.

Since all of this is a matter of personal opinion anyway, you have stated your opinion, @DaveC426913 has stated he disagrees, and there's no point in arguing about it further. It's not as though any of this can be resolved by actual testing; that's why we're in the Sci-Fi forum for this thread.

You haven’t even linked to progress in the fields. (As I have.). Show me some articles on stability of social structures over a thousand years.

This is not one of the science forums, it's the Sci-Fi forum. This kind of request is off topic in the Sci-Fi forum since we are talking about fiction, not fact.

This is hopeless.

I'm glad you said it. I didn't want to.

In any case, the statement is correct. This subthread is off topic, please do not continue it further.

 

[PeterDonis]

Moderator's note: Thread has been reopened after some cleanup. Please keep discussion on the thread topic.

 

[PeterDonis]

And yet, we are inventing the bear. We are heading toward AI.

The basilisk argument requires more than that as a premise. It requires the following to be true:

(1) An AI will come into existence in the future that will exhibit the specific behavior that is ascribed to the basilisk. That is a much stronger claim than just the claim that some AI will come into existence in the future.

(2) The future basilisk AI will have some way of bringing "you" into existence in its time period (so that it can mete out whatever rewards or punishments it chooses to "you")--i.e., a future being in that time period that will have some kind of connection to the present you that makes you care what happens to it in the same way that you care what happens to the present you.

(3) The future basilisk AI will have some way of knowing what the present you does so that it can use that information to make its choice of what rewards or punishments to mete out to the future "you".

It is perfectly possible to believe that AI will come into existence at some point in the future without believing the conjunction of the three specific premises above. So believing that AI is inevitable does not automatically mean you must believe in the basilisk and act accordingly.

 

[DaveC426913]

The basilisk argument requires more than that as a premise.

Indeed. It was not my intent to suggest I had encapsulated the whole of the thought experiment.
What I wish I could do is find a good solid article that explains it. Currently, it requires a deep dive.

 

[PeterDonis]

What I wish I could do is find a good solid article that explains it.

My understanding from reading what I could find on it a while back is that the argument is based on the three premises I stated. More specifically:

That an AI, the "basilisk", will come into existence in the future that will create a being in its time frame that is "you", and that the basilisk will then punish this future "you" if the present you (i.e., you reading this post right now) did not do everything in your power to bring the basilisk into existence.

To me, there are several obvious holes in this argument, corresponding roughly to denying one of the three premises I stated:

(1) Even if we stipulate that some AI will come into existence in the future, that doesn't mean this AI will be the basilisk AI. I have not seen anyone advance any argument for why such an AI would have to come into existence, or even why one would be more likely than many other possible kinds of AI (including AIs that could do great harm in other ways).

(2) Even if we stipulate that the basilisk AI will come into existence, that doesn't mean the AI will be able to create a being that is "you" in the required sense. Part of the problem is figuring out what "the required sense" actually means. Does it mean the basilisk has to create an exact duplicate of you down to the quantum level? That's obviously impossible by the no cloning theorem. Does it mean the basilisk has to create a being that is "enough like" you? What counts as "enough like"? I have not seen anyone give precise and satisfactory answers to these questions; the only answer I've seen is basically handwaving along the lines of "well, we don't understand exactly what would be required but it seems like an AI ought to be able to do it, whatever it turns out to be".

(3) Even if we stipulate that the basilisk AI could create a future "you", that doesn't mean the AI will be able to know what the present "you" did. An AI can be as intelligent as you like and still be unable to know, in whatever future time it exists, what you, here and now in 2022, did or did not do. That would require a level of accuracy in the recording of detailed physical events that does not exist, never has existed, and it's hard to believe ever will exist. So it's extremely difficult to see how anything the present you does or does not do could have any actual effect on the basilisk; the information simply can't get transmitted from now to the future with that kind of accuracy.

One dodge (which was raised by another poster earlier in the thread) is to assume that the future "you" is actually a simulation--which raises the possibility that you, here and now in 2022, could actually be the "future you", in a simulation the basilisk is running of the year 2022 on Earth in order to see what you do. That would require you to believe that you are living in a simulation instead of the "root" reality, which is a whole separate issue that I won't go into here. But even if we stipulate that it's the case, we still have another issue: if you are actually living in the basilisk's simulated reality, then obviously you can't do anything to affect whether or not the basilisk exists. So it makes no sense to act as if you could, and you should just ignore the possibility.

 

[PeterDonis]

An AI can be as intelligent as you like and still be unable to know, in whatever future time it exists, what you, here and now in 2022, did or did not do. That would require a level of accuracy in the recording of detailed physical events that does not exist, never has existed, and it's hard to believe ever will exist. So it's extremely difficult to see how anything the present you does or does not do could have any actual effect on the basilisk; the information simply can't get transmitted from now to the future with that kind of accuracy.

Btw, this argument is more general than just the basilisk case: it applies to any kind of "acausal trade", which is a topic you'll see discussed quite a bit on LessWrong (which is where Roko originally posted the basilisk idea). I have enough material for an Insights article on that general topic if there is any interest (and if it is deemed within scope for an Insights article).

 

[gleem]

The AI learning tool "Megatron Transformer" was allowed to debate in the Oxford University debating society. It was developed by Nvidia based on work by Google. The topic was the ethics of AI existence>https://artificialintelligence-news...ai-to-debate-the-ethics-of-its-own-existence/

hmmmmm.

 

[gleem]

At least in the near term, something that is dangerous to our future is "Deepfake" given our conformational biases and general laziness. One cannot even be sure if the website she is on is the real thing. What good will all our information technology be if we cannot trust it?

In a study on the detectability of deepfake videos, 78% of participants could not identify a deepfake video even when told to it was present in the group of videos that they were present.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-...om-cruise-deepfakes-videos-test-b1993401.html

 

[Klystron]

I'm not sure what it says about us that we enjoy futuristic entertaiment written by a schizoohrenic meth addict. Talk about the human condition. :)

PKD's admitted drug use -- self-satirized in his apologetic novel "A Scanner, Darkly" -- does not bother me in the least. Struggling artists, particularly poets, associate with drugs and alcohol as if it were a job requirement to be wasted. Polar opposites to STEM professionals who must stay straight to perform correctly.

As the reference to Paul of Tarsus reflects in the title 'Scanner', Phil 'got religion' late in life. I enjoyed reading his early outré stories as a child as an anodyne to religion. Compared to his peers, Phil was one of the least science knowledgeable successful SF authors of his time. He shamelessly glossed over space travel and technology in his stories, making silly errors whenever he attempted to be scientific. Add religion and the meme grows toxic.

Consider his anthropomorphic biological AI replicants in 'DADOES' / 'Bladerunner'. The entire plot revolves around the nearly impossible task of detecting replicants among humans. IDK Phil, look at the serial numbers such as the artificial animals have? Test reflexes? See who can run through a wall?

I like PKD and the artistically interesting movies made from his work but deplore the current notion that he was some visionary SF genius. If this encompasses the gist of your comment, I concur. Fun to imagine but meaningless hard science. "Not even wrong.".

 

[DaveC426913]

At least in the near term, something that is dangerous to our future is "Deepfake" given our conformational biases and general laziness. One cannot even be sure if the website she is on is the real thing. What good will all our information technology be if we cannot trust it?

Indeed. I agree, this is a very dangerous technology and a looming threat.

My only solace is knowing that, historically, it's really just a logical progression of ever-more increasingly devious ways of spreading propaganda, and that people get more and more savvy with each iteration.

Decades ago, it was sound bites. They could slice and dice someone's words to corrupt their message in any way desired. A century ago, it was flyers and posters. Luckily, the general public's shrewdness evolves in-step, eventually learning distrust and verify such outrageosities.

Note that our access to myriad competing news sources has also escalated. Makes it harder for lies to spread unchallenged. Drives an obligation to never trust anyone source, and always verify.I'm not saying there won't always be a real danger of a large fraction of the population who will believe whatever corroborates their world-view, but when has it ever been different? This is an incremental escalation, not a sea change.

I hope.

 

[Jarvis323]

Not to mention that AI can be far more cunning than a human ever could dream to be with the help of large data. Even the best cult leader would never be able to compete. And that is not even factoring in that the AI knows everything about you as an individual, is constantly experimenting on you, testing you for weaknesses, and refining its model of you. And it can potentially control your feed of information too. And, that is not to mention that people are already way too gullible and easily manipulated as it is.

 

[DaveC426913]

Not to mention that AI can be far more cunning than a human ever could dream to be with the help of large data. Even the best cult leader would never be able to compete. And that is not even factoring in that the AI knows everything about you as an individual, is constantly experimenting on you, testing you for weaknesses, and refining its model of you. And it can potentially control your feed of information too. And, that is not to mention that people are already way too gullible and easily manipulated as it is.

While for the most part that is true, it's not endemic to AI. There's no reason people don't have that access and power. And there's no reason an AI would - unless we let it.

Popular media certainly strongly associate computer brains with inherent cyber-security genius expertise and omniscient access to world data - and that we are powerless to stop it - but that's really an artificial trope that plays on viewer ignorance of the subject matter - very much in the same way Ooh Scary Radiation created myriad giant monster bugs in the 50s.

It makes for a boring story if the world's most advanced AI is defeated because the IT guy simply unplugs its Wifi hotspot.

 

[Klystron]

This is the SF subforum, not linguistics, but I have always distrusted the expression artificial intelligence. AI is artificial, unspecific and terribly overused. What are useful alternatives?

Machine intelligence MI matches popular term machine language ML. Machine intelligence fits asimovian concepts of self-aware robots while covering a large proportion of serious and fictional proposals. MI breaks down when considering cyborgs, cybernetic organisms, and biological constructs including APs, artificial people, where machinery augments rather than replaces biological brains.

Other-Than-Human intelligence includes other primates, whales and dolphins, dogs, cats, birds, and other smart animals, and yet to be detected extraterrestrial intelligence. Shorten other-than-human to Other Intelligence OI for brevity. Other Intelligence sounds organic while including MI and ML and hybrids such as cyborgs.

Do not fear OI.

 

[DaveC426913]

You raise a good point.

But is the machine aspect the most important aspect that distinguishes them? The machine aspect refers to the substrate - the hardware, not the software.

What about, say, artificial biological devices?

I would suggest that the artificial versus natural intelligence is a more important distinguisher than the machine versus grown/bio/squishy substrate.

But YMMV.

 

[Jarvis323]

While for the most part that is true, it's not endemic to AI. There's no reason people don't have that access and power. And there's no reason an AI would - unless we let it.

Popular media certainly strongly associate computer brains with inherent cyber-security genius expertise and omniscient access to world data - and that we are powerless to stop it - but that's really an artificial trope that plays on viewer ignorance of the subject matter - very much in the same way Ooh Scary Radiation created myriad giant monster bugs in the 50s.

It makes for a boring story if the world's most advanced AI is defeated because the IT guy simply unplugs its Wifi hotspot.

The world data is owned, bought and sold, by people who use AI to process it. It's the reason the data is there in the first place. Maybe one AI doesn't have access to all of it. But there is an AI that knows what I just typed and has already thought of what ad to show me on social media after taking it into consideration.

 

[DaveC426913]

The world data is owned, bought and sold, by people who use AI to process it. It's the reason the data is there in the first place. Maybe one AI doesn't have access to all of it. But there is an AI that knows what I just typed and has already thought of what ad to show me on social media after taking it into consideration.

Sure, but AI-1234 doesn't inherently know what AI-4321 knows any more than Jarvis323 inherently knows what DaveC42693 knows. They have to communicate their knowledge just like we do. We can surmise how they do it better, faster etc. but it's not just magically part of their silicon DNA.

In mean, yes, we've built them to outcompete us, true. I just point out that data mining is not the exclusive ability of the AI. It's a quantitative improvement over our tendencies, not a qualitative improvement over our abilities.

 

[Klystron]

You raise a good point.

But is the machine aspect the most important aspect that distinguishes them? The machine aspect refers to the substrate - the hardware, not the software.

What about, say, artificial biological devices?

I would suggest that the artificial versus natural intelligence is a more important distinguisher than the machine versus grown/bio/squishy substrate.

But YMMV.

Right. Biologics. Other Intelligence OI includes biological constructs, smart animals, ETI, machines, everything intelligent other than human. OI.

 

[some bloke]

I'm in agreement that the scariness of AI depends on what it is applied to.

Skynet is obviously terrifying because it has nuclear weapons and control over military robots.

an AI system put in place to keep the trains from running late is self contained and, provided it has the right goals, it wouldn't seem dangerous to me!

An AI police system would be terrifying, again because it has control over something inherantly dangerous which has authority to attack people under certain circumstances,

an AI controlling all the cars and trains and buses in a city might be problematic if not kept in check. Things might stop or be scooted aside to keep trains on time, which might cause injuries. It would also fall down if anyone had a non-AI vehicle in there!

 

[sbrothy]

Moderator's note: Post edited at poster's request.

Like this, @gleem?

https://www.npr.org/2021/06/01/1002...-first-battlefield-killing-by-an-autonomous-d

PKD's admitted drug use -- self-satirized in his apologetic novel "A Scanner, Darkly" -- does not bother me in the least. Struggling artists, particularly poets, associate with drugs and alcohol as if it were a job requirement to be wasted. Polar opposites to STEM professionals who must stay straight to perform correctly.

No it doesn't bother me. I suspect it a matter of truth in television. It was just a humorous observation. I also suspect that without his unique condition(s) (unfortunately "self-medication" is almost ubiquitous among psychiatric patients) PKD wouldn't have been so productive, neither would he have had the urge. I think we (and indeed he) should probably be grateful that he had an artistic outlet.

[Post-facto edited to "corroborate" my claim.]

 

[PeterDonis]

9p

I don't understand.