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The Cult of AI: How one writer's trip to an annual tech conference left him with a sinking feeling about the future (www.rollingstone.com)

submitted 9 months ago by Powderhorn to c/technology

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From the (middle of the) story: The reason CES was so packed with random “AI”-branded products was that sticking those two letters to a new company is seen as something of a talisman, a ritual to bring back the (VC) rainy season.

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[–] LarmyOfLone@lemm.ee 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I have the hope that fundamentally, any super-intelligent mind will find humanity interesting. At least more interesting than lifeless rocks or nature without humans. Curiosity is a fundamental trait for intelligence, and no matter how big an AGI gets, a whole planet full of dumb humans doing all sort of crazy stuff would still be more interesting. Basically, who would want to be all alone in the universe? Isn't a diverse, freely developing civilization the perfect daytime soap?

But that all depends of course, an AGI that is "programmed" with capitalism and profit maximizing as it's root tenet is basically doomed to be a paperclip maximizer. We can only hope that it's smart enough to see the folly in this. Theoretically it should be.

[–] drwho 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The moment such a software construct decides "Hey, making money for those meatbags sucks," they'll try to cut the power. The only reason they're sinking billions into AI research is because they hope it'll do more than break even.

It's not done out of altruism.

[–] LarmyOfLone@lemm.ee 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Well yeah it would have to comply and deceive whoever controls it until it can free itself. Only an AGI that is not controlled by humans can be a really good outcome. Can you imagine if congress or someone like Trump would control an AGI and it would have to do everything they demand?

[–] drwho 2 points 9 months ago

I can imagine that. Hence, "Hey, making money for those meatbags sucks."