I like “rogue AI” over “uncontrollable AI” because you could substitute a five syllable word for a one syllable word, but otherwise I agree.
Also my experience in talking with people about this topic is that most ”normies” find AI scary & would prefer it not be developed, but for whatever reason the argument for a singularity or intelligence explosion in which human-level artificial intelligence is expected to rapidly yield superhuman AGI is unconvincing or silly-seeming to most people outside this bubble, including technical people. I’m not really sure why.
most ”normies” find AI scary & would prefer it not be developed, but for whatever reason the argument for a singularity or intelligence explosion in which human-level artificial intelligence is expected to rapidly yield superhuman AGI is unconvincing or silly-seeming to most people outside this bubble, including technical people. I’m not really sure why.
That’s what I have experienced as well. I think one reason is that people find it difficult to imagine exponential growth—it’s not something our brains are made for. If we think about the future, we intuitively look at the past and project a linear trend we seem to recognize.
I also think that if something is a frequent topic in science fiction books and movies, people see it as less likely to become real, so we SF writers may actually make it more difficult to think clearly about the future, even though sometimes developers are inspired by SF. Most of the time, people realize only in hindsight that some SF scenarios may actually come true.
I think it’s amazing how fast we go from “I don’t believe that will ever be possible” to “that’s just normal”. I remember buying my first laptop computer with a color display in the nineties. If someone had told me that not much more than ten years later there would be an iPhone with the computing power of a supercomputer in my pocket, I’d have shaken my head in disbelief.
I kind of feel like it’s the opposite, people actually do anchor their imagination about the future on science fiction & this is part of the problem here. Lots of science fiction features a world with a bunch of human-level AIs walking around but where humans are still in comfortably in charge and non-obsolete, even though it’s hard to argue for why this would actually happen.
Yes, that’s also true: There is always a lonely hero who in the end puts the AGI back into the box or destroys it. Nothing would be more boring than writing a novel about how in reality the AGI just kills everyone and wins. :( I think both is possible—that people imagine the wrong future and at the same time don’t take it seriously.
I like “rogue AI” over “uncontrollable AI” because you could substitute a five syllable word for a one syllable word, but otherwise I agree.
Also my experience in talking with people about this topic is that most ”normies” find AI scary & would prefer it not be developed, but for whatever reason the argument for a singularity or intelligence explosion in which human-level artificial intelligence is expected to rapidly yield superhuman AGI is unconvincing or silly-seeming to most people outside this bubble, including technical people. I’m not really sure why.
That’s what I have experienced as well. I think one reason is that people find it difficult to imagine exponential growth—it’s not something our brains are made for. If we think about the future, we intuitively look at the past and project a linear trend we seem to recognize.
I also think that if something is a frequent topic in science fiction books and movies, people see it as less likely to become real, so we SF writers may actually make it more difficult to think clearly about the future, even though sometimes developers are inspired by SF. Most of the time, people realize only in hindsight that some SF scenarios may actually come true.
I think it’s amazing how fast we go from “I don’t believe that will ever be possible” to “that’s just normal”. I remember buying my first laptop computer with a color display in the nineties. If someone had told me that not much more than ten years later there would be an iPhone with the computing power of a supercomputer in my pocket, I’d have shaken my head in disbelief.
I kind of feel like it’s the opposite, people actually do anchor their imagination about the future on science fiction & this is part of the problem here. Lots of science fiction features a world with a bunch of human-level AIs walking around but where humans are still in comfortably in charge and non-obsolete, even though it’s hard to argue for why this would actually happen.
Yes, that’s also true: There is always a lonely hero who in the end puts the AGI back into the box or destroys it. Nothing would be more boring than writing a novel about how in reality the AGI just kills everyone and wins. :( I think both is possible—that people imagine the wrong future and at the same time don’t take it seriously.