Welcome back readers. Phil here. You’ve probably noticed AI is everywhere.
OpenAI’s buzzy language tool, ChatGPT, has sparked a new public conversation about the potential of bots, and mainstream media and social media have been all over it.
ChatGPT, which is entertaining to play around with, can write convincing emails, real-estate listings, and even articles.
It’s left some not only worried about job security, but wondering whether their role will even exist for much longer.
But this viral bot is just the start. Experts have long been warning about the “singularity” — the moment when our technology’s intelligence exceeds our own.
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The future is already here
In 2014, Oren Etzioni, chief executive of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, called the fear of machines a “Frankenstein complex.” Other heavy-hitters have drawn parallels between AI alarmism and religious extremism, doomsday preppers, and the need to populate Mars.
But Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and a chorus of computer scientists take the matter far more seriously.
Once the singularity moment arrives, it will bring a change as dramatic as the initial emergence of human life, according to mathematician Vernor Vinge, and it’s closer than we think.
“For all my rampant technological optimism, sometimes I think I’d be more comfortable if I were regarding these transcendental events from one thousand years remove[d],” Vinge said, “instead of twenty.”
Humans have always operated under the correct assumption that nothing on Earth is more intelligent than us. Sure, animals can be smart, but they’ve never posed anything close to an intellectual threat.
But one problem is that our perception of human intelligence is highly distorted.
We see a gap between, say, Albert Einstein and a very dumb human as a dramatic leap. But the actual discrepancy in intelligence is effectively zero, as far as computing power goes.
That means we won’t even notice the moment AI becomes as smart as the dumbest human, because it’s going to blow past Einstein at the same time.
Odds are, once AI can outmatch human intelligence by even a sliver, our reign is over, according to philosopher Nick Bostrom.
In his view, the current rate of technological advancement leading to the singularity will be humanity’s demise.
As we barrel toward an inevitability, he said, not only is there is little we can do, but there is still no way the end-game won’t come as a complete surprise.
“Before the prospect of an intelligence explosion, we humans are like small children playing with a bomb,” Bostrom said in 2015. “We have little idea when the detonation will occur, though if we hold the device to our ear we can hear a faint ticking sound.”
Read the full essay here: The Rise of AI: We’re in serious trouble if artificial intelligence gets any smarter.
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— Phil
Tip Jar Recs
- Nightmare travel: There’s a reason why flying seems to suck more than ever. (Insider)
- ChatGPT is a blurry JPEG: Ted Chiang draws a smart analogy for the buzzy new technology. (The New Yorker)
- The ‘Lionel Messi’ of cliff diving: He trains like a modern athlete but relaxes the old-fashioned way. This is the story of the greatest cliff diver of all time. (The Guardian)
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So this is scary stuff. I’ve been focusing on Judgement Day events like in the Terminator, but really a much more concerning (or encouraging) reality is when ‘the machines’ figure out how to improve all of our processes. I’m an accountant for a library system. I’ve often believed my job was secure for the remainder of my career (7ish years without a powerball win). But with the inevitable growth curve of AI, the problem of turning paper invoices into a profit and loss and analyzing what that means may be fully solved in three years. The question I ask is will AI be altruistic to humans and improve the quality of life for all (a la star trek) or will they just keep enough of us around to keep the gears greased? Interesting post.
Very insightful comment, thanks for sharing Jeff. Good question to ruminate on – will AI be an altruistic leader?