Get ready for AI slander by those who missed it

There is a general belief that people who have excelled in one area matter in all areas, or that when they say something in the public interest, they do so without any ulterior motive. As expected, the veterans have inspired thousands to add their signatures to the letter. It is part of a larger movement to stop the progress of AI by triggering concern and invoking a form of argument called ethics. It is a phase that every new technology goes through. At first the science is undermined, then a few influential people celebrate it with evangelical fervor, ordinary people around the world believe it, a happy hysteria grows, and then a camp of disillusioned influential people claims to worry that Believes that new technology will harm people. is not regulated. Inevitably, an ethics professor from an Ivy League college would denounce the technique and some guy would make a documentary. Expect it all to unfold.

Last November, OpenEye revealed an AI chatbot called ChatGPT and showed a strange world that an advanced program can mimic human communication and perform acts of detailed human expression in microseconds. In connection with my work, ChatGPT reminds me of the quacks that accompany it all its life. As a research assistant, it’s been incredible. This is how it appears to be human. Its incapacitation is probably temporary. In many other ways, ChatGPT is exceptional. This is already an alternative to Google, which was unimaginable even a year ago. In response, Google is improving its AI, in what must be a new arms race for survival. All of this is worrying veterans and commoners alike, though perhaps for different reasons.

The letter, from Future of Life Initiative, a nonprofit that seeks to prevent technology from destroying us, asks, “Should we develop subhuman brains that will eventually outnumber, outsmart, render obsolete our And change us? Should we risk losing control of our civilization? Such decisions should not be entrusted to unelected technological leaders.” The paper is annotated by a visual icon of serious research – the numbers in parentheses that denote “notes and references”. For example, the first line: “AI systems with human-rivaling intelligence could pose profound risks to society and humanity, as shown by extensive research. [1]…” But among what are cited as ‘research’ are tired ideas, such as an essay that laments the disproportionate size of Western material in machine-learning, and the views of AI alarmists who think that machines might misunderstand our instructions and kill us all.

The letter is stupid, so why bother? A top-level renegade movement in America is usually both sophisticated and opaque. For example, the movement successfully portraying social media as the cause of all liberal trauma. The letter in its crudeness shows how a moral argument is manufactured, pressure is created and public uneasiness is created. The driving force behind the movement to decriminalize AI may be a complex mix of these factors:

OneBillionaires who missed out on AI and want time to catch up, or want to force AI monopolies to be more transparent, or control it by turning public opinion against the technology, causing governments to intervene Goes easy and regulate it.

TwoPeer envy, which is an underrated evil.

Three, Worry. One type emerges from those who are prone to it; They find new and new things to worry about. The second type of concern is unique to Western billionaires. This problem stems from the fact that they cannot be tamed by humans. But then every human being has an quota of oppression they have to endure in order to feel human. Disease, mutiny, aliens and paranormal machines can only oppress American billionaires, which is why they develop an exaggerated perception of their dangers.

Their movement against AI, like the movement against Facebook, will hide some people’s discontent and self-interest in ethics. That’s why the most amusing part of the letter is: “Contemporary AI systems are now becoming human-competitors at common tasks, and we must ask ourselves: should we let machines fill our information channels with propaganda and untruths?” Such a question often arises from those who are in the midst of preaching themselves and may not realize it. It’s time to acknowledge that human communication is almost entirely propaganda. If we only speak facts, we will mostly be silent.

Citing human cloning, germ-line modification, gain-of-function research and eugenics, “society has barred other technologies with potentially devastating effects on society,” the letter said. This just isn’t true. Humans have not progressed to controversial technologies not because of a moral stagnation, but because the science was flawed or progress was too difficult to make. Human cloning has stalled mainly because success has been rare and its failure rate is very high. Even nations such as China, which have not been restrained by Western ethical movements, have not made much progress. AI is beyond the stage when it can be controlled proactively. Not everything about it may be good, but the future is going to be mostly exciting.

The author claims that this column is not written by AI. Manu Joseph is a journalist, novelist and producer of the Netflix seriesSeparate.