Thread

1. dzink · 1791065932 · focus · HN ↗

   A huge chunk of humans are sedated with infinite supply of cortex-disabling short form video and games.

   Another huge chunk are too distracted by having to scrape by for a living and work multiple jobs or raise kids and survive financially until exhausted. That second group will keep increasing as the first flows into it.

   The rest are aging, disabled, or too young and pegging themselves majorly in the first category until they hit the second.

   The people aware enough to hold on to their brain and do something with it in their time available are trying to figure out AI and how to make money with it. The variable rewards of promoting AI are turning into an addiction with some of them, especially if grasping for straws with little inherent insights into the problems prompted.

   So if you are able to fly above the AI-generated addictions and have the privilege of time to do it, see what you can do.

   1. lukifer · 1791068181 · focus · HN ↗

      One of the dilemmas of trying to communicate the full spectrum of AI Risk, is trying not to insult the intelligence of the human animal in the process. And don't get me wrong: what human wetware can accomplish with 20 watts is the most miraculous thing in the known universe. And yet how many of us can have our cognitive sovereignty one-shotted by engagement algos, Skinner boxes, gameplay loops, propaganda, advertising, flattery, social conformity, bias, fantasy, charismatic demagoguery, or straight-up bullshit?

      If we grant that we are on track to make something smarter than humans (I think so): it's almost a face-saving white lie to spin yarns about a Skynet nuclear apocalypse, or a 7D chess move to mass-assemble a nanovirus with 100% lethality without anybody noticing. I do think those scenarios are worth taking seriously; but what's harder to communicate, is just how effectively a superhuman AI (or a diverse ecology of agent swarms) might be able to manipulate human behavior. It's something few of us are able or willing to truly process (not least because how many of us live in denial of how much our nervous systems are already hacked by technomodernity).

      The appropriate analogy for what's to come may look less like the anthill carelessly demolished to make room for a highway, than the domesticated worker ants from Tchaikovsky's "Children of Time".

      1. Lerc · 1791069186 · focus · HN ↗

         >trying not to insult the intelligence of the human animal in the process

         I don't think it is insulting the intelligence. It's damaging the pride.

         In Pale Blue Dot, Carl Sagan describes it as a repeating phenomenon in human history. A lot of people want humans to be the special ones, and will fight any suggestion that we are just a natural part of the universe.

         1. ACCount39 · 1791069850 · focus · HN ↗

            A lot of "AI denial" we see is rooted in the same impulse.

            If AI is not "actually intelligent", then humans can stay unique and special.

            And if it is? If all "intelligence" ever was could be captured by a construct of matrix math and executed by a server rack? Then what is it that humans still have left that would make them stand out?

            1. latexr · 1791108052 · focus · HN ↗

               Here’s another perspective for you, which is shared by a significantly larger number of people than you seem to realise:

               Humans aren’t special. Other animals are intelligent and interesting too. A machine could be intelligent. LLMs aren’t.

               In other words, believing in human exceptionalism is not a prerequisite to understand the current crop of AI is not the end all be all of its hype. It is supremely common that AI proponents do not understand that, however. Like hardcore cryptocurrency fans who believe anyone who doesn’t like them is “just jealous they didn’t make bank”, too many hardcore AI proponents believe anyone who doesn’t think LLMs are intelligent is jealous of humans no longer being unique, or afraid for their jobs, or whatever. In both cases it’s obvious that what those proponents lack is empathy, the ability to understand not everyone has the same selfish thoughts they do.

               1. arw0n · 1791113215 · focus · HN ↗

                  The interesting question then becomes what is missing from LLMs that we and supposedly other possible machines have? I've yet to come across a reasonable definition of intelligence that the current crop of LLMs is clearly incapable of.

                  1. latexr · 1791114254 · focus · HN ↗

                     > The interesting question then becomes what is missing from LLMs that we and supposedly other possible machines have?

                     I think we need to start by asking a better question and not try to simplify too much. We also need to accept that some answers are complex and not everything can be reduced to a soundbite to be used to end internet discussions.

                     Let’s take a different question, like “what’s missing from a worm for it to be able to fly”. We might be drawn to the simple answer of “wings” but that isn’t quite right—ostriches and penguins have wings and they don’t fly, so obviously there are other variables at play.

                     How about “what’s missing from a spec of dust for it to be intelligent”. Well, there isn’t one thing missing and there’s no simple thing we can just add to make a spec of dust intelligent and sentient, its very nature needs to be radically different.

                     1. lukifer · 1791140062 · focus · HN ↗

                        Flight is a testable characteristic (at least within certain bounds: a chicken can only fly a little, but it certainly flies more than a worm or a penguin).

                        What test would you propose where an LLM (or an RL agent containing an LLM) would reliably fail, but where an average human would reliably succeed?

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