Comment by rm_-rf_slash | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rm_-rf_slash | Hacker News Reader

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I only fear for the future of humanity in the presence of AI when I see how poorly humans treat each other. We design machines in our own image to solve the problems familiar to us; a manufactured brain is the fullest extent of this process.

If we as a society develop tools to remove people from production and leave them at the mercy of the modern jungle then the machines designed to do this will follow this path as well.

If we design machines to accomidate the needs of a large global population without regards to age, race, religion, productivity, or other factors that have historically been used to separate the "us" from the "them," then the machines will continue to solve the problems we designed them for.

We could, as a species, unanimously abandon all AI tomorrow, Dune-style, and the problems and paths of history would largely be the same. The strong will do as they please and the weak will suffer as they must.

We just need to be better to each other.

> We just need to be better to each other.

I believe that the fundamental problems of our time are ethical, not technological. If we can figure that part out, the technology should take care of itself.

I would love to live in a post-scarcity utopia where we all run around self-actualizing. I don't think we need to give up AI to get there -- in fact, I think technology will be the key that unlocks the gate.

But we have to have the wisdom to pass through it with style and bring as many people as we can on the way. Otherwise we might find ourselves fighting for our place in line and possibly even annihilate ourselves in the process.

"We just need to be better to each other."

Yes, that is the answer. Sadly it seems unlikely since throughout history a large portion of the population remain cruel and uncaring. Many thousands of technologist in the US are involved in making the weapons and targeting systems that are killing people across the globe. Seems unlikely they are going to wake up and decide to treat others better.

agreed. my worry is that even if people decide to ethically develop AI, there will be those who disagree with those ethics and/or willingly ignore their conscience. I don't see a way out short of a political revolution / bloodshed.

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