AI Thinks LIke a Corporation/Death of Insects

[Arthur Fuller]

There is an old religious/philosophical question, originally from old
Jewish theology I think: if God is all-powerful, can he create something
greater than Himself? Applied to AI, this question describes what Ray
Kurzweil calls The Singularity. One has only to look at AlphaGO to see
this. The original AlphaGO soundly thumped the world's best GO player,
after having taught itself to play the game in two weeks, playing against
itself. It successor, AlphaGO Zero, played a 100-game match against its
progenitor, with a result of 100 games to zero.
One can generalize this phenomenon: an AI will design and build its own
successor, and once that happens, further growth will proceed
exponentially. Kurzweil defined The Singularity as the moment when AI
becomes smarter than its creators. Once that happens -- and I (and others)
believe it surely will, then all bets, and all considerations about our
well-being, are off.

Arthur

On Wed, Nov 28, 2018 at 5:27 AM John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think what the article makes clear is that what "we" want from AI
> doesn't matter - as far as I know nobody on the P-list is leading that
> charge, but certain people are and we shouldn't talk about the
> "progress" or "evolution" of a particular technology as if it's
> ahistorical and inevitable.
>
> A practical example: there's a lot of talk about the ethics of
> automated cars, and what their algorithms should take into account
> when deciding who dies in a crash. From all I've read/heard the
> discussion comes down to utilitarian ethics, and what would be the
> greater good in such a situation. But utilitarian ethics treats people
> as mathematical variables and is far from the only ethical model that
> could be applied, but it's the model that makes most sense from a
> programming standpoint, and perhaps the standpoint of a legal
> corporation trying to cover its posterior.
>
> Maybe the problem in AI thinking like a corporation is that
> corporations are very good at a lot of things (perpetuating their own
> survival, decentralised functioning, reorganising themselves to adapt
> to challenges, reducing individual culpability) but not so good at
> others (pretty much everything covered in the history of ethics).
> On Wed, Nov 28, 2018 at 4:08 PM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Does anyone think AI would be better with a chaos quotient?  I don't
> think so.  So Predictable Intelligence is our real goal. We want *smart*
> servants, not intelligence.  So, of course predictable AI will support
> corporate structures.
> >
> > it seems to me that AI is essentially imitative, not creative, not
> spontaneous.  It isn't really intelligent. We don't want it to talk back or
> even question us.  We won't ever tolerate that.
> >
> > David Morris
> >
> > On Tue, Nov 27, 2018 at 9:47 PM Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>
> >> Yep. Chiming in with gratitude, Rick. Thanks.
> >> My answer to the concluding question is pending, though I tend toward
> the
> >> latter proposition.
> >>
> >> On Tue, Nov 27, 2018 at 1:58 PM John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> > Thanks Rich, great read.
> >> > On Wed, Nov 28, 2018 at 3:41 AM bulb <bulb at vheissu.net> wrote:
> >> > >
> >> > > Really excellent article, thank you Rich.  Working for a company
> that is
> >> > making massive investments in AI - this puts things in perspective..
> >> > >
> >> > > -----Original Message-----
> >> > > From: Pynchon-l <pynchon-l-bounces at waste.org> On Behalf Of rich
> >> > > Sent: dinsdag 27 november 2018 15:45
> >> > > To: “pynchon-l at waste.org“ <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> >> > > Subject: AI Thinks LIke a Corporation/Death of Insects
> >> > >
> >> > > thought you guys would be interested
> >> > >
> >> > >
> >> >
> https://www.economist.com/open-future/2018/11/26/ai-thinks-like-a-corporation-and-thats-worrying
> >> > >
> >> > > like everything else these days we're dazzled by the science not
> knowing
> >> > or caring about context, origins
> >> > >
> >> > > and this
> >> > >
> >> > >
> >> >
> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/27/magazine/insect-apocalypse.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
> >> > > --
> >> > > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >> > >
> >> > > --
> >> > > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >> > --
> >> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >> >
> >> --
> >> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>


-- 
Arthur