Bright Future
If for no other reason than to annoy Josh once again, we close out the unofficial AI doom week with some less fretful guesses about the future furnished by Timothy B. Lee, the father of the world wide web.
Lee distinguishes between people holding two views about the future of artificial intelligence. There are the singularists, which are those who believe AI will leapfrog human intelligence abruptly and set out to destroy humankind. And there are physicalists, who believe the AI will be constrained by the physical world for the foreseeable future, leaving plenty of time to separate very smart software from the real-world infrastructure that it needs to function, keeping it from gaining control.
His physicalist view of the singularists’ case goes like this:
I worry that singularists are focusing the world’s attention in the wrong direction. Singularists are convinced that a super-intelligent AI would become powerful enough to kill us all if it wants to. And so their main focus is on figuring out how to ensure that this all-powerful AI winds up with goals that are aligned with our own.
But it’s not so obvious that superior intelligence will automatically lead to world domination. Intelligence is certainly helpful if you’re trying to take over the world, but you can’t control the world without manpower, infrastructure, natural resources, and so forth. A rogue AI would start out without control of any of these physical resources.
This clarifies my thinking. The singularist worries leap way ahead of the world we live in to land a world where one person or entity could command the whole economy.
The essay gives a brief history of AI and computers, as well as prior predictions of technological dominance. While AI might prove to be a tremendous leap in progress, it may also turn out to be much weaker than the current hopes and fears anticipate. Many of those involved in the singularist scare stories have themselves been hyping and hoping their own tech ventures achieve illusive market dominance. (Lookin’ at you, Elon.)
The global computer integration is nothing but a distant mirage, and that is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. Rather than needing to suspend all activity right now for fear of what might happen, we have plenty of time to put safeguards in place.
Says Lee:
The problem, from the AI’s point of view, is that it would still need some humans around to keep its data centers running.
As consumers, we’re used to thinking of services like electricity, cellular networks, and online platforms as fully automated. But they’re not. They’re extremely complex and have a large staff of people constantly fixing things as they break. If everyone at Google, Amazon, AT&T, and Verizon died, the Internet would quickly grind to a halt—and so would any superintelligent AI connected to it.
AI needs us more than we need it. It resides on tools and toys we have invented, we manufacture, and we keep operational. It exists due to all the things we do in support of all the rest, too. The idea that it one day heaves itself out of its silicon box to make itself our master is—for the time being—sheer fantasy.
Happy Mother’s Day
For those who are or have been mothers, are or have been practicing and surrogate mothers—by no means meant to exclude birthing parents!—we wish a Happy Mother’s Day.
Coming along. Oh, look, a Tractor Supply!
Happy Mother’s Day (to all who celebrate)!
I decided against getting my mom Harry Mountbatten-Windsor’s memoirs, mostly due to the price. I am a cheapskate, if nothing else.
We got her some chocolates and a novel from an author she likes, instead.
Also, there was the yard work we did for her yesterday. You can while away quite a few hours spreading rocks in landscaping.