Disaster is still better than AI | Hacker News Reader

Disaster is still better than AI

jasonpolak.substack.com

14 pointsbemtevi13 comments

I don’t think “human beings should burn themselves to learn.” Yes, we learn from mistakes and failures, and I think we have already seen how technology developments have their risks pegged to them.

I also think that in the grand scheme of things, we have “burned our hands” plenty of times and we still don’t seem to care because “the benefits outweigh the risks.”

Also, I like David Friedberg’s argument where he says that you can do as much as you can to slow it down, but it’s already too late because of the amount of open source models available. I think a fair comparison could be the black market. You can do as much as you want against it: regulate it, slow it down, etc… it will be there and there will be demand for it.

I admire Jeffrey, but saying that we’d be better off without having invented the technology is an easy and clickbait thing to say. Just like saying we’d be better off without drugs, factory farming, cars, etc… you can say this about many many things.

I think that what’s important is seeing the writing on the wall, acknowledge that both really good things can happen as much as really bad things and ensure humanity as a whole does not suffer the consequences. Unfortunately, history has demonstrated that’s never the case and us mere mortals are the ones that will suffer the consequences.

> I also think that in the grand scheme of things, we have “burned our hands” plenty of times and we still don’t seem to care because “the benefits outweigh the risks.”

Not really. Most of the wealthy, who make the decisions, have not been burned. With climate change, the rich insulate themselves by moving or with AC. I also never suggested we burn ourselves. I suggest that it would be better if we were burned, rather than continue down the current path of reckless innovation.

>I also think that in the grand scheme of things, we have “burned our hands” plenty of times and we still don’t seem to care because “the benefits outweigh the risks.”

I think in general it’s because we’re basically born the most inept animal on the planet. Everything has to be taught/learnt again, so we do eventually learn from the burnt hand but we all have to burn our hands first. And there’s always going to be a fresh set of hands next year that haven’t been burnt.

It’s weird…

It just feels like not even getting too close to the sun helps.

I think of COVID and gain of function research. We got pretty close to the sun there but I’m sure we’re just going to continue fucking around and finding out.

Because at the end, there’s going to be profit to be made out of it.

> Unfortunately, that’s the only thing human beings will respond to: immediate pain. That’s the only reason why people don’t want to give up AI: because it’s integrated into our financial system right now and integrated into our lives right now, and giving it up would be a more immediate discomfort than the long-term consequences.

If you’re not capable of seeing any real benefit to AI, when most of the rest of the world is, are you really making a rational argument or are you reacting emotionally?

Benefit depends on preference. There is no universal utility. If your value is that nature should be preserved over economic development, then you'll likely see AI as a detriment, whereas if your only value is innovation, then you'll likely see it as a positive. People who believe in putting nature first will not see civilization as a benefit, similarly.

Besides, most of the world does not think AI is a benefit. In my library for instance, tehre was a general survey with hundreds of responses and over 50% of people said AI was a bad thing for the world.

Most creatives and artists think similarly.

Hinton: it might turn out we were better off without AI

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50363554

> and eventually nature is obliterated because technology pushes it out of the way.

I'd like to hear the reasoning how this follows from AI. Obviously it can't be data centers, since the water (and energy, to a lesser extent) talking points are mostly vaccine-denier level of fake news, so I assume he must be talking about technological progress in general being bad and pushing out nature?

The way I see it, AI and its potential advances in research and clean energy, might very well make life on our planet more sustainable. Take away AI - on which trajectory were we in 2020 when it came to destroying the planet and climate change? Did not look good. What did help is technological innovation in batteries and solar.

I can see being careful about AI, but with this kind of critic, I never understand what their theory of human progress is. Apparently they want it stalled somehow, because AI or not, alienation and loss of control are attributes of even the "organic" types of civilizational advancement.

Indeed, AI is part of a greater phenomenon whereby technology creates more problems that in turn requires technology to solve. In short, technological determinism. I won't explain it here because it's very well explained in David Skrbina's book "The Metaphysics of Technology" and one could consult Jaques Ellul's work for some additional details.

TL;DR Start with the conclusion that AI is bad. Then if AI is good, that's bad.

I mean is that not obvious? Nothing about AI and in particular its roll out with its domination by private for profit interests indicates it will be be anything but a humanitarian and environmental disaster.

I assumed you straw manning it.

But no, you are completely correct.

This is hilariously accurate. What a worthless read.

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