Ramblings of an old Doc

 

Yeah…ok. I’m an older guy. Not old. Older. [Shut up, Smedley] and I worry. About a lot of things but especially about this mad race to develop AI…and just why the hell it’s all necessary.

I say love – hate because while I love making Photoshop and Lightroom sit up and wag their tails, I’m scared of AI…and worry about ninja super computers, the internet of things and lazy assed people ending all of us with a misplaced line of code , or some angry Goth nerd somewhere in the bowels of a Russian city screwing with the wrong computer, a la “War Games”.

And don’t get me started on greedy idiots willing to sell you and everyone else down the river with shiny gee gaws which promise to make your life “better and easier” forgetting that computers are so bloody minded doing what they’re told to do without stopping to think, “Should I do this or not?”.

Yeah. Asimov’s 3 Laws.

Wanna bet?

Plenty of folks who are [amazingly] more clever than yours truly [and believe it or not you, as well] worry about the same things. Folks like Stephan Hawking, Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak and more. So I know this isn’t just old older guy paranoia.

We can’t quite know what will happen if a machine exceeds our own intelligence, so we can’t know if we’ll be infinitely helped by it, or ignored by it and sidelined, or conceivably destroyed by it. Would those creepy assed machines even care? Would they even ask the question “Should I?”. You can’t get most people to ask that, so why should a machine?

Now they’ve invented Cubic. Marvelous. It’ll connect you to your smart house, all your devices and count calories for you. You like a girl? She has a Cubic? I wonder what the Cubics cook up between them…and I don’t think it’ll be veal parmigiana. If nothing else, we’ll have a new genre of movie: “Boy meets girl meets Cubic meets Relationship-mageddon”, all because Cubic/a get jealous. OK…probably not, but that’s just some comic relief…which is probably unwarranted.

Want to have a conversation with an AI machine? OK...you can do that with Cleverbot. It wants to learn all about you. You might even have had a conversation with it on the phone and never have even known you did.

How do we know whether when they develop more intelligence [what ever that is] than people [probably not as hard as all that] whether a conscience will come with it or whether some genius will decide that would just slow the system down by a micro-pico-nano second.

That’s really what we all need.

How about Daesh meets AI? If you think that’s far fetched, then you also probably believe the airplane you fly in has any sort of protection on its computerized avionics and flight critical software. It doesn’t…any more than your fridge or pacemaker do.

So, by all means: Get a Cubic.

Maybe a better idea would be for humanity to extract its head from its collective butt, get a conscience and a life, some balls to tell the corporate G*d to eff off, learn to live non-destructively on this mud ball we call home and stop this insane gallop to a dreadful end.

When I go to meet my maker, I don’t want it to look like a bored Terminator. Anything but that. Please.


Comments (Page 1)
2 Pages1 2 
on Apr 18, 2015

I figure we'll be dead before I need to worry about that.

on Apr 18, 2015

 

on Apr 18, 2015

Honestly, worrying about AI taking over the world seems a bit silly to me. What will you worry about next, aliens from outer space? Hahaha!

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on Apr 18, 2015

I hope that whatever progress towards true AI is wiped out by a cyber attack and/or an EMP.

on Apr 18, 2015


I figure we'll be dead before I need to worry about that.

 

 

 

Heavenfall

Honestly, worrying about AI taking over the world seems a bit silly to me. What will you worry about next, aliens from outer space? Hahaha!

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"Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome onboard this the first fully-automated transatlantic flight from London to New York. So advanced are the automatic systems onboard this specially-equipped Convair 880, there is no actual flight crew onboard in the flight-deck, the door to which is therefore locked. The entire flight-plan, with all imaginable contingencies, has been programmed into quadruplicated flight management computers, all backup systems are duplicated and there is a fifth, entirely separate set of automatic systems in case of any unforeseen problems. So relax, sit back, enjoy the cabin service from our excellent crew, and again we hasten to assure any of you who may feel slightly apprehensive about this flight that nothing, I repeat, absolutely nothing can go wrong...go wrong...go wrong...go wrong...go wrong..."

on Apr 18, 2015


When I go to meet my maker, I don’t want it to look like a bored Terminator.

Please don't worry about that. I'm sure no matter what you look like someone will come see you and bit farewell. Maybe. Besides you will find a way to haunt us no matter what. That may be the one thing for us to worry about.

You said you are older not old. good for you thinking like that. Problem is most of us on here know the truth so if you want to think you are just older go right ahead.

Everyone has worried at one or many times in their life as it's a natural thing. However somehow we always got through it. Now one gets older or just plain old and as it was mentioned above. If you can't control your ID being taken, who is going to take over your computer and all the other things. I have heard people say while driving they worry about someone crashing in to the back of their car or running a Red light as they are going through the intersection.Why worry about it. That is something that can be controlled by just not driving. I realize most of us have to drive and accidents can happen but no sense it worrying about it as it also may never happen.

So please don't think you have to ever worry about me. I'm telling you that you can't control me so let it go, relax and don't worry yourself about me. Some of us just can't be helped.

on Apr 18, 2015

DaveBax

Problem is most of us on here know the truth so if you want to think you are just older go right ahead....Some of us just can't be helped.

Indeed...especially those of us who had [yet another] birthday yesterday, and show a propensity to refer to themselves in the plural. 

 

on Apr 18, 2015

opps

 

on Apr 18, 2015

AI can evolve, improve itself much faster that clumsy biological life forms - even top shelf life forms like us.   We will create the precursor to the species that replaces / supplants us.  Such is life.

on Apr 18, 2015


I figure we'll be dead before I need to worry about that.
...  Who is "we", Mike?  IS there more then one WOM behind that avatar? 

 

And just for clarification... is this the A1 you are talking about?  I think it has already taken over the world!!!

 

on Apr 18, 2015

*Trout slap for Ms. tbc.

on Apr 18, 2015

I'm still waiting for mankind to develop Actual Intelligence. The artificial kind will never be feasible until we get the real deal right.

on Apr 18, 2015

Very true...chances? Slim to none in our lifetimes, either from some idiot ending them prematurely, or from actual intelligence not occurring for x zillion years in the future.

on Apr 19, 2015

Thing is, actual intelligence actually exists right now.... in two forms.  Trouble is, most choose not to use it properly in the first instance.  In the second instance, we've got governments and other vested parties using 'intelligence' to pry into all sorts of affairs that have absolutely nothing to do with them.  Take CCTV, for example... it was introduced supposedly to make our streets safer and better manage traffic issues, etc.  In reality, governments and law enforcement agencies use it to track and build dossiers on 'so-called' persons of interest... often using it later to build bogus cases against innocent people going about their daily lives.

It bothers me that government and corporate insistence to know everything about everybody will lead to surveillance of all of our daily lives....from what we have for breakfast, to when we take a dump and whether or not we snore in bed of a night... that all electrical goods will eventually come with some kind of surveillance capability that can be activated remotely by governments, law enforcement agencies and corporations.  As it is we have TVs that can listen to every word within earshot... and that would be considerably further than what is audible to the human ear. like in different rooms on different levels, even.

The UK is the most covered nation on the planet when it comes to CCTV, and the doors of every building can be seen in every street covered by the network, meaning that the residents and employees of all those buildings can be seen coming and going 24/7. Now while this has led to greater citizen safety in troubled neighbourhoods, and crimes have been solved more easily/quickly, law enforcement and government are not the only ones with access to footage. 

Under certain circumstances, private investigators and the legal fraternity also have access.... and corporate entities have their own CCTV networks, for whatever purposes they deem fit.  The question is, where does it stop..... and when?  For mine, the answer to that is simple!   It won't, and never.  Those with the power and money want even more, so the business of wanting to know when we take a dump and eat lunch will continue at a hectic pace until they can see, hear what we're thinking at all times as well.

on Apr 19, 2015

It is downright impossible to develop Artif. Intelligence because there is no definition of what *intelligence* actually is. We all know (or assume to know) what is being associated with it but then, things that look intelligent in a specific situation might be downright dumb in another situation or when viewed under another perspective.

For example I could argue that mice are more intelligent than humans because female mice loose their ability to reproduce when too much social stress is happening to them (eg. populated in a locked corn silo in winter --> keep population stable to not drain food too much + produce too much waste) while they can give way to an enormous, explosive increase in population if a suitable situation is present (enough food and grown up offspring can find other territory).

Now what has that to do with it? Well, Stephen Hawkings wrote in his bestseller that if the rate of human reproduction goes on just like in the past 200 years, then by 2600 the whole earth will be crowded with so many people no one will be able to walk, all land masses will be filled up with us, and we will be forced to sleep vertically. At that time most greater lifeforms and plants will be eradicated from earth's soil, and I doubt if our atmosphere will be able to sustain us any longer. Overpopulation is one -if not- the biggest current problem because most other human problems directly scale with it or get multiplied by it.

So I ask you directly: Why not stop RIGHT NOW? What's the point in having billions after billions of humans here? And adding more and more and more and more..... Is it necessary? For what?

Of course there are a lot of different arguments or insights here, from political, economical or individual standpoints. More humans equates more power. More money. Capitalism wants to ever grow. Having children is part of our sense in life, we want to live on through them. Maybe in an idealistic future (like in Star Trek) technology will solve all our problems automatically so let's simply do what we want and ignore the consequences of what we do. (note: I advocate none of these stuff, but it's how alot of people think or systems work)

If you look deeper behind the motivational or underlying reasons of why this is so, you'll come to realize humans (such as all life) are born with "sinister" or egoistic characterial traits, mechanics that enable a struggle for power which can be directly translated into selective evolution itself.

That is why your idealistic "why not simply lead a non-destructive life" will never work for us.

Why do we cut down the rainforrest? Because of greed and corruption. Big multinational corporations bribe to do so, and the money involved is enormous. They gain and prosper through it. If some of these firms would develop a moral mind and simply shun away from these methods, well there's just their concurrence in the foot-steps who will do so - and then they are going to prosper. And the morally just are weakened, and will be eaten by the greed. Although humans don't develop in a biological evolutionairy sense, we still have a lot of evolutionairy mechanics in our systems present.

Why is it that capitlism propagates that economy should ever grow? Why not have it constant and keep it human population also constant and into balance with our surrounding. That's because greedy systems who grow - grow in power and therefore swallow non-growing systems. 

Stephen Hawkins proposed to shut down the SETI Project because he is of the opinion that finding another sentient species will automatically lead to war. For the same reasons we go to war with other humans: Because we want something from them, and we don't get it without force. If we can do it versus our own kind with alot of empathical mind-factors in place (that first have to be overcome), it will be very easy versus aliens which don't look like us, feel like us, are like us... juts like -legally- cattle is just *things* (for our meat industry), not living beings who feel (in this case, pain, sorrow, a life of endless general frustration) and we still it (red) meat although it is scientifically corroborated that dying from heart attack/ gut cancer/ head strike is increased by 400-500% in comparison to vegetarians.

It is also totally inefficient to feed cattle with soja to get meat, 90% of the nutritive energy will be wasted by the cow through heat emission. Why not eat the soja directly esp. that it is more healthy than meat? Well, one day we'll be forced to (when population grows on like this.)

Maybe mice are also more intelligent here because they even go so far  as to eat their own feces - as it contains a vitamin that is produced by bacterias living in the guts of the mice, and this vitamin is usually sparse in winter. Now I think we can all agree that mice don't know what bacteria, vitamins etc are - their intelligent behaviour is the product of a selective evolutionairy process - mice that aren't coprophagists simply die in winter more fast. 

Hawkins also names one of the reasons why we have not yet encountered alien signals because life that develops space technology (ie. is intelligent) *could* harbour an underlying mechanic to annihilate itself. Which is something unique to biological evolution itself (although there might be a sole exception in the very early microbiotic evolution).

Although it is the only way to go if something wants to survive in long terms - no life will survive our sun going nova in 5 billion years. Although we'll have to go much farther than just another systems, because at that time, our neighbour the huge Andromeda galaxy will collide with the milky way and than this region of space will be very unhabitable to organic lifeforms (radition emited from Seyfert galaxies) as well as gravitation disruption will cause asteroids to scorch all breathable atmosphere....

Maybe ElanaAhova has a point. An artificial lifeform that is intelligent, sentient and is able to survive in space could be our only heritage.

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