2 words: Fuckin’ awesome!

June is still worried about the Beaver.

Okay here are my estimates:

1: 100% but I don’t have a timeline. It’s not going as fast as the cultural hype presents it. We don’t even really understand human thinking yet, let alone how to make a computer do it. But I’m sure we’ll get there eventually.

2: Also 100%. AI doesn’t need to decide on its own to kill all humans, it could be assigned that goal by some maniac. The barrier to possessing sophisticated AI software is not nearly as high as the barrier to getting destructive nuclear weapons, biohazards, etc. Sooner or later I’m sure somebody who doesn’t think humanity should exist will try to unleash a malevolent AI.

3: At or near zero, and I only include “or near” because mistakes happen. Automated systems that could potentially destroy the human race should always include physical links to people - for example, the way actually launching a nuclear missile requires physical actions by human beings. But of course there’s always the incompetence factor - which could annihilate the human race without the help of AI.

You need not only propose a “plausible” scenario, you also need to present a reason to believe it will happen. It’s plausible that a rogue faction could infiltrate the military, gain access to launch codes and deliberately start WWIII. It’s plausible that a bio lab could create an organism that overcomes the human immune system and resists all medications. A nonzero chance of any of those happening isn’t proof that they’re inevitable, with or without AI.

Interesting! I lived in the Bay Area and those tunnels were being built when I was a kid. It’s called BART - Bay Area Rapid Transit. My wife’s dad worked on them in SF as a construction worker. When they dug up old streets he brought cobblestones home one at a time, and built a whole wall of their family room out of them.

Or how about you don’t assign me tasks and I don’t do them? Cuz I don’t remember signing up for a class.

Haven’t seen Knight and Day. Are they the same tunnels that were used in THX-1138?

I’m sarcastic because I would assign the same probability as a zombie apocalypse. At the nuts and bolts level I think they’re both technically flawed on a Hollywood fantasy level.

What does an AI apocalypse even look like to you? Computers launching nuclear missiles or what? Shutting down power grids?

Good point. To be fair they’re also celebrating a culture that was in place for quite a while before the actual war, which the war was trying to preserve.

Yes I know, the robot apocalypse people seem desperate to be afraid of is always just around the corner. Geoff Hinton, while a definite pioneer in AI, didn’t kick anything off, he was one of a large number of people working on it, and one of a small number predicting armageddon.

LOL I’m thinking of shows where they infiltrate evil headquarters. The nerdy computer whiz Asian girl with the green side ponytail goes click-click-click, and then before you could find a song on your own computer she’s like oh look, here’s the incriminating evidence that proves they’ve been dumping toxic waste into the river for 30 years!

The amount of cultural energy Americans have put into the old west cowboy era is amazing when you realize it only lasted 25 or 30 years, between the Civil War and the 1890s. All the classic westerns are set in that brief window of time. I think many people have the impression that whole generations lived and died during that era.

If you broaden it a little from job/hobby to living in the real setting of a movie, you’ll notice characters going places that make no sense at all. Like if it’s Seattle they might start a boating scene on Lake Union and ends up at Mercer Island, swinging by Alki beach on the way.

LOL or for that matter fictional characters doing ANY job. It’s like they just screw around all day having wacky misadventures and somehow the company stays in business.

Click click clickety-click… I’m in! Click click click… okay, I’ve hacked the corporate security system and unlocked all the doors, click click… here’s the floor plan.

Can you disable the cameras?

Hang on… click click… okay you’re good.

The trick is to judge things on their own merit and not on the hype around them.

Jam! How has nobody mentioned jam? Jelly, marmalade, take your pick, it’s all good.

Exactly, and as automation gradually makes profits obsolete, the wealth tax and UBI should evolve from money into a basic right to receive goods produced by the automation. Money is really just a middleman. If we eliminate scarcity we won’t need it.

Yes, we’re going to have these surveillance capabilities. Anti-AI memes and boycotts won’t stop it. The rational choice is to develop authority structures the public can trust. Instead of treating the whole concept of authority as the enemy by default, we have to figure out a way to make it trustworthy. The question is how, and I don’t have that answer but I know that’s the question. I see it as kind of analogous to how providing basic income, healthcare, etc. for everybody would cut down on crimes of survival. When people aren’t desperate they don’t do desperate things. If making laws didn’t attract money and prestige, greedy people wouldn’t be part of it but public-spirited people would.

Considering how new anonymity is for the human race, it amazes me how people treat it like a crucial element of life. Civilization mostly lacked it for thousands of years because almost everybody lived in villages or small towns - about half the people in the world still do.