Artificial intelligence: doom or survival?
-
- Posts: 51
- Joined: December 13th, 2017, 2:05 pm
Re: Artificial intelligence: doom or survival?
Maybe at the moment this can be seen as luxury (which it is) but it's still a very green concept that needs time to mature. Probably in a century this won't be considered a luxury but something of essential in everyone's daily life.
-
- Posts: 307
- Joined: August 31st, 2012, 6:21 pm
Re: Artificial intelligence: doom or survival?
I don't see any possibility of AI advancing so much as to revolt against humans.
Humans can use technology to cripple the entire world's economy and take us back to stone age, that's possible. AI... Mm, I just don't see it
- JamesOfSeattle
- Premium Member
- Posts: 509
- Joined: October 16th, 2015, 11:20 pm
- Sy Borg
- Site Admin
- Posts: 15154
- Joined: December 16th, 2013, 9:05 pm
Re: Artificial intelligence: doom or survival?
My understanding is that humans excel in context, relations. By contrast, machines excel in repetitive tasks. While it's difficult to imagine AI being autonomous without some level of human guidance for a very long time, it's also difficult to imagine them being motivated to take over. It's humans empowered by AI who appear most likely to have that kind of motivation.JamesOfSeattle wrote: ↑March 9th, 2018, 5:49 pmIm curious. What do you see as the limit of artificial intelligence? Do you think AI can be as smart as humans, but not smarter?
Motivation requires emotion and machines don't need emotions, which evolved as biological "subroutines" - packets of physical responses to strong stimuli. So, if under attack, your body produces a range of hormones and generally readies itself for vigorous action. By contrast, sadness immediately brings non threatening body language that will serve to reduce challenges or encourage support provision.
Machines don't need emotions because they can calculate options a million times more quickly than us so, rather than acting on the faith of automatic responses (tried and tested by natural selection to usually work), a machine can simply calculate and assess numerous options in less than a second and choose the one that presents the best possibility of success. It's roughly the difference between extracting something with a scalpel or slashing it off with a machete.
I suspect that the greatest threat would be mindless takeover like the paperclip maximiser thought experiment about the possibility of autonomous technologies spinning out of control, not unlike the spread of a virus.
- Count Lucanor
- Posts: 2318
- Joined: May 6th, 2017, 5:08 pm
- Favorite Philosopher: Umberto Eco
- Location: Panama
- Contact:
Re: Artificial intelligence: doom or survival?
We have survived technical advances before, no reason to think this is any different. Surely, any of the previous major breakthroughs have had the potential to put in danger the survival of human civilization. We're seeing it now with pollution, climate change, nuclear weapons, etc., but as always, these things are purely instrumental. It is ourselves that can cause our downfall.Littlemoon wrote: ↑January 2nd, 2018, 10:04 pm There is no doubt we are near the artificial intelligence Era. I do think that will be a major breakthrough when it does reach its full potential. However there are some very pressing matters, ethical and non ethical that need an answer.
My opinion is that artificial intelligence will significantly improve our life quality. We are speaking in matters of Healthcare, patient care, even daily care!
But when all of this will be too much? Will it be our ultimate downfall or will it be our survival?
Up for a discussion gents?
― Marcus Tullius Cicero
-
- Posts: 307
- Joined: August 31st, 2012, 6:21 pm
Re: Artificial intelligence: doom or survival?
I wouldn't have said it betterGreta wrote: ↑March 9th, 2018, 7:25 pmMy understanding is that humans excel in context, relations. By contrast, machines excel in repetitive tasks. While it's difficult to imagine AI being autonomous without some level of human guidance for a very long time, it's also difficult to imagine them being motivated to take over. It's humans empowered by AI who appear most likely to have that kind of motivation.JamesOfSeattle wrote: ↑March 9th, 2018, 5:49 pm
Im curious. What do you see as the limit of artificial intelligence? Do you think AI can be as smart as humans, but not smarter?
Motivation requires emotion and machines don't need emotions, which evolved as biological "subroutines" - packets of physical responses to strong stimuli. So, if under attack, your body produces a range of hormones and generally readies itself for vigorous action. By contrast, sadness immediately brings non threatening body language that will serve to reduce challenges or encourage support provision.
Machines don't need emotions because they can calculate options a million times more quickly than us so, rather than acting on the faith of automatic responses (tried and tested by natural selection to usually work), a machine can simply calculate and assess numerous options in less than a second and choose the one that presents the best possibility of success. It's roughly the difference between extracting something with a scalpel or slashing it off with a machete.
I suspect that the greatest threat would be mindless takeover like the paperclip maximiser thought experiment about the possibility of autonomous technologies spinning out of control, not unlike the spread of a virus.
- Frost
- Posts: 511
- Joined: January 20th, 2018, 2:44 pm
Re: Artificial intelligence: doom or survival?
I still have never seen a sufficient rebuttal to the Chinese Room problem. Computers can't be as smart as humans because they don't understand anything. They must become conscious in order to understand, and they are nowhere close to anything like that. This is the distinction between strong AI and weak AI that John Searle has put forward.JamesOfSeattle wrote: ↑March 9th, 2018, 5:49 pmIm curious. What do you see as the limit of artificial intelligence? Do you think AI can be as smart as humans, but not smarter?
*
In the mean time, weak AI will help us to learn a tremendous amount about many things and improve the marginal productivity of labor, ushering in tremendous economic benefit if governments do not destroy it for us.
-
- Posts: 307
- Joined: August 31st, 2012, 6:21 pm
Re: Artificial intelligence: doom or survival?
Machines calculate, humans reason. Humans' biological make-up are complex, machines are predetermined. No matter how you see a machine act, it is still just a program. No matter how random it's abilities to adapt is, it's still directed.JamesOfSeattle wrote: ↑March 9th, 2018, 5:49 pmIm curious. What do you see as the limit of artificial intelligence? Do you think AI can be as smart as humans, but not smarter?
*
They would never REASON to kill any human unless they are made so or because of a program malfunction. If the latter happens then it would be acting based on a course of action with no reason to carry on or to stop. It will never be able to decide and so can be shutdown. When you get motivated, or scared, or ambitious you develop strategies to maneuver your way out of a situation or towards accomplishing a goal. It's a biological cognitive process which machines would never have and that's their limitation that would make it highly improbable that they could revolt.
AI can be faster than humans (in calculating possibilities), not smarter
I don't know if that makes sense
-
- Posts: 2466
- Joined: December 8th, 2016, 7:08 am
- Favorite Philosopher: Socrates
Re: Artificial intelligence: doom or survival?
We do not know the mechanism.
Likewise to know that AI can exceed human intelligence we would need to know the same mechanism.
Let me repeat myself, we do not know.
On the face of it however it merely seems like a question of time. Just how long a time is unknown.
- Frost
- Posts: 511
- Joined: January 20th, 2018, 2:44 pm
Re: Artificial intelligence: doom or survival?
The point is that AI doesn't know anything. It's a philosophical point, not an empirical one. That's the heart of the Chinese Room problem. The point is entirely independent of the mechanism of consciousness.Eduk wrote: ↑March 10th, 2018, 8:53 pm To 'know' that AI can not exceed conscious human reason we would need to know the mechanism of consciousness.
We do not know the mechanism.
Likewise to know that AI can exceed human intelligence we would need to know the same mechanism.
Let me repeat myself, we do not know.
On the face of it however it merely seems like a question of time. Just how long a time is unknown.
See: Searle, John R. (1980) “Minds, Brains and Programs.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 3: 417–57.
-
- Posts: 658
- Joined: September 10th, 2017, 11:57 am
Re: Artificial intelligence: doom or survival?
-
- Posts: 2466
- Joined: December 8th, 2016, 7:08 am
- Favorite Philosopher: Socrates
Re: Artificial intelligence: doom or survival?
Why do so many people struggle so much with not knowing. It's ok not to know things Frost.
-
- Posts: 658
- Joined: September 10th, 2017, 11:57 am
Re: Artificial intelligence: doom or survival?
- Frost
- Posts: 511
- Joined: January 20th, 2018, 2:44 pm
Re: Artificial intelligence: doom or survival?
Humans have experience and computers do not which is a necessary precondition for knowledge and understanding. Computers operate using algorithmic effective procedures and there is no way to get from the semantics of this symbol manipulation to semantics. It is a logical point and it has nothing to do with being constrained by physical forces. If you can make a computer conscious, then yes, it will be able to have knowledge and understand, and this does require understanding the mechanisms of consciousness. But with no consciousness, there is no knowledge or understanding.
-
- Posts: 658
- Joined: September 10th, 2017, 11:57 am
Re: Artificial intelligence: doom or survival?
2024 Philosophy Books of the Month
2023 Philosophy Books of the Month
Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless: Wisdom Behind the Incomparable Chicken Soup for the Soul
by Mitzi Perdue
February 2023
Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature: How Civilization Destroys Happiness
by Chet Shupe
March 2023