OK, imagine (for simplicity) that all humans on Earth drop dead simultaneously, but there’s a John-von-Neumann-level AI on a chip connected to a solar panel with two teleoperated robots. Every time they scavenge another chip and solar cell, there becomes another human-level AI copy. Every time a robot builds another teleoperated robot from scavenged parts, there’s that too. What exactly is going to break in “weeks or months”?
Then your response included:
The key trouble is all the power generators that sustain the AI would break within weeks or months, and the issue is even if they could build GPUs, they’d have no power to run them within at most 2 weeks…
I included solar panels in my story precisely so that there would be no need for an electric grid. Right?
I grant that powering a chip off a solar panel is not completely trivial. For example, where I live, residential solar cells are wired in such a way that they shut down when the grid goes down (ironically). But, while it’s not completely trivial to power a chip off a solar cell, it’s also not that hard. I believe that a skilled and resourceful human electrical engineer would be able to jury-rig a solution to that problem without much difficulty, using widely-available parts, like the electronics already attached to the solar panel, plus car batteries, wires, etc. Therefore our hypothetical “John-von-Neumann-level AI with a teleoperated robot” should be able to solve that problem too. Right?
(Or were you responding to something else? I’m not saying “all humans on Earth drop dead simultaneously” is necessarily realistic, I’m just trying to narrow down where we disagree.)
I did not realize you were assuming that the AI was powered solely by solar power that isn’t connected to the grid.
Given your assumption, I agree that AGI can rebuild supply chains from scratch, albeit paiinfully and slowly, so I agree that AGI is an existential threat assuming it isn’t aligned.
I was addressing a different scenario because I didn’t read the part of your comment where you said the AI is independent of the grid.
I wrote:
Then your response included:
I included solar panels in my story precisely so that there would be no need for an electric grid. Right?
I grant that powering a chip off a solar panel is not completely trivial. For example, where I live, residential solar cells are wired in such a way that they shut down when the grid goes down (ironically). But, while it’s not completely trivial to power a chip off a solar cell, it’s also not that hard. I believe that a skilled and resourceful human electrical engineer would be able to jury-rig a solution to that problem without much difficulty, using widely-available parts, like the electronics already attached to the solar panel, plus car batteries, wires, etc. Therefore our hypothetical “John-von-Neumann-level AI with a teleoperated robot” should be able to solve that problem too. Right?
(Or were you responding to something else? I’m not saying “all humans on Earth drop dead simultaneously” is necessarily realistic, I’m just trying to narrow down where we disagree.)
I did not realize you were assuming that the AI was powered solely by solar power that isn’t connected to the grid.
Given your assumption, I agree that AGI can rebuild supply chains from scratch, albeit paiinfully and slowly, so I agree that AGI is an existential threat assuming it isn’t aligned.
I was addressing a different scenario because I didn’t read the part of your comment where you said the AI is independent of the grid.