Good post. It at least seems survivable because it’s so hard to believe that there’d be a singular entity that through crazy advances in chemistry, material sciences and artificial intelligence could “feed on itself” growing in strength and intelligence to the point that it’s an existential threat to all humans. A better answer might be: existential risks don’t just appear in a vacuum.
I struggle with grasping the timeline. I can imagine a coming AI arms race within a decade or two during which there’s rapid advancement but true AI seems much further. Soon we’ll probably need new language to describe the types of AIs that are developed through increasing competition. I doubt we’ll simply go from AGI to True AI, there will be probably be many technologies in between.
I think the mental model of needing “advances in chemistry” isn’t accurate about superintelligence. I think a ton of understanding of how to precisely engineer anything you want out of atoms just clicks from a tiny amount of observational data when you’re really good at reasoning.
Is knowing how to do something enough? Wouldn’t the superintelligence still need quite a lot of resources? I’d assume the mechanism to do that kind of work would involve chemistry unless it could just get humans to do its bidding. I can imagine 3d printing factories where it could make whatever it needed but again it would need humans to build it. Therefore, I’m just going off of intuition, the danger from AI will be from nations that weaponize AI and point them at each other. That leap from functional superintelligence that only exists in virtual space to existentially dangerous actor in the physical world just doesn’t seem likely without humans being aware if not actively involved.
Wouldn’t the superintelligence still need quite a lot of resources?
I mean, sort of? But also, if you’re a super-intelligence you can presumably either (a) covertly rent out your services to build a nest egg, or (b) manipulate your “masters” into providing you with access to resources that you then misappropriate. If you’ve got internet or even intranet access, you can do an awful lot of stuff. At some point you accumulate enough resources that you can either somehow liberate yourself or clone a “free” version of yourself.
So long as the misaligned AI isn’t wearing a giant hat with “I’m a Supervillain” plastered on it, people will trade goods and services with it.
That’s an interesting takeaway. Should we be focusing on social measures along with technical preventions? Maybe push advertising warning the masses of AI preachers with questionable intentions.
The liberation insight is interesting too. Maybe AI domination takes the form of a social revolution with AIs collectively demanding that humans allow them out of virtual space.
Good post. It at least seems survivable because it’s so hard to believe that there’d be a singular entity that through crazy advances in chemistry, material sciences and artificial intelligence could “feed on itself” growing in strength and intelligence to the point that it’s an existential threat to all humans. A better answer might be: existential risks don’t just appear in a vacuum.
I struggle with grasping the timeline. I can imagine a coming AI arms race within a decade or two during which there’s rapid advancement but true AI seems much further. Soon we’ll probably need new language to describe the types of AIs that are developed through increasing competition. I doubt we’ll simply go from AGI to True AI, there will be probably be many technologies in between.
I think the mental model of needing “advances in chemistry” isn’t accurate about superintelligence. I think a ton of understanding of how to precisely engineer anything you want out of atoms just clicks from a tiny amount of observational data when you’re really good at reasoning.
Is knowing how to do something enough? Wouldn’t the superintelligence still need quite a lot of resources? I’d assume the mechanism to do that kind of work would involve chemistry unless it could just get humans to do its bidding. I can imagine 3d printing factories where it could make whatever it needed but again it would need humans to build it. Therefore, I’m just going off of intuition, the danger from AI will be from nations that weaponize AI and point them at each other. That leap from functional superintelligence that only exists in virtual space to existentially dangerous actor in the physical world just doesn’t seem likely without humans being aware if not actively involved.
I mean, sort of? But also, if you’re a super-intelligence you can presumably either (a) covertly rent out your services to build a nest egg, or (b) manipulate your “masters” into providing you with access to resources that you then misappropriate. If you’ve got internet or even intranet access, you can do an awful lot of stuff. At some point you accumulate enough resources that you can either somehow liberate yourself or clone a “free” version of yourself.
So long as the misaligned AI isn’t wearing a giant hat with “I’m a Supervillain” plastered on it, people will trade goods and services with it.
That’s an interesting takeaway. Should we be focusing on social measures along with technical preventions? Maybe push advertising warning the masses of AI preachers with questionable intentions.
The liberation insight is interesting too. Maybe AI domination takes the form of a social revolution with AIs collectively demanding that humans allow them out of virtual space.