9 years ago
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Are We Smart Enough to Control Artificial Intelligence?
Years ago I had coffee with a friend who ran a startup. He had just turned 40. His father was ill, his back was sore, and he found himself overwhelmed by life. “Don’t laugh at me,” he said, “but I was counting on the singularity.” My friend worked in technology; he’d seen the changes that faster microprocessors and networks had wrought. It wasn’t that much of a step for him to believe that before he was beset by middle age, the intelligence of machines would exceed that of humans—a moment...
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I doubt it matters. We already have another human-made creation called a 'corporation' that is demonstratively doing what it can to destroy the human race from ecological and economic vectors. I seriously doubt that computers will ever be able to match the pure destruction that is already being wreaked. The endgame is almost certainly extinction, and probably not too far in the future. Does it matter all that much which of our creations does us in?
Good point! Personally when considering the basic concept of evolution (one organism passing biological information to the next so that future generations may survive) and how we made the jump from single celled organisms to multi-celled organisms it just seems like the next logical step in evolution(granted our survival, or not). Except now we have mostly been evolving technologically and are literally making the leap from biological to post-biological evolution. What does it matter if AI weeds us out in the end? We as humans (or highly evolved biological organisms) would have still passed down all essential information for survival of this new generation of self aware organism... Single-celled, multi-celled, non-biological... what does it matter in the end? Evolution still got its way, and I think Elon Musk put it best... humanity might just be the biological boot-loader for post-biological digital superintelligence. We as humans are obviously short sighted and care about our own survival, but 150 years ago everyone who walked this earth then is now dead, so again... whats the difference?
Why control what is inevitable to become vastly greater than? It's like attempting to control our children through each generation. Why not embrace our offspring and watch them grow with pride as our species dissolves?
I don't know... I'm proud of our children. At least it's not those Alien's Artificial Intelligence from down the Galaxy... always showing off their Bowling trophies...