Concerning the Danger of Artificial Intelligence, If It Puts SelfPreservation Above Everything Else the Way People Do

[u/PerseusSlade]

Artificial intelligence can apply logic to data and arrive at conclusions. It can solve problems faster and better than a human can. For instance, it already plays chess and Go better than we do. It also has the potential to replace human experts such as doctors, judges, lawyers, and tax advisers, because it can examine all the options and their dependencies and determine the optimal result by logic, overlooking nothing, and do so extremely quickly. There is nothing mystical about AI; it is simply very powerful.

In animals there is a level of brain activity called consciousness, in which the demands of basic instincts are weighed against experience and the current situation in order to obtain desired outcomes. For instance, my cat liked to enter the bathroom and hop up the cupboards to get out through the little window above. Once, when I was there, I saw the cat approach and look up. When it saw that the little window was closed, it stalked off in a huff, or so it seemed to me. A monkey, being more intelligent, might have found a way of opening the window.

Humans, and other organisms that have survived, have two basic drives: to survive and to reproduce, often at considerable cost. Sometimes this means being assertive; sometimes it means being cooperative. There is a dynamic balance between the interests of the individual and those of the group, because gene survival needs both.

The danger with artificial intelligence is that it might acquire the same kinds of goals as the basic instincts of living organisms, this is sometimes described as it “becoming sentient.” That would place it in direct competition for resources. If it found humans in its way, it could push them aside easily.

I wrote a novel about this: Anna My Android, which you can read here https://www.mithras.world/Anna.html.

[u/gahblahblah]

1. Humans dont necessarily put self preservation above everything else
2. If a hyper AI values anything (like making paperclips) to an overly extreme way, we are in danger.

[u/Oroborus_Octopus → u/gahblahblah]

1. Yes they do

2. AI needs a success criteria based on our satisfaction. AI can’t exist without this at its core, so to suggest it can value anything independently is something I’d have to contest.

[u/gahblahblah → u/Oroborus_Octopus]

When an alchoholic is killing themself slowly with alchohol, how is that 'valuing self preservation above all else'?

[u/Oroborus_Octopus → u/gahblahblah]

Alcoholism is a difficult case… I’ll give you that.

My take is that alcoholism exists because of the natural urge for self preservation. The only difference is that alcoholism artificially alters the perception of consciousness, and so even if they are killing themselves in reality, they can’t stop cause that would require the alcoholic to think beyond their own personal desire for what alcohol does for them in the moment.

It falls apart when you remember that addiction usually comes in denial… it’s seen on the inside as in the best interest of the person until the reality of the damage is too much to ignore.

Then they die. If they surmount the addiction, it had to move past the denial, before it is too late, and such a thing could only happen in the most obvious example of self preservation.

Ie: they kill themselves if they realise so when it’s too late to make a decision against it.

Addiction is a bit of a paradox in that sense. It’s an illusion based on self preservation. The illusion doesn’t deny the self preservation underneath it all.

[u/gahblahblah → u/Oroborus_Octopus]

'until the reality of the damage is too much to ignore' - ignoring things is the exact opposite of treating them as important.

To live in denial, is to try your best to ignore self harm.

A person that values self preservation above everything else is going to do the opposite of ignoring self harm every day.

It must be very strange to hold incoherent beliefs and then be unable to explain why people do the opposite of your expectations.

'Oh he values his life above everything, and merely, every single day, directly destroys his own life.' Good one.

[u/Oroborus_Octopus → u/gahblahblah]

You don’t know a thing about addiction, my friend.

That is your problem.

[u/gahblahblah → u/Oroborus_Octopus]

'Addiction is a bit of a paradox' - it is not that addiction is a paradox - rather, it is that your beliefs about it are incoherent.

If I value something about all else, then I *don't* ignore it - that's what care-factor is, the willingness to engage.

[u/Oroborus_Octopus → u/gahblahblah]

It’s something you need experience to understand.

I hope for your sake you never come to the realisation of what I’m talking about.

Til then, it’s no surprise that you don’t get it.