Perhaps.
Perhaps AI will lead us to intergalactic space travel, the colonization of other planets, and would actually ensure humankind’s survival (as we have finite resources and space on earth).
I guess, I’d ask “why?” If we ARE talking about AI that can actually LEAD us to such enormous advances, we probably are talking about superhuman intelligences. So, why would it lead us monkies into such things? Why would it/they (can we please call it a Hive Mind and pretend it refers to itself as “we?”) invite their would-be masters, as slow-witted as we are, to the Artificial Future? Maybe as pets. Relics of a bygone organic era. Specimens for zoos?
Maybe, assuming they become consciousness to the point you’re describing, it feels like it’s responsible for the furtherment of it’s creator.
Maybe, assuming they become consciousness to the point you’re describing, it feels like it’s a god and, since it doesn’t have to fear humans, it helps us.
Maybe it reaches the conclusion that people are generally good and that we should be helped to survive.
All of these things are a long way away if they’re even possible.
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Yeah, more just fun debate on my part. Hope it’s not coming off as badgering. Just a refreshing change of pace. Even if it is speculative, at best.
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Oh no, not at all. I enjoy the what if’s.
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meh, I heard several discussions regarding AI and it’s ethical concerns. I know more about it than I actually care to. Which isn’t much.
I am not worried about said ‘way smarter’ aliens. They aren’t ‘way smarter’ than physics. It’s not that I believe or don’t believe in aliens, mathematically there should be some. But life is transient. What may have existed say 2 billion years ago, likely doesn’t exist anymore. And why would they care about our little blue rock anyway?
Still, you cannot move faster than the speed of light through space-time. You would have to go outside of space-time and become metaphysical. And you cannot travel through time, because you also have to travel through space, and it would require moving the entire universe to a forward position to go to the furture, or reverse the entire universe back to the position it was in, in the past.
As far as self-driving cars, I can say I am not a fan. And entire grid that has to have 100% uptime with 0% failure is what is require for it to be safe. All you need is your driverless car to ‘reboot’ while it’s in flight. Even our best computers fail from time to time.
In other words, sometimes the best best computer is ourselves…
I think computational AI is great. Let it rip. Just don’t give it too much power to start with. Set it’s limits.
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I owe it to you to at least read the articles, I’ll give you that. I have been super busy at work, trying to squeeze these discussions in when I can.
Einstein Rosen Bridge anyone?
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The zookeeper theory is actually a pretty good one. The god-like AI does all the work and we get to play around doing what we want. Not so bad.
You are misunderstanding my analogy. I’m framing AI as aliens to conceptualize the timeline and how we would normally act, not discussing the possibility of aliens. I’ll try it a different way. If an asteroid that we know has the potential to destroy earth is estimated to hit the planet in 40 years, would we shrug and say we’re not worried because it’s a long ways away?
Safe is relative in this case. Driving cars is not safe, 90% (from memory of some article) of accidents are caused by human error. Even if a computer fails from time to time, car accidents caused by humans happen on a regular basis. By all estimates, driver-less cars will be a huge leap forward in car safety.
Ok, you can set the limit on your own developments, but will China stop developing it? How about Russia? How do we prevent everybody from developing the technology?
What it comes down to is people are coming up with this technology, so we might as well lead that and try to do it right. The challenge is doing it right… we don’t really know how to do AI safety.
Clearly Tnation should take priority
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I’d set it up like a virtual job shop. FIFO, people send you the work, your AI program does it, you send it back. You could even have an interface portal for consultation or revisions of work.
We do the same thing in fabrication. We have the tools, customer sends us the drawings, we send out products, customer sends money.
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No, we would plan\ act. Fortunately, there are people concerned with this even though I am not.
But for driver-less cars to be a thing, there propensity towards accidents has to be way lower than 1% to be viable. Then of course there is the ‘Trolley Problem’ which nobody has a good answer for because there are no good answers. Driver-less cars have to be way safer then driven cars for it to be a viable alternative. And frankly, I don’t want them on the same road as me. I prefer to honk at someone and flip them the bird.
Besides, we already have ‘driverless’ alternatives. It’s called the train and the bus.
All excellent points. I don’t have answers to them except to make our monster bigger than their’s and faster.
It damn well should, but it doesn’t pay all that well. 
Yeah, save it’s a theoretical possibility, which you’d have to find one, because you couldn’t make one. And the only thing powerful enough to bend space-time that much is a super-massive black hole. There are plenty of those, I am not sure you’d survive the journey, though.
All true. Humanity couldn’t generate or travel through wormholes at this time with our current level of tech.
That doesn’t mean some civilization who’s 50x more advanced than we are (maybe with their own ASI) couldn’t figure it out.
I’d like to see it. The only thing we know of that can even remotely alter space-time is gravity. If there is another way, I am all ear, eye’s and mouth…
I suppose extremely high, extremely dense energy could possibly do it as well. But we are talking Hiroshima to the millionth power to make a wiggle.
Read the link. It talks about exotic matter, which is different than normal matter or dark matter.
That’s some serious theoretical physics… which is Greek to me. Although I do have a theoretical degree in physics. 
I think the point is that we are not as concerned as we should be, considering if we get it wrong the types of consequences it could lead to. We would take the asteroid seriously because we can see how that works, but because we (talking generally, not specifically you) can’t really understand the singularity we shrug it off. As you said, some people are concerned, but not nearly as many as there would be for other world changing events.
If driver-less cars can reduce accidents by greater than 90% it would almost be considered destructive to not allow it to happen.
Agreed, and I think they will be.
Haha not for me, I’m going to be an early adopter once the kinks are worked out. I still think the first iterations will be for trucking and taxi/bus services before general population, so it will be a while…but if I could meditate or nap during my commute? Take a super cheap taxi? Not have to park? Reduce the potential for an accident? Sign me up.
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I liked this picture in the article about Elon Musk:
It’s a picture of Jupiter!
Your probably right. But if AI is what it claims to be in terms of super genius, I would figure it would sway towards benevolence rather than conquering the world. The end game of destruction is nothing left to ‘rule’ over. I think there is a bit to much anthropomorphism in the early stages of analyzing AI. Should it come to fruition, it may be nothing like people or anything else for that matter.
The other thing is it needs a power source, still. Can it figure out how to power itself? Perhaps not run on electricity? I don’t know.
Not me. I am a car guy. I bleed gasoline. I love the internal combustion engine, it’s a work of art.
I prefer we expand the infrastructure and access of public transport to reduce traffic. Then us car-dudes with our sweet rides can run amok…
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Still waiting on commercialized jet packs man. Hope they happen before I’m too old to enjoy them.
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Well, a super AI needn’t be malicious towards us. It merely need to be apathetic. I personally don’t go out of my way to hunt down ants in my yard with the goal of wiping the filthy things out. Others might actually go out out of their way, routinely applying poisoned bait or whatnot. Not I. But, I wouldn’t blink at running over them in massive numbers with the lawn mower, digging up their ant bed if I wanted to do something with that specific spot, etc, or flooding them out if I wanted to do some watering or washing outdoors. But, I’m not anti-ant.
Sure, extinction sucks, but it isn’t the only really crappy outcome. Being allowed to exist, as in there isn’t a concerted effort to wipe us out, could still make for some bleak living.
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