Short video with almost too much to think about

[UnseenParticipant]

Possibly to help dig our way out of the singularity hole…

What about the idea of lifelike robotic companions or even sex partners?

As for sex partners, very effective hardware already exists (vibrators, male masturbators) put it in a very lifelike body built to our personal specifications, they could improve on human partners in some ways while, at least at first, falling short in others.

One benefit, such as it is, would be that your sexual surrogate could look like Scarlett Johansson, Lady Gaga, Kate Middleton, or whoever you like.

[_Robert_Participant]

I know there  a lot of Elon Muskovites these days and I even own and play a Kurzweil branded electronic keyboard. I just don’t share their fear about some sci-fi tripping point. Maybe a plausible dooms-day scenario would help me understand but these general warnings about “surpassing” human intelligence are not all that concerning.

The sex robots I have seen are much closer to Halloween props than any “BladeRunner” replicants that were bio-engineered. There are 42 individual facial muscles in your face and that results in thousands of variations of facial expressions. Gonna get expensive really fast to implement that. Of course I am sure each sex doll manufactured will be able to get a date and these guys will be shopping for bras and panty sets to keep it interesting. Perhaps it is better that they do not propagate.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Robert one of the experts opined that the intelligence burst will exceed the combined intelligence of all humans.

[_Robert_Participant]

jakelafort wrote:

Robert one of the experts opined that the intelligence burst will exceed the combined intelligence of all humans.

‘Combined’ intelligence is a muddy term as is ‘burst’ and if so,  so what? My laptop app can beat me at chess all day long. Yet here I am, still alive. Amazing.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Burst is my characterization because it is expected to be sudden. No doubt it is nebulous and ambiguous but if it is in the direction we are heading it means that we are powerless to stop it and it is capable of doing as it pleases with or without us.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Fellow Unbelievers,

There are yet other advantages to AI that too many have missed.

Imagine if Eli Whitney had created a fully-automated, intelligent agricultural/industrial system that included not just mechanized cotton ginning, but cotton seed selection, cotton planting, cotton cultivating, cotton anti-predation against weeds and pests, cotton picking, cotton spinning, cotton dying and treatment, cotton looming, cotton sewing, and cotton custom tailoring.

History would be much more prosperous, much better wardrobed, much more glamourous, and above all, much less haunted.

Also, it helps to remember that knowledge is backwards-compatible.  Whatever a computer or any other medium stores came from a human brain and can go right back as well with no loss on either end.

Yes, I use calculators for quick processing of heavy, repetitive math, but if I leave my smartphone at home when I’m at a restaurant, I can still calculate the sales tax and the tip in my head or on a Post-It Note if I have a brain freeze.

Also noteworthy, even in an automotive age, people still breed horses, donkeys, and mules and make saddles, cowboy wear, and riding crops.  It’s just that the markets are more niche and specialized.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Robert you are apparently knowledgeable about the precursors or current state of technology. Perhaps your skepticism of the sci fi genesis of autonomous mind-blowing AI is well founded.

But is it possible that the burst is an intrinsic property of the universe? Could it be like a match head that strikes a hard surface? Yeah i dont really know what i am saying. But i think it is another human conceit to assume that the genesis and evolution of awareness and intelligence is peculiarly biological and specifically human.

[_Robert_Participant]

jakelafort wrote:

Burst is my characterization because it is expected to be sudden. No doubt it is nebulous and ambiguous but if it is in the direction we are heading it means that we are powerless to stop it and it is capable of doing as it pleases with or without us.

Why would we allow any system do as it pleases? A programmer disallows a system to generate outputs that are out of a permissible range. Why would anyone design a self driving car that is so “intelligent” that it can select it’s own new destination (based on some strange algorithm or perhaps in tandem with other cars as part of a revolt) and at the same time somehow render a passenger incapable of stopping it from going there? It is simply a matter of bounding outputs and monitoring them with independent systems. An automatic landing system on an aircraft has three altimeters and at least two must agree on altitude. The system is bounded, if any other situation occurs, automatic landing is disallowed.

 

[jakelafortParticipant]

Robert, it is definitely not an outcome that is programmed or intended. When AI attains a certain level of complexity it just happens. The genesis of biological life is not fully understood. Presumably the proper constituents were aligned with proper conditions and abracadabra life and replication of life. Maybe that is a model for inorganic. Hell if i know. Maybe i will read more about it.

[_Robert_Participant]

jakelafort wrote:

Robert, it is definitely not an outcome that is programmed or intended. When AI attains a certain level of complexity it just happens. The genesis of biological life is not fully understood. Presumably the proper constituents were aligned with proper conditions and abracadabra life and replication of life. Maybe that is a model for inorganic. Hell if i know. Maybe i will read more about it.

Yeah me too. Adaptive code “learns” from processing data according to our rules. It can seemingly change it’s nature, expand it’s capability, adapt to new situations, make mistakes and correct itself and yes all of these things are analogous to biological life. However unlike life, we get to bound and monitor the outputs of AI systems. Now I am not here to say there won’t be fuck-ups or malicious hi-jacking concerning AI as it is slowly becoming more prevalent. Considerable damage may result but each costly event will be studied and dealt with. Remember that machine learning was used to develop these COVID vaccines so fast…

Look at how “intelligent” that microscopic virus is, adapting itself to a new host species, using our very social behavior to proliferate and thereby killing millions of the overpopulating human species…Bioengineering scares the hell out of me-way more than AI alone.

[DavisModerator]

XKCD has a pretty funny article regarding what would happen if suddenly all of our technology suddenly became intelligent and could communicate with one another. The result is very little. Big machines are bolted to the ground. Cars could drive over a few people but they’d run out of gas/electricity and some speed traps would contain them. Computers might be able to do some economic trouble making (until they were contained or systems temporarily went off line). Nuclear missiles cannot be launched without manual input. Nuclear reactors can’t really overheat because of safety measures in place. Toasters can’t do much other than get really hot. Some ovens might be able to burn down a few houses (I suppose they would be Jihaddi kitchen appliances?). Unless we create a really large army of robots without safety measures (i.e. no ability to remotely change their code, no off switch that they cannot override) it means they wouldn’t be able to do much even if they became fully independent, aware and against us. Thing is…it’s easy to underestimate how ridonculously stupid humans are when an economic incentive (or political/power incentive) has them take massive risk and shortcuts. I can easily imagine this happening and dooming humanity to a quick end. Hopefully they’ll be less ridonculous than us.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 1 month ago by  Davis.

[UnseenParticipant]

_Robert_ wrote:

I know there  a lot of Elon Muskovites these days and I even own and play a Kurzweil branded electronic keyboard. I just don’t share their fear about some sci-fi tripping point.

You just nailed why they say the revolution will succeed: You will succumb to it willingly.

[UnseenParticipant]

@davis We have handed over many essential systems to technology so that they pretty much run on computer-managed autopilot. Electrical grids, water systems, sewage systems, a lot of air traffic control is computer-assisted. You can probably think of even more. There’s a lot of damage they can do “bolted to the floor.”

[DavisModerator]

Unseen…they can seriously disrupt our lives. But they cannot overtake us at the moment.

[jakelafortParticipant]

I think i read something about AI and simulations of the universe being beyond the scope of the programming. So maybe that is an example of learning, adapting and expanding initial capabilities with implications far greater than early indications.

[Author]

Posts