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Playing in the Creek

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346 points c1ccccc1 | 4 comments | | HN request time: 0.319s | source
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doctoboggan ◴[] No.43651075[source]
This is an excellent essay, and I feel similar to the author but couldn't express it as nicely.

However if we are counting on AI researchers to take the advice and slow down then I wouldn't hold my breath waiting. The author indicated they stepped away from a high paying finance job for moral reasons, which is admirable. But wallstreet continues on and does not lack for people willing to play the "make as much money as you can" game.

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1. dachris ◴[] No.43651607[source]
The paperclip maximizers are already here, but they are maximizing money.

One recent HN comment [0] comparing corporations and institutions to AI really stuck with me - those are already superhuman intelligences.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43580681

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2. actionfromafar ◴[] No.43651783[source]
I could imagine a Star Trek episode where someone says "I always assumed the paperclip optimizer was a parable for unchecked capitalism?"
3. bitethecutebait ◴[] No.43652605[source]
> those are already superhuman intelligence(s)

... only because "unsafe" and "leaky" are a Ponzi's best-and-loves-to-be-roofied-and-abused friend ... you see, intelligence is only good when it doesn't irreversibly break everything to the point where most of the variety of the physical structure that evolved it and maintains it is lost.

you could argue, of course, and this is an abbreviated version, that a new physical structure then evolves a new intelligence that is adapted (emerged from and adjusts to) to the challenges of the new environment but that's not the point of already capable self-healing systems;

except if the destructive part of the superhuman intelligence is more successful with it's methods of sabotage and disruption of

(a) 'truthy' information flow and

b) individual and collective super-rational agency -- for the good of as many systems-internal entities as possible, as a precaution due to always living in uncertainty and being surrounded by an endless amount of variables currently tagged "noise"

-- than it's counterpart is in enabling and propagating a) and b) ...

in simpler words, if the red team FUBARS the blue team or vice versa, the superhuman intelligence can be assumed to have cancer or that at least some vital part of the force is corrupted otherwise.

4. LinuxAmbulance ◴[] No.43656596[source]
Corporations certainly have advantages over individuals, but classifying them as superhuman intelligences misses the mark. I'd go with a blind ravenous titan instead.