The Cult of AI
www.rollingstone.com
How one writer's trip to the annual tech conference CES left him with a sinking feeling about the future.
  • YouKnowWhoTheFuckIAM@awful.systemsEnglish
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    9 months ago

    Whenever one of these comes out and gets posted to /r/SneerClub it feels like going to see band you’ve loved since they were hometown favourites play a big venue in another city, except that you always despised the band and they’re leading major policy decisions which aim to destroy everything you love

    • swlabr@awful.systemsEnglish
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      9 months ago

      On one hand, it is good that people are becoming aware of these crazos and the amount of influence they have. On the other hand I am definitely feeling that “I heard of this band first!” kind of jealousy a little.

  • Architeuthis@awful.systemsEnglish
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    9 months ago

    Last behind the bastards episode is this article expanded. Robert Evans is always very listenable and the more detailed CES reporting is interesting, but if you are a member here you probably won’t be adding anything new to your TREACLES lore.

    I wish journalists referencing the basilisk would go a in a bit more in depth, it’s so much dumber than than it seems at a brief glance. Like, a lot of people immediately assume the alleged scary part is that we might already be living in the simulation and thus be eligible for permanent residence in basilisk Hell should we commit the cardinal sin of shit-talking AI, but no; the reason you can go to AI hell is because of transhumanist cope.

    As in, if your last hope for immortality is brain uploads, you are kinda cornered into believing your sense of self gets shared between the physical and the digital instance, otherwise what’s the point? EY appears to be in this boat, he’s claimed something like there’s no real difference between instances of You existing in different moments in time sharing a self and you sharing a self with a perfect digital copy, so yeah, it’s obviously possible, unavoidable even.

    As to how the basilisk will get your digital copy in the first place, eh, it’ll just extrapolate it perfectly from whatever impression’s left of you in the timeline by the time it comes into being, because as we all now, the S in ASI stands for Fucking Magical, Does Whatever It Wants. Remember, ASI can conjure up the entirety of modern physics just by seeing three frames of an apple falling, according to Yud.

    • Brian David@hachyderm.io
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      9 months ago

      @Architeuthis @tante I often hear it said that the TREACLE crowd is a section of early 2000s Internet atheists that went on to invent their own god, but I don’t think it gets pointed out enough how much stupider their belief system is compared to the religions they constantly mock.

      • Soyweiser@awful.systemsEnglish
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        9 months ago

        The movement also predates the 2000 internet atheists a bit, Yud has iirc spoken about posting in 90’s newsgroups about this stuff. (of course there also was a 90s atheist movement).

      • TinyTimmyTokyo@awful.systemsEnglish
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        9 months ago

        It’s kind of fascinating how rotten the “New Atheist” movement turned out to be. Whether it’s Richard Dawkins revealing his inner racist-misogynist, Michael Shermer being rapey AF, or James Lindsay turning into a Christofascist, the movement seems to have spawned and/or revealed a lot of really problematic people. I guess it’s no surprise that the rationalist scene had such a membership overlap.

    • BigMuffin69@awful.systemsEnglish
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      9 months ago

      As in, if your last hope for immortality is brain uploads, you are kinda cornered into believing your sense of self gets shared between the physical and the digital instance, otherwise what’s the point? EY appears to be in this boat, he’s claimed something like there’s no real difference between instances of You existing in different moments in time sharing a self and you sharing a self with a perfect digital copy, so yeah, it’s obviously possible, unavoidable even.

      God help me for asking, but do the Yuddites have a response to “every open system implements every finite state automaton” ?

  • swlabr@awful.systemsEnglish
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    9 months ago

    Michelle Gansle, chief data and analytics officer for McDonald’s, had bragged that her company had used AI to help them stop $50 million in fraud in a single month.

    AI caught the motherfucking hamburgler?!?!?!

  • blakestacey@awful.systemsMEnglish
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    9 months ago

    It’s not worth explaining because it’s stupid, but Roko’s conclusion was

    (jazzy finger-snaps of approval)

    • Sailor Sega Saturn@awful.systemsEnglish
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      9 months ago

      Let’s see if I still remember how ol’ Basilisk works:

      AI researchers could feel compelled to create an AI that thinks mean thoughts about anyone who isn’t nice to it. Because they’re not sure if they’re in reality or in one of the AIs mean thoughts (edit: or if the AI may someday think mean thoughts about them even if they aren’t). Then throw in 100k words of fluff with fake statistics and fancy words like “acasual” to befuddle weird nerds into buying the argument.

      Oh yeah that is too stupid to explain. It’s the ontological argument for Christian God, but on crack.

      1. God Basilisk is that being than which no greater can be conceived.
      2. It is greater to exist in reality than merely as an idea.
      3. If God Basilisk does not exist, we can conceive of acasual blackmail our way to an even greater being, that is one that does exist.
      4. Therefore, God Basilisk must indeed exist in reality.