This is a huge topic, so I will do my best to keep my remarks brief and to the point. Your illustration using Isaac Asimov is a very good one. Asimov was one of the first writers to explore the relationship of humans and any artificial intelligence they may create. This was also true for another great science fiction writer Arthur C Clarke. I highly recommend his work ‘City and the Stars’. Like Asimov, his view of AI is not one sided but highly mixed in offering both great benefits and hazards.
It is the nature of human society to panic upon the advent of new technology. The responses to the first railroads in England in the very early 19th century were frequently hysterical. The responses to nuclear power after the accident at Three Mile Island were hysterical in the extreme given the actual lack of any effect on human health or the environment. It’s because of this hysteria that first responses to new technology frequently turn out to be wrong. The initial panic over railways in the 19th century was shown to be wrong within a decade, and the post-TMI panic in 1979 over nuclear power similarly was found to be without foundation for a properly designed and operated plant.
That’s not to say there are not problems with AI. One has already emerged with academic cheating. Increasingly students are using AI to research and write papers and articles for them. It would be absurd to say that academia will come crashing down, but it will have to adjust methods of evaluating students for an accurate appraisal. But this is a problem readily subject to proper management by actively seeking solutions. Hysteria is not about seeking solutions; it’s about fleeing a situation in uncontrolled panic.
Cross out God and write “Evil all powerful AI” and then change the “believe/don’t believe” to “help/don’t help”.
It’s not even interesting as a question.
There is an interesting experiment in this space, and it is “What happens if you were to enumerate fully the space of all such wagers, constructed as iterated, infinite Prisoner’s Dilemmas?”
What is the long-term equilibrium and strategy?
This research has been performed and the results were interesting and relevant.
This is a huge topic, so I will do my best to keep my remarks brief and to the point. Your illustration using Isaac Asimov is a very good one. Asimov was one of the first writers to explore the relationship of humans and any artificial intelligence they may create. This was also true for another great science fiction writer Arthur C Clarke. I highly recommend his work ‘City and the Stars’. Like Asimov, his view of AI is not one sided but highly mixed in offering both great benefits and hazards.
It is the nature of human society to panic upon the advent of new technology. The responses to the first railroads in England in the very early 19th century were frequently hysterical. The responses to nuclear power after the accident at Three Mile Island were hysterical in the extreme given the actual lack of any effect on human health or the environment. It’s because of this hysteria that first responses to new technology frequently turn out to be wrong. The initial panic over railways in the 19th century was shown to be wrong within a decade, and the post-TMI panic in 1979 over nuclear power similarly was found to be without foundation for a properly designed and operated plant.
That’s not to say there are not problems with AI. One has already emerged with academic cheating. Increasingly students are using AI to research and write papers and articles for them. It would be absurd to say that academia will come crashing down, but it will have to adjust methods of evaluating students for an accurate appraisal. But this is a problem readily subject to proper management by actively seeking solutions. Hysteria is not about seeking solutions; it’s about fleeing a situation in uncontrolled panic.
Loko’s Basilisk is just Pascal’s wager.
Cross out God and write “Evil all powerful AI” and then change the “believe/don’t believe” to “help/don’t help”.
It’s not even interesting as a question.
There is an interesting experiment in this space, and it is “What happens if you were to enumerate fully the space of all such wagers, constructed as iterated, infinite Prisoner’s Dilemmas?”
What is the long-term equilibrium and strategy?
This research has been performed and the results were interesting and relevant.