this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2023
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Futurism
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Ditto. Although much older now, I am concerned about trying to get from our current society to one such as Star Trek. Doing this in incremental steps will be hard without major disruptions.
I suspect the Iain M Banks AI controlled post-scarcity is more attainable. Assuming the AI doesn't turn us into paperclips.
Do recall that the earth of star trek only came about after the second american civil war cascaded into the third world war, culminating with the destruction of ~1/3 of the species. π₯
Right. It is hard to get from here to there incrementally. Hopefully whatever this transition looks like is less violent than in Star Trek lore.
Here's hoping. Though the past few years have certainly chipped away at my optimism.
This dovetails into a major concern of mine β I think we need to update the legal idea of personhood before AGI appears, else any future Banksian "Mind" would be enslaved.
With modern capitalism, it's "they who own the robots, own the production". In the event that an AGI appears, and is owned, effectively we get a god emperor controlling the AGI. I agree.
However, this is a sticky one. There's already legal precedent against AI in the copyright sphere. I suspect the legal system will further entrench the rights of the owners of the AI. The best case scenario is that the legal system also entrenched the social responsibilities that come with it. Like, AI does a thing (creates hate speech, as a simple example, or hacks a computer network as a more complicated one), then the owner is fully legally responsible.
It might actually create a scenario where the owners start arguing for AI rights in order to remove their legal responsibility.
This is an interesting take! Either that or they try to dump responsibility onto the end user, like "self-driving" cars.
I try to remain ever the optimist
I'm reminded of the state of AI found in Neuromancer. Heavily regulated, air gapped, with magnetic kill switches installed.
What kind of AI generated disaster is required before they're deemed too dangerous to be allow free access to human networks?
Wish there was a one word term to describe air-gapped AIs. Gibsonian? ;)
I reckon we have AI install a dictator somewhere before we realize letting them onto social media is bad. Maybe too late haha.