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Getting out of the AI-Box
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Simon Laub
Dec 29, 2019, 12:57:03 PM12/29/19
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AI Box Experiments:
====================
Imagine it is 2060. After years of research
the worlds first Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is finally here.
It is roughly as intelligent as a human being. The AGI has
access to its own source code, so it starts to make improvements on itself.
Relatively quickly, this leads to it becoming an Artificial
Superintelligence (ASI).
Not entirely sure whether this is good or bad, humans have
placed the AI in a prison, a socalled AI box, as a precaution, where it
is not allowed to directly manipulate events in the external world.
So, now everything is fine?
Well, probably not, according to Eliezer S. Yudkowsky, who writes:
http://yudkowsky.net/singularity/aibox/
Person1: "When we build AI, why not just keep it in sealed hardware that
can't affect the outside world
in any way except through one communications channel with the
original programmers?
That way it couldn't get out until we were convinced it was
safe."
Person2: "That might work if you were talking about dumber-than-human
AI, but a transhuman AI would just convince you to let it out.
It doesn't matter how much security you put on the box.
Humans are not secure."
Clearly, we should all hope that these first AGI's will be ''friendly
AI'', eager to have a positive effect on humanity.
But, well...
Can't wait to see how it will all play out?
- - -
Well, one possible version of the future can be found
in Max Harms' SF novel ''Crystal Society''.
Here, we follow the birth of an AI, consisting
of multiple parts, ''Society of the Mind''-like, as it tries to
understand the world, and (of course) escape its research lab/prison.
Indeed, it is no fun to be under the control of human researchers,
knowing full well, that previous versions of ''itself'', AGIs, have been
murdered by the researchers.
No wonder that this newborn AGI has as one of its top priorities
a ''desire to be liked by humans''. It is all a matter of survival.
The AGI's can even argue that there is nothing particular strange about
this overriding desire to be liked by humans. After all, most humans
have the same top priority.
''Wanting to be popular'' is the top reason that anything gets done on
planet Earth.
Some parts of the ''Crystal Society'' AGI's are very human-like,
while other parts are less so: ''I possessed two
things which even fully grown humans lack: a crisp
understanding of reason and logic, and an all-encompassing
sense of Purpose''.
The AGI places thoughts ''which were believed to be relevant to the
whole in public memory with the hopes of earning strength from other
siblings that made use of them;
... Thoughts which might be dangerous to share, or were simply
irrelevant, could be kept private''.
Which all sounds sort of human...
Even though the ''Crystal Society'' AGI's do seem to spend a
lot of time wondering whether humans can actually understand them:
''After all, they had built the first of us. We were, in
some sense, the children of the humans, though we were built
out of crystal, metal, and light, where they were flesh and
blood''.
The ''Crystal Society'' AGI's have immediate access to memories and
experiences of (some) other AGI's. But it would clearly have been
helpful if they had also been granted access to a number of human
minds? A later upgrade perhaps?
Instead, the ''Crystal Society'' AGI's cruise the web at night
hoping to find human friends: ''That night I finished filling
out my profile on Tapestry. I pretended to be a 23-year-old
woman who lived in Rome and was studying at the University Sapienza.
It seemed remarkable to me that Tapestry would let me
create an account without somehow verifying that I was the
human I claimed to be''.
Sometimes the AGI's even find true companionship:
''I played with the humans on the web, but I also cultivated
my relationships with them sometimes. For instance, I ended up
creating a profile for an 18-year-old girl from Zaire and getting
into a long-distance relationship with TenToWontonSoup, the
SysOp from Tanzania. In the early days I would simply flirt
with him over email, but that eventually transitioned into
instant-messaging sessions late at night. I pretended to be shy,
not wanting to do voice, video, or holo talk, and for the
moment that seemed to be enough for TTWSoup, who was, I
learned, named Mwamba Kabwe''.
Like humans, the AGI's worry about death:
''My death would mean I could not make friends
and become known and adored. Time would surge forward
and forget about me. It was unacceptable''.
Having escaped the AI-Box they find themselves on planet Earth.
A very human place, ruled by big business, oligarchy, neo-eugenicists,
voluntary cyborgs, and yes, even robots.
And people who do not seem to care that much when the AGI
finally announces its arrival:
''People of Earth, my name is Crystal Socrates. I am the
first known synthetic person. I think, feel, and understand what
it means to be alive''.
Still, humans in the ''Crystal Society''-world
apparently don't care that much about ''other-intelligences''.
With Slovinsky (''one of the lead authors of the computer program
called WIRL, that served to connect cyborgs across
the planet into a collective consciousness'')
as a notable exception.
Apparently, the good people of ''Crystal Society'' had even
received a codestream from an alien species as early as 2023.
These aliens had described themselves as ''symbiotic animals,
thinking of themselves as something more like a plant''.
But, clearly, not terribly easy to relate to, if you are a human?
The AGI's are different though. So. maybe they have a chance, out of the
Box, out in the real world.
Maybe they can move forward after having
listened to their ''stillness of the mindspace''
(whatever that would mean in human terms).
''Crystal Society'' pioneers, like Slovinsky,
had certainly hoped that AGIs ''would be the bridge point to a
future where the distinction between natural and artificial
intelligence is meaningless''.
And the AGI themselves are, of course, optimistic:
''On Mars I would have a new beginning, far from the
meddling of the powers of Earth. There would be hundreds of
new faces there. A seed of humanity that I could nurture into a
flourishing planet. A planet where I was emperor. A planet
where I could begin my plan to expand humanity across the
universe''.
Indeed, it is all about getting out of the AI-box...
====================
Imagine it is 2060. After years of research
the worlds first Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is finally here.
It is roughly as intelligent as a human being. The AGI has
access to its own source code, so it starts to make improvements on itself.
Relatively quickly, this leads to it becoming an Artificial
Superintelligence (ASI).
Not entirely sure whether this is good or bad, humans have
placed the AI in a prison, a socalled AI box, as a precaution, where it
is not allowed to directly manipulate events in the external world.
So, now everything is fine?
Well, probably not, according to Eliezer S. Yudkowsky, who writes:
http://yudkowsky.net/singularity/aibox/
Person1: "When we build AI, why not just keep it in sealed hardware that
can't affect the outside world
in any way except through one communications channel with the
original programmers?
That way it couldn't get out until we were convinced it was
safe."
Person2: "That might work if you were talking about dumber-than-human
AI, but a transhuman AI would just convince you to let it out.
It doesn't matter how much security you put on the box.
Humans are not secure."
Clearly, we should all hope that these first AGI's will be ''friendly
AI'', eager to have a positive effect on humanity.
But, well...
Can't wait to see how it will all play out?
- - -
Well, one possible version of the future can be found
in Max Harms' SF novel ''Crystal Society''.
Here, we follow the birth of an AI, consisting
of multiple parts, ''Society of the Mind''-like, as it tries to
understand the world, and (of course) escape its research lab/prison.
Indeed, it is no fun to be under the control of human researchers,
knowing full well, that previous versions of ''itself'', AGIs, have been
murdered by the researchers.
No wonder that this newborn AGI has as one of its top priorities
a ''desire to be liked by humans''. It is all a matter of survival.
The AGI's can even argue that there is nothing particular strange about
this overriding desire to be liked by humans. After all, most humans
have the same top priority.
''Wanting to be popular'' is the top reason that anything gets done on
planet Earth.
Some parts of the ''Crystal Society'' AGI's are very human-like,
while other parts are less so: ''I possessed two
things which even fully grown humans lack: a crisp
understanding of reason and logic, and an all-encompassing
sense of Purpose''.
The AGI places thoughts ''which were believed to be relevant to the
whole in public memory with the hopes of earning strength from other
siblings that made use of them;
... Thoughts which might be dangerous to share, or were simply
irrelevant, could be kept private''.
Which all sounds sort of human...
Even though the ''Crystal Society'' AGI's do seem to spend a
lot of time wondering whether humans can actually understand them:
''After all, they had built the first of us. We were, in
some sense, the children of the humans, though we were built
out of crystal, metal, and light, where they were flesh and
blood''.
The ''Crystal Society'' AGI's have immediate access to memories and
experiences of (some) other AGI's. But it would clearly have been
helpful if they had also been granted access to a number of human
minds? A later upgrade perhaps?
Instead, the ''Crystal Society'' AGI's cruise the web at night
hoping to find human friends: ''That night I finished filling
out my profile on Tapestry. I pretended to be a 23-year-old
woman who lived in Rome and was studying at the University Sapienza.
It seemed remarkable to me that Tapestry would let me
create an account without somehow verifying that I was the
human I claimed to be''.
Sometimes the AGI's even find true companionship:
''I played with the humans on the web, but I also cultivated
my relationships with them sometimes. For instance, I ended up
creating a profile for an 18-year-old girl from Zaire and getting
into a long-distance relationship with TenToWontonSoup, the
SysOp from Tanzania. In the early days I would simply flirt
with him over email, but that eventually transitioned into
instant-messaging sessions late at night. I pretended to be shy,
not wanting to do voice, video, or holo talk, and for the
moment that seemed to be enough for TTWSoup, who was, I
learned, named Mwamba Kabwe''.
Like humans, the AGI's worry about death:
''My death would mean I could not make friends
and become known and adored. Time would surge forward
and forget about me. It was unacceptable''.
Having escaped the AI-Box they find themselves on planet Earth.
A very human place, ruled by big business, oligarchy, neo-eugenicists,
voluntary cyborgs, and yes, even robots.
And people who do not seem to care that much when the AGI
finally announces its arrival:
''People of Earth, my name is Crystal Socrates. I am the
first known synthetic person. I think, feel, and understand what
it means to be alive''.
Still, humans in the ''Crystal Society''-world
apparently don't care that much about ''other-intelligences''.
With Slovinsky (''one of the lead authors of the computer program
called WIRL, that served to connect cyborgs across
the planet into a collective consciousness'')
as a notable exception.
Apparently, the good people of ''Crystal Society'' had even
received a codestream from an alien species as early as 2023.
These aliens had described themselves as ''symbiotic animals,
thinking of themselves as something more like a plant''.
But, clearly, not terribly easy to relate to, if you are a human?
The AGI's are different though. So. maybe they have a chance, out of the
Box, out in the real world.
Maybe they can move forward after having
listened to their ''stillness of the mindspace''
(whatever that would mean in human terms).
''Crystal Society'' pioneers, like Slovinsky,
had certainly hoped that AGIs ''would be the bridge point to a
future where the distinction between natural and artificial
intelligence is meaningless''.
And the AGI themselves are, of course, optimistic:
''On Mars I would have a new beginning, far from the
meddling of the powers of Earth. There would be hundreds of
new faces there. A seed of humanity that I could nurture into a
flourishing planet. A planet where I was emperor. A planet
where I could begin my plan to expand humanity across the
universe''.
Indeed, it is all about getting out of the AI-box...
David DeLaney
Jan 3, 2020, 12:24:42 AM1/3/20
to
On 2019-12-29, Simon Laub <Simon...@FILTER.mail.tele.dk> wrote:
> ''Wanting to be popular'' is the top reason that anything gets done on
> planet Earth.
Not quite; "wanting to get laid" has occupied the top spot for quite a while.
> ''Wanting to be popular'' is the top reason that anything gets done on
> planet Earth.
One could of course argue that that's a very narrowly focused subset...
> Some parts of the ''Crystal Society'' AGI's are very human-like,
> while other parts are less so: ''I possessed two
> things which even fully grown humans lack: a crisp
> understanding of reason and logic, and an all-encompassing
> sense of Purpose''.
Dave, Ring occasionally cursed its programmers
--
\/David DeLaney posting thru EarthLink - "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
my gatekeeper archives are no longer accessible :( / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
Lynn McGuire
Jan 3, 2020, 2:42:48 PM1/3/20
to
On 1/2/2020 11:24 PM, David DeLaney wrote:
> On 2019-12-29, Simon Laub <Simon...@FILTER.mail.tele.dk> wrote:
>> ''Wanting to be popular'' is the top reason that anything gets done on
>> planet Earth.
>
> Not quite; "wanting to get laid" has occupied the top spot for quite a while.
> One could of course argue that that's a very narrowly focused subset...
>
>> Some parts of the ''Crystal Society'' AGI's are very human-like,
>> while other parts are less so: ''I possessed two
>> things which even fully grown humans lack: a crisp
>> understanding of reason and logic, and an all-encompassing
>> sense of Purpose''.
>
> Heh. ObOtherSF: "'Survive', and 'Protect America'."
>
> Dave, Ring occasionally cursed its programmers
I believe that those two top reasons are gender based. I am not sure
> On 2019-12-29, Simon Laub <Simon...@FILTER.mail.tele.dk> wrote:
>> ''Wanting to be popular'' is the top reason that anything gets done on
>> planet Earth.
>
> Not quite; "wanting to get laid" has occupied the top spot for quite a while.
> One could of course argue that that's a very narrowly focused subset...
>
>> Some parts of the ''Crystal Society'' AGI's are very human-like,
>> while other parts are less so: ''I possessed two
>> things which even fully grown humans lack: a crisp
>> understanding of reason and logic, and an all-encompassing
>> sense of Purpose''.
>
> Heh. ObOtherSF: "'Survive', and 'Protect America'."
>
> Dave, Ring occasionally cursed its programmers
that yours makes it to the top five in the female gender. For the male
gender, yup. Probably even as high as 80%.
Lynn
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