Re:Artificial general intelligence is here, and it's useless
by coldtea on Thursday May 23, 2019 @09:06AM
(#19991322)
>For me the obvious has always been why would we never be able to just hit the off button on it?
For one, because it can be progressively all the more entwined to daily, economy, etc, to be able to easily "turn off" when we want it.
We might consider Facebook, cars, fossil fuels, etc harmful, but it's not easy to "turn them off", even if many people would wish so. Some people and private interests will be invested in preserving them, alternatives might not be available for the good parts of what they do, and so on. At best, it can take years to get off of them totally, after we take the initial decision.
Second, re a general purpose AI, if we make them able to walk around (e.g. in a robotic body) they could go find their own power. We don't have an "endless supply of uninterruptible power" either, but we go and get food when we need it, and you need to arrest/kill us to turn us off.
>How many other machines have we created that are impossible to turn off or have endless supply of uninterruptible power?
If you include artificial life that we created and it escaped from the lab, I'd say a lot (microbes, altered organisms where we changed various genes, etc). Those can be impossible to "turn off" if they get to nature, and some of those could have dire consequences (e.g. replace, infest, or eat into some other ecologically needed species).
For one, because it can be progressively all the more entwined to daily, economy, etc, to be able to easily "turn off" when we want it.
We might consider Facebook, cars, fossil fuels, etc harmful, but it's not easy to "turn them off", even if many people would wish so. Some people and private interests will be invested in preserving them, alternatives might not be available for the good parts of what they do, and so on. At best, it can take years to get off of them totally, after we take the initial decision.
Second, re a general purpose AI, if we make them able to walk around (e.g. in a robotic body) they could go find their own power. We don't have an "endless supply of uninterruptible power" either, but we go and get food when we need it, and you need to arrest/kill us to turn us off.
>How many other machines have we created that are impossible to turn off or have endless supply of uninterruptible power?
If you include artificial life that we created and it escaped from the lab, I'd say a lot (microbes, altered organisms where we changed various genes, etc). Those can be impossible to "turn off" if they get to nature, and some of those could have dire consequences (e.g. replace, infest, or eat into some other ecologically needed species).