Hacker News Reader

HNHacker News

Top New Best Ask Show Jobs

Comment by ggm | Hacker News Reader

Full thread

ggm·

AGI doesn't ever have to happen for rapid deployment of AI based systems to cause harm.

Google "robodebt australia" for what happens when government uses machine derived decisions to penalise the poor.

View on HN

That point is basically what the article is about.

It can't be repeated enough apparently, because people still whine on about skymesh and "but IFF the robots wake up" when the real risk is what people believe machine derived "facts" are (I quote facts because they are highly conjectural inferences from models, and often diverge from fact pretty rapidly)

>when the real risk is what people believe machine derived "facts" are

It's hard to play out a scenario where this leads to actual human extinction.

aussie here, former dole bludger, still know people who live off the welfare system, hide their side income, and are proud of it. There was sooooo much warning for robodebt that they all made sure their taxes were clean before the first demands went out, but a few still got through. Mostly accurate, but a few dodgy ones too. Of course, as we know, it was a dragnet and the human suffering produced was excessive. Considering the depth of the corruption, it was clear the system was incapable of correcting itself, so what else is there to do? How do you get help to the people with real need when there's so many people cheating? Robodebt was big hammer approach.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com