Do you think AI (artificial intelligence) is something to be feared?

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I am a huge fan of science fiction. I recently saw the movie Ex Machina. On a side note, if you haven't seen that movie, you should. I think it's a great film. But before seeing this movie I have had my own opinions of AI. I want to lay out my ideas here just to explain my position.

Imagine a world where robots do all the labor. They grow our food, they harvest our food, they harvest everything for us. They construct our homes, they do everything no matter how tedious it is. Everything is done for us.

Some people would say, this would be a terrible thing because then there would be no jobs if machines did all the labor. If there are no jobs then how would people make money? Even the repair on these machines is handled by other machines. Everything is taken care of.

I suggest we wouldn't need money at all. Instead we would have allotments. If you need clothes, the machines produce them and you are just given clothes. If you need food, you are just given food. If you need shelter you are just given a house. It would be a true socialist society. Everyone has everything they need.

The question arises, do certain people get "more" things than others? How can you determine who is "worth" more? Because ultimately people like to think they are more special than someone else. That they "deserve" more than someone else. But is this true? Or is that just greed and ego?

Imagine you never have to work and everything is provided for you. All your needs are taken care of. Some would say this is extremely bad. The devil is in the idleness. But I disagree. We would be open to experience life and entertainment. Focus on the things we would enjoy doing. Such as consuming music, art and movies. What is so wrong about that?

The only problem I see is if we start considering these AI robots as having rights. That we have "enslaved" them to do our labor for us. That it is wrong to enslave robots to do labor. But is it really? They are tireless, they handle tedious tasks easily. They don't get tired. They don't feel pain. Or would they? Would they deserve rights? If it's wrong to "enslave" them then we would be back to square one. They would no longer do our labor yet they would make better workers. They are faster, more accurate, tireless, they don't get sick, ect.

By offering robots rights, we would ultimately be taking a back seat to them. Would we then become their slaves? Would they enslave us? If we are willing to accept their rights, would they be equally willing to acknowledge ours?

I honestly feel that AI robots wouldn't destroy us. They would need us, as much as we need them. Just like we don't destroy everything else in life. At least not intentionally. If they were to destroy us, they would doom themselves as well. We would be a part of their eco-system. I know that might be hard to understand and even easy to overlook. How could a machine "need" us? If they can handle so much, and better than us, how could they possibly need us?

Well I think the answer to that is just like how we need, insects, birds, ect. Sure I am talking in terms of food. We rely on insects for our food. Not directly but indirectly. Such as bees. Bees pollinate our plants. But if a machine doesn't need food why would they need bees? They wouldn't right? I disagree, they would still need these things. Because we don't know the impacts on the planet that would occur if bees went extinct.

The thing AI robots would need is power. They might even come up with ways in which they produce power more efficiently and effectively than we have ever considered before. So why would they need us if their only concern is power?

I think the underline answer for all this, has nothing to do with the physical. But instead our ability to be creative. To be abstract in a logical universe. This is where our value resides. Can a robot with AI be creative? Can they be abstract? I honestly think it would be their weakness. It's difficult to explain why this is important at all. Or how there is any value in abstract things.

The only way I can explain what I mean here, is by the concept of a fish tank. You don't need a fish tank in your house. You don't need fish at all. Yet people have them. Why? This is the same answer as to why AI robots would need us. I'm not saying they would keep us around as pets. Instead I am saying the same reason we enjoy the abstract is the same reason they would keep us around instead of destroy us.

I could be wrong. I know this is long. If you are still here, what are your thoughts on AI robots?

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@Krumple,

Krumple,
You've said a lot here and brought up a lot of different ideas. I will address one of them.
I don't think the Human race can ever get to a point where we don't have to do anything. However efficient robots may become and however completely we set up the systems to provide for us, we will never just do non-productive things. Some of us will, as is the case now, but the vast majority of people do productive work of some kind. It's always the Utopian dream for Humankind to enjoy art and music and live one life long holiday, but I think for most this will be a living hell. I know I can't really stand "relaxing" for more than a couple of days at a time, and most of the time not for more than a couple of hours. Even if robots did all of our mundane tasks, we would busy ourselves with new and presently unimaginable things and our economy would continue, with rich and poor just as it is now.

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@Krumple,

No one has to do anything:

- self esteem would plummet as they lose the ability to work towards acquiring 'character traits within themselves' that are genetically inbred: admiration of hard work, striving, focus, generosity (which would cease to have meaning)

- the lonely would become lonelier, without even work environments to provide socialisation

- social pecking orders would have to find other ways of being established...gossip, social politics and the likes would become much more more vicious (watch a quiet, bored workplace vs a flat out one to see this difference)

- people forget how to problem solve and think for themselves, leading to loss of common sense

- the loss of all the aforementioned things leads to a drastic increase in mental health (this pattern is already being seen)

- doctors come up with more and more ridiculous 'disorders', and 9.5 out of 10 people wonder why they are victims of disorders...they don't question because they've forgotten how to

- suicides would increase as life lost a lot of meaning

- the bored, socially victimised, angry youths form gangs. Those gangs pick on 'the outsiders' (everyone else), forcing other youths to form into gangs

....wait...if I keep going down this road, I'll end up with the script for a science fiction movie.

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@Krumple,

I think it is feared for the older generations like mine and natural for the younger who will go along with it trading chips like with did Lego's...
...above all I think it is inevitable and whatever will be will be!

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@Krumple,

Krumple wrote:

Imagine a world where robots do all the labor. They grow our food, they harvest our food, they harvest everything for us. They construct our homes, they do everything no matter how tedious it is. Everything is done for us.

What about those who want to grow/raise food, construct things? What is one persons "tedious" work is another persons pleasure. Who gets to decide? Doesn't seem like the individual.

I suggest we wouldn't need money at all. Instead we would have allotments. If you need clothes, the machines produce them and you are just given clothes. If you need food, you are just given food. If you need shelter you are just given a house. It would be a true socialist society. Everyone has everything they need.

Who decides what each individual needs? Putting aside greed, each person has a healthy level for themselves of what would give them happiness. What about those who "need" things that others deem dangerous, desstructive, self destructive, wasteful, harmful to the environment, etc? So we can no longer have desires? Just what we strictly need? Unless of course it's things that will now take up our time, and apparantly involves only things that some decision maker deems appropriate.

The question arises, do certain people get "more" things than others? How can you determine who is "worth" more? Because ultimately people like to think they are more special than someone else. That they "deserve" more than someone else. But is this true? Or is that just greed and ego?

Again, who decides what is needed to be happy, and what is greed/ego?

We would be open to experience life and entertainment. Focus on the things we would enjoy doing. Such as consuming music, art and movies. What is so wrong about that?

What if you dislike those things? There's a lot of ego there thinking that what maybe even most people like is what all would like.

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@Krumple,

First of all, I work in AI. What we have now, in the year 2017, are a bunch of machine algorithms that are very good at analyzing data and making predictions. This is proving to be very useful and the results are often astonishing. But there is nothing we have now that is anywhere near sentience... which in the year 2017 is still science fiction fantasy.

Part of the problem with any real discussion of Artificial Intelligence is that the popular understanding of what AI entails is so far from what we are actually doing.

Artificial Intelligence is here, but this isn't "sentience"... it is simply the ability to analyze data to make decisions. Machine sentience might be something to be feared, but in my somewhat informed opinion machine sentience is much further off then many people imagine.

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Artificial Intelligence is really no different than the bronze age, the development of agriculture, writing, or the invention of money, or the industrial revolution... throughout human history we had technological advances that have changed the meaning of work and resulted in cultural changes.

When hunter-gatherers became farmers (for one example) you had people who used to be busy have a bunch of leisure time as tasks that used to be important were no longer needed. The steam engine, the automobile, the electrification of houses... in each of these changes humans stopped doing work that they traditionally did and society adapted to the new reality.

Artificial intelligence is no different than any other technological advancement.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Artificial Intelligence is really no different than the bronze age, the development of agriculture, writing, or the invention of money, or the industrial revolution... throughout human history we had technological advances that have changed the meaning of work and resulted in cultural changes.

I think you bring up a good point here. In a way yes. We did have some machines replace work that use to be done by hand. Yet we didn't collapse as a society. We adjusted to it.

maxdancona wrote:

When hunter-gatherers became farmers (for one example) you had people who used to be busy have a bunch of leisure time as tasks that used to be important were no longer needed. The steam engine, the automobile, the electrification of houses... in each of these changes humans stopped doing work that they traditionally did and society adapted to the new reality.

Artificial intelligence is no different than any other technological advancement.

I agree. More good points here. I imagine people working jobs they absolutely hate. Jobs that just rob your spirit. I know people like to write these off saying, well if you don't like your job, you should get educated and try to work towards a career you will like better. But my point is, there are going to be people who HAVE to work certain jobs. They have no choice.

And I feel this portion of people is a rather large portion who have no choice. You can attempt to write it off saying everyone has a choice. But no, they don't. Some people don't have any options, they are forced to work a job that drains their spirit. So having machines do these jobs would be great. But what do these people do now?

I guess my underline point of all this was thinking about how a huge majority of people work 40 hour weeks just to pay for a place to live and have enough for a little bit of food and maybe a few novelty things. That's it. They slave a way in a job they hate just to basically survive. They pay for a box they spend less than 8 waking hours in. The rest of the time they are either sleeping or slaving a way at a mind numbing job to make someone else wealthy.

I just think how great things would be if machines did everything for us. Would it mean that we stopped doing things? I don't think so. If you for example like working with wood to make furniture, would you still do that if a machine could do it for you? Would people pursue art, painting, sculpture, ect? I don't think it would rob us of anything. Instead it would free us to other ends of human creativity. Imagine you don't need to worry about a place to live, you have plenty of food and you have your basic needs all taken care of, what would you do with your time??

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... it is amazing!!!
Who the frack told some people that it needed to be "sentient" to be extremely dangerous? Maxadacona you are a nullified nullity, specially because you are in the field! It just shows what special kind of dumb you are...although that, of course, it is no news...

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil Albuquerque wrote:

... it is amazing!!!
Who the frack told some people that it needed to be "sentient" to be extremely dangerous? Maxadacona you are a nullified nullity, specially because you are in the field! It just shows what special kind of dumb you are...although that, of course, it is no news...

But I think the over all point is that it is inevitable that at some point we/someone will produce a machine that is sentient. But at what point is it "dangerous"? Dangerous in what way? Maybe the point of the universe is that some "apes" will produce a machine that is sentient. Why should we be a special case? This is ego talking. We should stop because it will ultimately destroy us. Maybe that is the point. Maybe we can't do anything to "stop" it. Our curiosity in trying it, wondering if it can be done, is just enough to cause it to happen because that is ultimately the course we are powerless to. It will happen weather we want it to or not. Someone will do it, even if it ends up being in some basement or hidden lab somewhere.

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@Krumple,

The "sentient" part when it comes is not the problem nor the topic here. It is dangerous to qualified jobs right now and it will become exponentially more dangerous as time goes by to ANY job you can think of which is not about hiring human presence for companionship! "Deep learning" is here to stay and replace everything from banks loan decisions (already) to doctors in its path...it's a true revolution on the making and the clown above you completely misses the point as usual!

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Quote:

It is dangerous to qualified jobs right now and it will become exponentially more dangerous as time goes by to ANY job

How is this any different than the printing press, or the steam engine?

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@maxdancona,

Because at some point of the exponential say when unsupervised learning arrives, AI will start to make appliances to AI not to humans as humans have become increasingly irrelevant in decision making which is where real power is!
You may not regret to live as a very happy pet in a zoo but you still a pet in a zoo!

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@Fil Albuquerque,

I don't know what exactly you mean by "unsupervised learning". I work in the area of machine learning. It is an impressive technology, but it is directed by humans and will be directed by humans for the foreseeable future. We humans decide what the system will learn and how it will learn. It is all controlled and managed by humans.

Any technology that can "decide" for itself what it will learn, or understand what it is learning, or choose to learn based on its own idea of self interest isn't real using the technology we have now.

What you seem to be describing is science fiction, not anything that will really exist given the current technology or trends.

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@maxdancona,

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It is actually very funny the Max problem is precisely lack of capacity to unsupervised learn...he can't get the obvious next step or layer in the field without someone pointing it out directly to him! You have the intuition of an 18 wheel truck!

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil,

Why do you resort to personal attack whenever someone challenges your ideas? Having your ideas challenged is part of learning. If you attack anyone who disagrees with you, then you have a problem with learning (unless you know everything already, in which case you can be certain that you have nothing to learn).

It is difficult to have any discussion with you because you attack first which makes it difficult for you to consider anyone else's opinions. It even makes it difficult for me to learn anything from you because your attacks are not well thought out ideas that I can consider. They are just attacks.

I would also point out that YouTube videos are a horrible way to learn... for one thing, they amplify the problem of selection bias. You can search for videos that support your preconceived ideas, and ignore anything in the videos that would challenge them. But that is another issue. If you could just refrain from personal attacks, that would be a big step in a positive direction.

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Do you think AI (artificial intelligence) is something to be feared?

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