UPD 07/16/2023: This is all nonsense, never mind.
>I think we’d do well to consider how the rest of the world is going to think about AGI, once they really start to think about it.
Why are you sure it hasn’t happened yet? The last year was perceived for me (in Moscow) as a nightmarish heap of nonsense, but everything becomes devilishly logical, if we assume that Putin understands as well as you and I what the emergence of AI threatens him personally (well, and humanity, at the same time), and is ready to do anything to prevent this.
(I hope no one needs to explain that a nuclear war cannot be started by simply pressing a button? Putin could not have done this a year ago, even now, after a year of war psychosis, he still cannot do this—but he can reach the desired state in a few obvious steps. I do not understand what is the ultimate goal—to save humanity? save humanity by becoming a god before others? and how he plans to achieve this—but people no more stupid than me thought about it for a couple of years longer …)
UPD 07/16/2023: This is all nonsense, never mind.
>It’s an interesting thought; I have read that Putin mentioned that whoever controls AI controls the world a few years ago.
In reality, he said that whoever controls the AI will “become the Overlord of the World” (“станет Властелином Мира”).
(I’m not sure how to translate correctly—Master, Ruler, Lord … but you can’t call a country like that—only a person, and this is an established phrase for denoting the ultimate goal of all sorts of evil geniuses and supervillains. )
Putin said this at least twice, in 2017 and 2019:
“Artificial intelligence is not only the future of Russia, it is the future of all mankind. There are colossal opportunities and threats that are difficult to predict today. Whoever becomes the leader in this area will be the overlord of the world. ”
http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/55493 September 2017
“If someone can provide a monopoly in the field of artificial intelligence, the consequences are clear to all of us—he will become the overlord of the world”
https://www.forbes.ru/obshchestvo/376957-stat-vlastelinom-mira-putin-potreboval-obespechit-suverenitet-rossii-v-oblasti May 30, 2019
lately he hasn’t said anything like that, but the fact that on November 24, 2022, (in less than 2 weeks after the retreat from Kherson) he participated in a conference on AI is also remarkable (http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news /69927 )
Well, also “the ruler of the world” is his middle name (and the first too) https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0 %BC%D0%B8%D1%80_(%D0%B8%D0%BC%D1%8F)
>I doubt it though personally; if he wanted that, couldn’t he have gotten away at least with first use of tactical nukes in Ukraine? That would be a ramp to escalation.
It was also impossible to launch a small nuclear strike without a year of propaganda training.
Possible sequence:
-the Ukrainian offensive breaks through the front (which Putin appears to be consciously facilitating);
tactical nuclear strike;
-nuclear explosion in Moscow (not a mandatory step—but it costs nothing (8 minutes earlier or later), but it gives a lot of tactical advantages for controlling the scale of the war, and what follows after);
-limited exchange of blows with the US.
However, it’s not Putin who looks like the beneficiary, but China — I don’t know, maybe for this KGB colonel lust for power is the same mask after mask, like technophobia, but in fact he is still faithful to the ideas of communism?)
What I definitely believe in:
AI—The Cursed One Ring of Omnipotence, encrusted with the Philosopher’s Infinity Stones and even incomparably cooler, there was nothing so absurdly valuable and dangerous in any comic.
This is understood not only by me, but also by the owners of billions, the leaders of scientific groups and underground empires, the owners of nuclear arsenals and Altman’s secretary.
Civilizations do not perish by turning into paper clips (we would be paper clips), but to die in the royal battle for the possession of this artifact that has already started is a very real chance for mankind.