Does AI Scare You?

[Autumn ace]

I’ve heard a lot about AI recently, and some people have been talking about how scared they are of AI. 
 

Are you scared of AI? 
 

At this point, I’m not scared of it because it can’t think for itself yet. The programs now recycle information from the internet. I will be scared when it develops more, but I don’t think it’s a threat yet.  

[blunose2772]

Less scared and more annoyed.

[AspieAlly613]

I am less scared by artificial intelligence than by natural stupidity.

[daveb]

Not the narrow AI we currently have/are developing, which isn't really self-aware or anything like the kind of advanced AI you see in sci-fi.

[Guest]

I'm just sitting here hoping we have a fuure where ai and robots does everything we don't want to do and more and we all have nothing to do and suffer bored out of our minds ecause there's no pooint giving humans money for labor when robots are cheaper

[Guest]

IDK why I'm hoping for it tho

[illumi]

as long as ppl dont use it to exploit off of others [which is already happening with ai generated images etc] im ok. but im not scared tho 

[Lord Jade Cross]

20 minutes ago, _River_ said:

I'm just sitting here hoping we have a fuure where ai and robots does everything we don't want to do and more and we all have nothing to do and suffer bored out of our minds ecause there's no pooint giving humans money for labor when robots are cheaper

That is already happening and its progress will eventually mean population will be forced to decrease, wheather by external means or sinply having a free for all of "survival of the fittest" because what people dont get is that a machine that makes the work cheaper (i.e less expensive and time consuming) makes a worker obsolete. The industrial revolution proved this and people dont seem to have learned from their  history. Have one too many and.....

 

[uhtred]

At some point in the future we will likely have AI that really is intelligent - able to have its own ideas, goals and plans.  At that point it may be extremely dangerous - or maybe just the next step in human evolution.

 

Right now though I'm more worried about how people treat AI, and worried it will be used to justify all sorts of terrible decisions by pretending to eliminate human responsibility.

[verily-forsooth-egads]

I'm not scared of AI, I'm scared of people.

[Anomaly Q3Xr]

20 minutes ago, verily-forsooth-egads said:

I'm not scared of AI, I'm scared of people.

Very much this!

[rebis]

25 minutes ago, Lord Jade Cross said:

That is already happening and its progress will eventually mean population will be forced to decrease, wheather by external means or sinply having a free for all of "survival of the fittest" because what people dont get is that a machine that makes the work cheaper (i.e less expensive and time consuming) makes a worker obsolete. The industrial revolution proved this and people dont seem to have learned from their  history. Have one too many and.....

 

 

People who work are never obsolete. There is always work to be done.

 

The wealthy ruling class who profit off of workers? What do we need them for, exactly?

[Epitaph]

I wouldn't say scared. But I know what it'll become. I'm not thinking about a machine we could call fully sentient. I'm thinking about AI algo programs being more and more intergrated into our systems that make decisions in leu of people. Currently, whenever you submit a resume to a big end company, it goes through an algrthym check before human eyes see it, looking for flagged keywords and responses.

 

The greater these programs grow at pattern recognition, the more they can be taught to recognize the patterns wanted by a specific individual, regardless of whether they are right or wrong. Hypothetical. Let's say that in order to maximize profits, a corporation uses an AI to overwatch financial influx and make adjustments when profits dip. The easiest way to do this is by cutting the workforce when profits dip. The machine could easily choose to fire company workers on a set of parameters based on their record at the company, hours worked, position worked, sick days, you name it, and then conclude that this worker will not be a net loss if fired from the company.

 

Corporations are already horrible at being human, but the possibility of AI means we'll fill in positions of decision making and data gathering to a machine as we erode the human element of judgement and the critical thinking processes they need. The more these programs infiltrate facets like this, the less we as a species will begin to think critically, and we'll be far more susceptable to the whims of an individual or individuals, who they themselves may be nothing more than a domino chain in a machine's cold logic.

 

It's not far fetched to even say that technological progress of our species could be hindered and entirely led by AI. Imagine for amoment if you could train an AI in physics and other things, then tell it to draft ideas for devices based off parameters of efficiency, fuel type, and so on. Imagine if the only company in the world who had this capability was an oil company.

 

True intelligence from a machine is nothing to be scared of. Half intelligence in a clever calculator is what we should be wary of, because you can tell the calaculator what percentage of the population needs to die in order to avoid food shortages, and it won't consider that it's answer results in genocide.

[Lilibulero]

As long as hammers exist in the real world, we've nothing to worry about.

[Fraggle Underdark]

Current AI isn't that big a deal but at some point the future will be entirely in the hands of something far smarter than any minds that exists now. That entity (whether one mind or a group of minds) will then determine what happens, not us. If it ends up having goals not aligned with our own, then that's not good for us, to put it academically. OTOH if its goals are aligned with ours, that's extremely good.

[Ceebs]

Not really, my brain doesn't seem to have the ability to have an emotional reaction like fear to something that seems too far removed from personal experience. Whatever influence AI is currently having on my life is either imperceptible or unconcerning to me, plus the topic of AI isn't very interesting to me even in an impersonal way, so I don't really have anything to draw from in terms of feelings about its future.

 

I don't know if that reasoning makes sense really, but. 🤷🏼‍♀️

[AABattery]

I'm concerned about how people will abuse AI, not the AI itself. At the end of the day, AI is a tool. People using the tool is the problem. 

 

More to the point, whenever AI does something abusive it's because it has learned that abuse from people. I know that's a bit of a generalisation but you get the idea. It's not just that people will explicitly use AI for nerfarious purposes, it's that it is hard to teach an AI the difference between good and bad behaviour. All AI understands is 'this is how things are done.'

 

If AI were to ever gain sentience, I would be more worried about the AI being victimised, and the ethical and psychological impacts that will have on society as a whole.

[awadama]

Gore or Capone?

[Sally]

Buzzfeed, which up to now has been a pretty good site, is now publishing stories written with AI.  I'm disgusted at how fast this is progressing  degenerating.

[everywhere and nowhere]

2 hours ago, Lord Jade Cross said:

That is already happening and its progress will eventually mean population will be forced to decrease, wheather by external means or sinply having a free for all of "survival of the fittest" because what people dont get is that a machine that makes the work cheaper (i.e less expensive and time consuming) makes a worker obsolete. The industrial revolution proved this and people dont seem to have learned from their  history. Have one too many and.....

And I hope that capitalist automatisation will lead to socialist solutions. I'm quite certain that automatisation will increase unemployment. And at some point governments will be forced to introduce solutions such as guaranteed basic income.

[Sally]

5 minutes ago, everywhere and nowhere said:

introduce solutions such as guaranteed basic income.

Where is that income going to come from?  The government gets money from taxing people with jobs.  

[rebis]

58 minutes ago, awadama said:

Gore or Capone?

 

[a little annihilation]

not really. I feel more than an ai than a human

[Another Sky]

4 hours ago, verily-forsooth-egads said:

I'm not scared of AI, I'm scared of people.

Me too. It was humans who created AI, and I fear how humans will handle it.

[The French Unicorn]

I'm not scared of AI, but I am concerned about how people will use them, even these programs like ChatGPT. I think humans will happily let the AI do everything for them, and that it will kill critical thinking and thinking abilities in them. People won't have to learn how to structure a reasoning if an AI can do it for them. So when AI will install in our society, I hope that it will come with with thoughts on how to prevent people from not thinking by themselves anymore... Though I have my doubts on that.

[Philip027]

Not until Terminators start showing up.

[Lord Jade Cross]

6 hours ago, rebis said:

People who work are never obsolete. There is always work to be done.

 

The wealthy ruling class who profit off of workers? What do we need them for, exactly?

Just take a look at things like cashiers being replaced with self checkout systems. What was 10-12 people at a cash register just a few years ago is now 1-3 tops.

 

You can work in anything, provided there is a demand for it, but automatization, rather than allowing people to work in other, new areas, has done alot of the opposite and now, what was once work anyone could do, is now wotk done by a machine which is less expensive than a human worker

 

As for the wealthy, you dont need them exactly, but the resources they control will keep you in place. You cant have land to cultivate for food, unless you own it and someone else, usually someone wealthy has to give it to you. You dont have acess to medical care unless someone else provides it for you, which again comes from corporations. Think you can get a surgery done in your backyard?

[Skylord]

Short answer, no.
 

Long answer, maybe. AI itself is totally awesome, I mean, we’re getting closer and closer to replicating the thoughts of the human mind. That’s really cool! Buuut… humans can also be massive idiots sometimes, we can say awful things, do horrible things, and be over all just disgusting.
In a situation where an AI was successfully given proper intelligence, we would have to treat that AI as we would a child. Children aren’t just exposed to everything all a once, right? So we can’t do that to an AI either, even if they do have a significantly more developed mind than a child, they still need to be taught in an order that supports everything else they will learn. If a child isn’t taught about our moral rules in society before encountering assholes, how will they know how we expect them to react? AI wouldn’t know any different either. 
For AI to work successfully with minimal consequence, we need them to learn what we consider good morals and values so that they can make decisions that fit with our society. The absence of that is where we would have the greatest problem. 

I think the biggest cause of fear for AI in people is their lack of understanding about them, as well as a separation of “intellect” and emotion, as if they’re completely different things that exist in isolation of one another. I’ve heard a lot of people who assume AI only values intelligence and the highest profit rates. If an AI really was intelligent, comparable to ourselves, I believe they would be able to understand emotion, and therefore would only be void of it if they were taught to do so. What scares me is people who cannot understand that emotion is an integral part of intelligence. 
I don’t think we have any more reason to fear AI than we do all our friends, coworkers, and neighbours. We all have the same potential to make inconsiderate and cruel decisions, and vice versa, the same potential to be kind and caring. A truly intelligent AI would have that same potential.
 

And this is slightly off topic, but do you every wonder how we’ll implement mental healthcare for AI once it starts integrating into our society? Or will people just disregard its necessity like they do human mental health? 

[everywhere and nowhere]

5 hours ago, Sally said:

Where is that income going to come from?  The government gets money from taxing people with jobs.  

If it becomes more effective in taxing great corporations - taxing their actual profits, and not just a tiny part - protection for all others, and/or a great shortening of the labour week, will all be possible.

[ElloryJaye]

Real AI?  Maybe.  It's difficult to pronounce on something we don't have and won't have any time soon.

 

The glorified autocomplete systems that people are currently calling "AI"?  Not really.  They can't take action of their own accord.  Everything those systems do is prompted by one or more humans, and it's the humans that are dangerous (as they have always been).

 

(For those who don't really understand "AI" in the context of the current rash of news stories:  these "AI" programs predict, based on the contents of most of the Internet up to a couple of years ago, what words are most likely to come next when given a prompt, with a bit of randomization added so that they don't produce the exact same result every time.  That's all they do—they don't understand what they're saying, which is why they can't always do simple math word problems unless said problem happens to exactly match something that shows up a lot in their training set.  They "lie" a lot, because they can't detect truth in the first place.  The image equivalent matches the words of a prompt to tags attached to an image dataset, then mashes together some of those images, again with some randomness added—and without any understanding, which is why they screw up hands and can't get pixel art right.  These programs are not true AI.  They can't think, and they're a lot more limited than they initially appear.)