Yawn, World Remade
What dramatic new events are in store for humanity? Here we contemplate 12 possibilities and rate their likelihood of happening by 2050. … They all have the power to forever reshape how we think about ourselves and how we live our lives.
That is the June Scientific American, which doesn’t seem to realize that one of their 12 possibilities matters far more than the rest. They assign a greater than 50% chance to advanced AI by 2050!
LIKELY: machine-selfawareness
What happens when robots start calling the shots?
Artificial-intelligence (AI) researchers have no doubt that the development of highly intelligent computers and robots that can self-replicate, teach themselves and adapt to different conditions will change the world. … Computers with adaptable and advanced hardware and software might someday become self-aware. … When machine self-awareness first occurs, it will be followed by self-improvement. … Improvements would be made in subsequent generations, which, for machines can pass in only a few hours. In other words, Wright notes, self-awareness leads to self-replication leads to better machines made without humans involved. “Personally, i’ve always been more scared of this scenario than a lot of others” in regard to the fate of humanity, he says. … Not everyone is so pessimistic. … This emergence of more intelligent AI won’t come on “like an alien invasion of machines to replace us,” agrees futurist and prominent author Ray Kurzweil. Machines, he says, will follow a path that mirrors the evolution of humans. Ultimately, however, self-aware, self-improving machines will evolve beyond humans’ ability to control or even understand them, he adds.
The other eleven possibilities:
cloning of a human (likely), extra dimensions (50-50), extraterrestrial intelligence (unlikely), nuclear exchange (unlikely), creation of life (almost certain), room-temperature superconductors (50-50), polar meltdown (likely), pacific earthquake (almost certain), fusion energy (very unlikely), asteroid collision (unlikely), deadly pandemic (50-50).
Scientific American seems unaware that the AI possibility’s expected effects far outweigh all the rest. If accurate, this one forecast deserves vastly more attention than a 700 word comment. If they really took it seriously, they might devote an entire issue to the subject, or perhaps even their entire future magazine. Either they don’t really believe their >50% number, they don’t understand its enormous civilization-remaking consequences, or they (and their readers) don’t find such vast consequences several decades hence of much interest. Which is it?
I don't think that AI is an existential risk. It is going to be more of a golden opportunity. For some not for all.
Given that most people oppose AI on various basis (religious, economic) chances are it will be implemented in a small group, and very few people will get to benefit from it. Wealthy people would probably be the first to use it.
This isn't a regular technology and it will not go first to the rich and then to everybody else, like it happened with the phones or computers in a couple of decades. This is where Kurzweil is wrong.
Can someone imagine the dynamics of a group that has access to AI for 20-30 years?
I doubt that after 20 or 30 years, heck even after 10 years, they would need any money so the assumption that it will be shared with the rest of the world for financial reasons doesn't seem founded.
So I am trying to save and figure what would be the cost of entry in this club.
Any thoughts on that?
Joshua: you don't even need an intelligence explosion for AI to be cataclysmic. Just digital human-level intelligence is enough - no need to invoke either strong or weak superintelligence.
Imagine a human-level AI running on $100,000 a year of hardware, and imagine Moore's law has completely shutdown. You copy the premier patent law attorney, the premier oncologist, etc. Suddenly, those markets go from their current oligarchies to perfectly competitive winner-take-all markets reminiscent of FLOSS. (Why settle for an expensive inferior human, or Lawyer 1.2 when you can buy/rent Lawyer 2.0?)
And this can apply to most, if not all, of the white-collar professions. Even surgeons have been preparing their replacements with tele-surgery robots.
So, the blue-collar laborers get squeezed from below by machines, white-collar workers get squeezed from above by copies of the #1 in their profession, and that leaves not very much left. It may be a net win for humanity, but the 'crack of a future dawn' scenario will still be very painful for very many.
(As far as SA goes; I go with the dishonest-forecast and ignorance explanations. I'm not too sure what one could do in the crack scenario, though - buy equities? Try to change careers to something status-related that forbids copying?)