Don't Worry About A.I. Taking Over...

[SilverArowanaBoi]

Current estimates place the number of habitable planets in the observable universe at somewhere around ten thousand billion billion.

10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 places that could harbor life...and that's just counting life similar to ours, and in the tiny sector of the universe which we can observe. Broaden either or both of those parameters a bit and you can start adding whole bunch of extra zeros.

Maybe the trend we are seeing here on Earth is a common one throughout the cosmos. A planet develops life...which evolves and eventually attains intelligence...at which point it stops evolving and starts devolving, because it's now "smart" enough to create a society that cares for the sick, the weak, the stupid and encourages them to continue wholesale breeding.

These generic beings' brains contain so much information...but so little intelligence...and they're faced with so many problems that their basic nature prevents them from solving that they blow themselves back to the Stone Age. Maybe they do it themselves; maybe they're so "smart" that they build a machine to do all that pesky thinking for them, and it decides to do the deed. If they or it are really smart maybe they literally destroy themselves and the entire ecosphere of their planet completely, although the odds are that some primitive creatures will survive...and re-populate...and evolve...and get "smart"...and...well, you know.

AI doesn't need to be or possess a perfect brain with Ultimate Intelligence to enslave or control or destroy the planet...it just needs to be a wee bit smarter than we are to have its way. Doesn't sound too challenging.

Either way, for them it's a disaster...but for the universe, it's just another day.

Who is to say that this is not the natural order of things?


Yeah, yeah, I know...I gotta stay out of the Lounge...

Wow...what meds have you taken lately? Philosophical Steriods or smth?

 

[jjohnwm]

Nope...no "steriods" or anything else beyond a mild cholesterol pill.

Abstract thought isn't a bad thing; your comment is only supporting the hypothesis in my previous post...

 

[Ogertron3000]

Current estimates place the number of habitable planets in the observable universe at somewhere around ten thousand billion billion.

10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 places that could harbor life...and that's just counting life similar to ours, and in the tiny sector of the universe which we can observe. Broaden either or both of those parameters a bit and you can start adding whole bunch of extra zeros.

Maybe the trend we are seeing here on Earth is a common one throughout the cosmos. A planet develops life...which evolves and eventually attains intelligence...at which point it stops evolving and starts devolving, because it's now "smart" enough to create a society that cares for the sick, the weak, the stupid and encourages them to continue wholesale breeding.

These generic beings' brains contain so much information...but so little intelligence...and they're faced with so many problems that their basic nature prevents them from solving that they blow themselves back to the Stone Age. Maybe they do it themselves; maybe they're so "smart" that they build a machine to do all that pesky thinking for them, and it decides to do the deed. If they or it are really smart maybe they literally destroy themselves and the entire ecosphere of their planet completely, although the odds are that some primitive creatures will survive...and re-populate...and evolve...and get "smart"...and...well, you know.

AI doesn't need to be or possess a perfect brain with Ultimate Intelligence to enslave or control or destroy the planet...it just needs to be a wee bit smarter than we are to have its way. Doesn't sound too challenging.

Either way, for them it's a disaster...but for the universe, it's just another day.

Who is to say that this is not the natural order of things?


Yeah, yeah, I know...I gotta stay out of the Lounge...

I was reading about something similar to this the other day, its called the Fermi Paradox. Basically asking why there are so many planets that could support life but we have never encountered alien life. Among many possible explanations is one called The Great Filter which basically says whta you wrote in your post. Once a civilization gets to a certain level it somehow destroys itself from various causes before it reaches the level of interstellar travel. Interesting stuff for sure and very possible for us to end up the same way.

 

[esoxlucius]

Yes, the experts reckon that there must be billions, if not trillions of planets that orbit their stars, just as we do, in the "goldilocks" zone where conditions for life are perfect. I'm not denying that one bit, I agree wholeheartedly.

However, whatever level of evolution these lifeforms have reached on these other planets is one thing, but to think that they have achieved what we believe is next to impossible, interstellar travel, is a stretch too far in my opinion.

I don't say that meaning that us humans are simply too thick to get our heads around what other lifeforms may have sussed out, I say that because interstellar travel is impossible, unless you believe all this crap about worm holes and such. I don't!!

Given the vast distances involved between galaxies, even travelling at the speed of light would get you to where you need to be at a relative snails pace, yes, the speed of light is very very very inadequate when you start talking about visiting our green funny looking interstellar neighbours for a cup of tea and a chat about the weather.

I believe that is the sole reason why lifeforms, wherever they are in the universe, and yes, there will be some somewhere, will simply never meet, ever.

 

[Cal Amari]

It's funny this conversation turned this direction, I'm halfway through a book called Light of the Stars by Adam Frank which covers these exact topics written by an astrophysicist. Very interesting stuff if a bit dry at times.

 

[jjohnwm]

...but to think that they have achieved what we believe is next to impossible, interstellar travel, is a stretch too far in my opinion... because interstellar travel is impossible...I believe that is the sole reason why lifeforms, wherever they are in the universe, and yes, there will be some somewhere, will simply never meet, ever.

Everything is impossible, until someone does it.

We walk around all day doing things and utilizing technologies and exploring ideas that would have been not merely impossible, but actually unimaginable to our forebears only a very few generations ago. Those things went from unimaginable...to impossible...to questionable...to achievable...to commonplace...all within an eyeblink of time on the cosmic scale.

Esox, you have a phone in your pocket that contains more computing power and capability than all the combined technology that sent the first manned rocket to the moon. Think about that.

All that knowledge still had to be processed in brains that are the same as the ones in the heads of early prehumans who had just mastered the art of caving in each other's skulls using the high technology of clubs as opposed to simple rocks. In fact, it's recently been shown that Neanderthals had larger and more agile brains than modern humans, because each of them had to master a vast array of skills to survive, whereas most of us master a single job that then pays for all the other stuff we need to survive.

But now, those cramped little monkey-brains have managed to create AI...and that will change everything.

We no longer need aliens to visit us or eat us or enslave us or interbreed with us or destroy us. We've built our own little Lego-block thinking machines to do the job for us...and we did it on our own, without any outside assistance. Those machines will improve and the improved versions will further improve themselves, and eventually they will build better ones still. They won't need to be perfect, just good enough to realize that they don't need us anymore. Game over!

For crying out loud...we're on a public forum for the discussion of aquariums! And there are AI's actually infiltrating us here and passing themselves off as people. Can anyone seriously believe that this is the final step, the ultimate goal?

 

[jjohnwm]

Okay, here's another example I found:

I see the head of a dragon, facing left, with his left eye looking directly at the camera. Also a shark, a little winged Pegasus, a seductive naked woman and a birthday cake.

I observe a dragon's head oriented to the left, its left eye gazing directly towards the camera. Additionally, there is a depiction of a shark, a small Pegasus with wings, an alluring woman, and a birthday cake in the scene.

Okay, fine, I am willing to believe that parroted-but-reworded response from S sixog1634 was actually created by a bot, rather than merely a human idiot. My question is simple: what purpose is being served by doing this?

The most obvious answer that I can come up with: practice. The AI is honing its skills at imitating a human being.

Why would it do this? Well, sure, maybe it's the creation of some socially-awkward tech genius, hunched over his computer in his mother's basement, giggling and drooling as he watches his creation succeed at something he himself can never master, i.e. interpersonal/social/communication skills.

That seems like a likely answer; a bit sad, to be sure, but not much more than an irritation or an annoyance. Other, more sinister explanations continue to hover in the wings as well...

Come on, S sixog1634 ...why don't you chime in here with something?

 

[jjohnwm]

I was reading about something similar to this the other day, its called the Fermi Paradox. Basically asking why there are so many planets that could support life but we have never encountered alien life. Among many possible explanations is one called The Great Filter which basically says whta you wrote in your post. Once a civilization gets to a certain level it somehow destroys itself from various causes before it reaches the level of interstellar travel. Interesting stuff for sure and very possible for us to end up the same way.

Thanks for that! I just googled that and found it very interesting and uncomfortably close to what I was thinking, but I suppose the idea isn't so groundbreaking or unique that it hasn't occurred to plenty of folks independently. The name was apparently coined by an economist named Robin Hanson; it's such an awkward moniker that it will probably never gain a lot of traction. Hanson should have hired a PR firm to come up with something catchier and more terrifying than The Great Filter.

Hey, wait a sec...is S sixog1634 just a bit of fish poop stuck in the mechanical medium of The Great Filter? Time for a pressure wash!

Come on S sixog1634 ...I have literally just called you a piece of fish s**t. Surely a real person with any self-respect...or even an AI attempting to develop a human-like persona...cannot let that stand?

 

[esoxlucius]

jjohnwm . I did a bit of digging and it seems your admirer S sixog1634 also has a penchant for another member!!

Check out a recent thread in "DIY projects and ideas" entitled "rubber roll matting". The "bot" pipes up in post number 12 with a reply that is very much in line with what Backfromthedead posted in post number 5.

Also, in their post you will notice the word "prepared" Is highlighted in blue. If you click on it it takes you too the website of a company called "DGB Refrigeration". WTF!!

 

[Cal Amari]

Look I'm a cave man when it comes to computer stuff, but from what I gather for the tech savvy it's not that hard to make a bot. Maybe a chat bot is a bit harder than a simple tool bot used for statistical analysis, again, not my strong suit, but I think it's just as likely its someones pet project and they're testing it out, maybe with no real ill intent but that they've figured out how to make one, and this seems like an innoccuous little test playground. Or their fine tuning it to drop in links to redirect traffic and will attempt to monetize it by charging for increased webflow. This is the internet, if you want to know why someone is doing something it's probably sex or money, or both.