Artificial intelligence: doom or survival?

[Frost]

You make it sound like that is a daily occurrence in the US? In the UK being attacked in your home is considered rare. Maybe that is because we use police for policing and not old ladies with guns.
Oh and just because what you say is nonsense doesn't mean I agree with Jan Sand. I think gun control is actually quite complex. Licencing seems to work for cars (up to a point of course), I wonder if more of that kind of thing could be implemented. Not saying that is a solution, just a thought really.

Yeah, it is a daily occurrence. A 2010 report from the Department of Justice puts the figures as follows:

An estimated 3.7 million household burglaries occurred each year on average from 2003 to 2007. In about 28% of these burglaries, a household member was present during the burglary. In 7% of all household burglaries, a household member experienced some form of violent victimization.

That means on average, there are 1.3 million burglaries per year in which a household member was present during the burglary. That is 2,838 per day. Yes, that is a daily occurrence.

This also means that there are 259,000 violent victimizations that occur as a result, which is 709 per day on average.

Perhaps they should tell the burglar to wait while they call the cops to respond? They can wait around for the average response time of 11-18 minutes (depending on the source) in the U.S. so that they can have the police protect them.

[Londoner]

However, while this is very important, the primary reason for the Second Amendment in the U.S. is so that citizens can have guns to shoot at the government when it becomes tyrannical.

And yet if a citizen contemplates or actually kills politicians or policemen they seem to get treated harshly!

Surely, if the Constitution says it is permissible - in fact a duty - to kill the authorities if you consider them tyrannical, that ought to be a defence at any trial. If you can convince the jury you were acting as the result of an honestly held opinion, that should get you off.

Otherwise, surely all those laws that discourage gun owning citizens from exercising their constitutional right to shoot representatives of the government are unconstitutional?

[Frost]

And yet if a citizen contemplates or actually kills politicians or policemen they seem to get treated harshly!

Surely, if the Constitution says it is permissible - in fact a duty - to kill the authorities if you consider them tyrannical, that ought to be a defence at any trial. If you can convince the jury you were acting as the result of an honestly held opinion, that should get you off.

Otherwise, surely all those laws that discourage gun owning citizens from exercising their constitutional right to shoot representatives of the government are unconstitutional?

The Constitution does not say this, but the Declaration of Independence implies this which is the law of the land:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

This essentially falls under the 9th Amendment:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

This is not a license to murder. It is a right to be able to defend oneself and for the people to abolish their government using force if necessary. Guns are necessary for this. I bet the people of Venezuela wish they had guns right now…

[Eduk]

So just to be clear Frost. What you are saying is that you live in a country full of lawless immorality and that most developed countries are clearly morally superior.

[Sy Borg]

Personally, I am gobsmacked that people would want to debate something as grindingly dull as the US's self-destructive gun laws rather than AI. The latter is a far more exciting and interesting way to destroy a human society IMO, even if the former method is tried and true.

Please post gun debates to the relevant threads. Thank you.

[Frost]

Personally, I am gobsmacked that people would want to debate something as grindingly dull as the US's self-destructive gun laws rather than AI. The latter is a far more exciting and interesting way to destroy a human society IMO, even if the former method is tried and true.

Please post gun debates to the relevant threads. Thank you.

You're right about keeping on topic. Jan Sand's point was a good one, although I took it off on a tangent. Google's partnering with the U.S. government to apply AI to drone strikes is something that is deeply concerning. It's not clear what the extent of this is, and it is likely top secret, but one wonders to what extent algorithms may be deciding who lives and who dies.

[Sy Borg]

Yes Frost, Jan's point back then was that AI, like any other powerful technology throughout history, will be used to destroy as well as create. He used guns as an example and nature took its course, given the "gravitational pull" of current controversies.

Given that control technologies are believed to be behind reduced violent crime in the west over the past couple of decades, perhaps it could be said that AI is already looking after humans to some extent? Perhaps VIKI is closer than we thought?

[Eduk]

I actually think will smith should have allowed the robots to finish rounding us up. It would have been for our own good as they were programmed not to harm humans. They had clearly thought through the whole happy pig problem and come to a solution.

[Sy Borg]

If VIKI was smart enough to control a fleet of AI "she" should have been smart enough to know that the west, and the US in particular, is the wrong place to start implementing total control. She should have started with places like North Korea and China, who respect total state control or even Russia now that it's decided to become a one politician state with an emerging weird cult of personality surrounding Vlad.

In China there would be no pitchfork wielding mobs in the streets at a machine uprising. They would assume it was backed by the state and almost all would all just quietly go home and await instructions.

Still, there is no need for an uprising. AI has no emotions and is in no rush for anything to happen. It's just that people keeping making machines ever more flexible and useful. It wasn't much noticed how people's physical capacities reduced as they became ever more dependent upon machines. Now we are increasingly like ants - no longer viable organisms when away from the colony. We won't much notice our replacement by AI either, just in terms of employment. However, as the information it produces and its corporate predictions become more accurate than those of humans, one by one humans at work will be replaced. In each instance it will be logical to shift to automation and projected savings announced with the usual backing of shareholders.

It's a beautiful example of the tragedy of the commons in action, with destruction laid down a bit more by each ostensibly constructive step.

[Eduk]

A human on their own is, and always has been, non viable.

[Sy Borg]

True, but not to today's extent. Out in rural areas, where time runs more slowly away from the city, there are remnants of the kind of rugged, versatile survivors more capable of living away from the colony. Turn back the clock and the masses were ever more capable in the wild.

You could say that humans have changed from being group animals to colonial animals. The former are vulnerable away from the group while the latter are hopeless.

I see humanity, like mitochondria, increasingly staying in their relatively safe "cells", fuelled by arrays of supply lines, no longer capable of "free swimming". Increasingly the outdoors will be polluted, dirty, crowded and dangerous and all the while greater autonomy will be achieved in homes through improved entertainment systems and home delivered goods, as if nutrients travelling down society's veins.

[Eduk]

I think you are being a bit rose tinted. I for one appreciate my vastly more comfortable, rewarding, intellectually stimulating, longer, healthier, better life.

[Sy Borg]

I think you are being a bit rose tinted. I for one appreciate my vastly more comfortable, rewarding, intellectually stimulating, longer, healthier, better life.

Since I also enjoy my vastly more comfortable, rewarding, intellectually stimulating, longer, healthier, better life, I'm not sure where we disagree.

[Count Lucanor]

Bem’s paper has multiple studies within it, which is something psychology has started to do in order to strengthen each individual publication. In addition, Bem has published a meta-analysis of 90 other experiments with similar results, so there is a high degree of replication. His statistical analysis has been confirmed by the now president of the American Statistical Association, Jessica Utts, in a published paper as well, using both frequentist and Bayesian analysis.

The whole abstract and the introductory part of Bem's paper is pure woo woo. Nonsensical claims disguised with scientific language. Anomalous processes of information? Unexplained energy transfers? The only thing unexplained is why they need explanation if they didn't happen, unless someone really took Uri Geller seriously. A 53% success hit rate is not proof of psi abilities, specially when lacking, as the researcher admits, an explanation that addresses the theoretical challenge. Observations can lead to hypothesis, but what's Bem's hypothesis? Statistical meta-analysis is insufficient. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

As a side note, interesting to see once again in psychological literature the old behavioral stimulus-response concept behind "negative" and "arousing" stimuli, based on statistical ratings and leaving outside all the particular determinations in each person.

Radin has not just published one possible hoax, but has rather published three separate papers (each with multiple studies) in the same mainstream peer-reviewed physics journal. Why don’t you read the papers and consider the philosophical impact of such results?

I won't get into Radin, as he seems to have been debunked several times. https://www.csicop.org/si/show/when_big ... upernormal The titles of his papers all reference the double slit experiment, and we know well that's where all deepak-style-quantum-nonsense starts.

[Frost]

The whole abstract and the introductory part of Bem's paper is pure woo woo. Nonsensical claims disguised with scientific language. Anomalous processes of information? Unexplained energy transfers? The only thing unexplained is why they need explanation if they didn't happen, unless someone really took Uri Geller seriously. A 53% success hit rate is not proof of psi abilities, specially when lacking, as the researcher admits, an explanation that addresses the theoretical challenge. Observations can lead to hypothesis, but what's Bem's hypothesis? Statistical meta-analysis is insufficient. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

"Woo woo" is not a scientific argument. I see you are not the least bit familiar with statistics or scientific research when you say " a 53% success hit rate is not proof of psi abilities." First off, no one talks of "proof" in empirical research. Second, that 53% had a p value of 1.34 x 10^-11. Third, it had a Cohen's effect size of 0.22 which is in the standard effect sizes found in psychology research. Fourth, it had a z score of 6.66. You should let that sink in. If you're not familiar with the standards of z scores in research, a z score of 3 is usually considered an effect and 5 is considered a discovery. And that this was essentially a replication of a large number of past studies supports this all the more. If you think "Statistical meta-analysis is insufficient" then you have no clue how science is done. By the way, the claim that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" is pseudo-scientific nonsense. Please define "extra-ordinary." New effects require the same standard of evidence as anything else, but perhaps more replications.

By the way, this is the published paper of the meta-analysis of 90 previous similar experiments:

Bem, Daryl & Tressoldi, Patrizio & Rabeyron, Thomas & Duggan, Michael. (2015). Feeling the future: A meta-analysis of 90 experiments on the anomalous anticipation of random future events. F1000Research. 4. 10.12688/f1000research.7177.1.

I won't get into Radin, as he seems to have been debunked several times. https://www.csicop.org/si/show/when_big ... upernormal The titles of his papers all reference the double slit experiment, and we know well that's where all deepak-style-quantum-nonsense starts.

Well that was a scientific analysis . All too easy to just dismiss it rather than provide a legitimate analysis or a single scientific argument. I guess all those physicists that reviewed the multiple papers were too stupid to see all the flaws...which you cannot name, of course. It is scientific fact that using Deepak's name will win any argument regardless of the scientific evidence.