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Tim O'Reilly: Don't Fear AI, Fear Ourselves (wired.com)
Tim O'Reilly, publisher of geeky books, "seizes on this singular moment in history" for a futuristic new book of his own, according to this interview with Steven Levy. An anonymous reader writes:
When it comes to artificial intelligence, O'Reilly sees a reason for optimism in the fact that we're already discussing biased algorithms. ("We had plenty of bias before but we couldn't see it.") O'Reilly ultimately believes AI won't take away our jobs, and even argues that we're defining it all wrong. "What we now call AI is just the next stage of us weaving our intelligence together into a greater whole. If you think about the internet as weaving all of us together, transmitting ideas, in some sense an AI might be the equivalent of a multi-cellular being and we're its microbiome, as opposed to the idea that an AI will be like the golem or the Frankenstein. If that's the case, the systems we are building today, like Google and Facebook and financial markets, are really more important than the fake ethics of worrying about some far future AI.
"We tend to be afraid of new technology and we tend to demonize it, but to me, you have to use it as an opportunity for introspection. Our fears ultimately should be of ourselves and other people."
O'Reilly calls financial markets "the first rogue AI," while also priasing innovators like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos for moving humankind in new and positive directions. And he also calls Uber "a good metaphor for what's right and wrong in tech" because of its clashes with both its drivers and city governments.
"It's interesting that Lyft, which has been both more cooperative in general and better to drivers, is gaining share. That indicates there's a competitive advantage in doing it right, and you can only go so far being an ass."
"We tend to be afraid of new technology and we tend to demonize it, but to me, you have to use it as an opportunity for introspection. Our fears ultimately should be of ourselves and other people."
O'Reilly calls financial markets "the first rogue AI," while also priasing innovators like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos for moving humankind in new and positive directions. And he also calls Uber "a good metaphor for what's right and wrong in tech" because of its clashes with both its drivers and city governments.
"It's interesting that Lyft, which has been both more cooperative in general and better to drivers, is gaining share. That indicates there's a competitive advantage in doing it right, and you can only go so far being an ass."
you can only go so far being an ass
Well, you can get at least as far as President of the United States.
Why should it be different in this era of cognitive enhancement?
Because when robots can do everything (or nearly everything) a person can do, what is the prospect for employment, let alone increased employment? Before, people always moved on to jobs that machines couldn't do. First from farming to manufacturing, then to services. The final refuges will probably be software development, some retail, and a little bit of hands on medicine. Also top corporate leadership, not because computer programs won't be better than they are at their jobs but because they're the ones in charge so will continue paying themselves enormous salaries for something a computer could do for free. If sexbots are legal, prostitution will diminish greatly. Pretty much everything else will be automated. This isn't happening in 10 years, but it's happening.
Don't fear the reaper?
See subject: Whoever the fool is attempting to "impersonate me" is only proves that I've REALLY 'gotten to them' somehow (thanks).
* I am with you on something though - there is a TON of bogus downmoderation but as the saying goes? "When all your opposition has is censorship you've obviously won" (& I am highly against the LOON(s) who shot all those folks up in Vegas - I think it's somekind of falseflag OR an attempt @ further dividing our nation up ala the KING of bogus evil in that capacity, George Soros paying off groups like BLM & Antifa to do so...)
As far as "AssFux" Ash-Fox? That whimp's a weasel who ALWAYS starts w/ me (he's 'butthurt' I've busted him up on tech issues is all that is)...
APK
P.S.=> Provoking weasel reactions like yours is all the satisfaction anyone needs... apk
I have seen the enemy; it is us.
--
Sir Donald Sinden
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
"We only wish they'd take over the world so we wouldn't have to."
Well, the internet has become a nazi surveillance system, so we can expect the priority of the AI systems will be to spy on us for Hitlers.
it would be anti-PC. Or anti-internet in the 90's
People who say "AI and smart automation will not (net) reduce jobs" are relying on a general denial that certain fundamentals will or can change.
They can't imagine fundamental change of almost anything. Either cognitively they can't imagine it, or more likely, emotionally, they can't accept it and so employ irrational psychologically defensive denial.
These are the same people who say things like "solar and wind power can never be more than X percent of our energy mix" where X is usually somewhere around 10 in their estimation, because of this that and the other obstacle.
And on many other issues (self-driving cars are impossible! TV and print magazines will always be the thing! ... people en masse only need pagers, not mobile phones. There will be a world market for maybe 5 computers. We are not causing a mass extinction episode right now. The climate always changes so there's no problem now. etc. etc.
Other example: computers won't reduce paper use. (yes they will. It is just taking slightly longer than you can grasp in your conservative imagination.)
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Because when robots can do everything (or nearly everything) a person can do, what is the prospect for employment, let alone increased employment?
Automation and ever 'smarter' machines needing ever-less human intervention has been going on since the Industrial Revolution. If people work less because machines do all the work, that means more spare time for the people. In today's day, despite all the complaining, people have never had more spare time to do with as they wish.
Think of a Dickensian urchin in a garment factory, or that poor bastard from the 12th century who spent all day in the mud or behind some ox pulling a plow. Or leave the 1st world and go check out like Zambia or something where automation and machine intelligence are not already stealing all the jobs. Is that a better deal? No, absolutely not.
Geez, when an arrogant, inveterate, demonstrable liar who deliberately violated classifcation laws, and whose only accomplishment was to be married to a moderately successful President, almost gets elected President herself despite running a vapid "I'm with HER!" campaign*, one wonders how unthinkingly, 'OH LOOK! SHINY!" the population has become.
* crikey - not even "She's with ME" - even HilLIARy!'s three-word campaign slogans are all about her...
Still mad bro?
-[AF]-
See subject.
APK
Whatever criminal activity you're into, it can get you far in either the corporate world, or the political one, just so long as you can either keep people from proving it, get it made legal, or get it treated as a fine-able instead of criminal offense.
See subject.
APK
P.S.=> Yeah, I'm still mad brah!
With the Logan's Run level of turnover in engineering, engineers are rarely in a position to control the technology they create. And what managers and executives want to do with technology ranges from banal to terrifying. I fear we are creating yet another viscous cycle where what's good for a small group (those in control of said tech) causes a series of changes that are a net negative for society.
Several times in my career, I left jobs or refused to create technology I knew couldn't possibly be used for socially responsible purposes (or even questionable ones). But there is always some younger, engineer with either less ethics or who is not in a position to have ethics that will create these types of things. Luckily in my case, nobody else they had could create that tech but I know that I only stopped one thing in one instance, meanwhile 1000s of others $EVILTECH were created by other engineers at the same time.
That being said, how technology is used is ultimately a reflection of society at large. If the technology causes an ugly outcome, its just reflecting an ugly part of society.
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
It is the unforeseen and unintended consequences that could be an issue.
There is always a risk when new change comes. Since the real world never stays static for long.
As an example from the world of Pretend.
Assimov's 3 Laws
The 3 Laws of Robots
Revolution! But Whose?
The 3 Laws are Perfect!
When ever anyone says they know for a fact, that yada, yada yada IS how things will work out.
Or such and such can never happen. I tend to take a closer look.
...and that seems to be a serious problem.
Before we talk about bias in results, we have to be able to speak openly about reality without condemnation and public lynching.
If an "AI" system (ok we all know they're not actual AIs) says "black defendant X is more likely re-criminalize than white defendant Y (with almost exactly the same background), parole Y but do not parole X"...there are two possibilities.
Possibility 1 is that the system has derived its data from biased human sources, and thus is reflecting an anti-black bias.
Possibility 2 is that X really is more likely recriminalize based on objective data.
Are we prepared to accept possibility 2 if that's what the DATA says is the fact?
I don't see that we are.
Until we're ready to really face truth no matter how uncomfortable it is, we aren't really ready to judge the accuracy of 'objective systems' much less put in DELIBERATE "counter bias" to deflect results we don't prefer.
-Styopa
People screw people...with algorithms
When AI takes over, it will be with our consent. Humans will simply accept their higher efficiency at accomplishing tasks we feel are too tedious or time consuming to do ourselves. We have already accepted calculators for performing math equations and spell-checker for keeping our words correct. The more people don't want to sweat the details, the more reliant on AI we will become, until they literally run the very basics our our day-to-day lives.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Easy to say when he's not losing anything.
"Forget the engineers." -Carly Fiorina, briber of MIT Technology Review.
Fact 1: "This time" change is happening much faster It is happening faster. Industrial era allowed generations to evaluate and adapt to harmful change, while modern day tech has decreased that to under a few years. Fact 3: Everything will be automated. Automate enough and it will be like you automated everything. The displaced and long-term jobless are affected even more by not receiving any of the jobs, much less anything of comparable quality. Fact 4: Productivity improvements cause poverty. They do cause poverty as they do not fully integrate the displaced on their terms. Any allegations of prosperity rely on the displaced dying off/aging out. Relying on the abstraction of "consumer" doesn't make the harm go away.
"Forget the engineers." -Carly Fiorina, briber of MIT Technology Review.
This insight is so profound that I don't think anybody would be able to come to this conclusion if Tim didn't tell us (sarcasm). Don't fear technology X, fear ourselves.
Financial markets are the first rogue AI? Wrong. The lawmaking apparatuses called governments (or religions for that matter) were the first rogue AI's. They make rule systems to achieve certain goals and they modify their own rule systems in order to adapt to their environments to better achieve their goals. Also these AI's that we have been building for centuries are made to pursue the goal of self-preservation. They don't have the prime directive to not kill people either. Governments get shit done by incentivizing the humans to perform useful tasks. Computers get shit done by incentivizing the electrons to perform useful tasks.
Right now people are the riders and computers are the horses. As computers get better, the role of the rider and the horse will swap (Matrix). The horse could also just throw the rider off it's back and trample him (Terminator). They could also fuse to become a centaur (Pipe dream).
I fear any system that values self-preservation to the extent that it will consider any other system in it's environment as a potential threat and seek to eliminate it. Hyper-insecurity leads to hyper-aggression. The constant struggle to exist and persist has us in an arms race to hell.
The fear of killer robots is the boogeyman employed by the tech giants at Amazon/Google/Facebook to distract us from the shit they're getting away with now. By the time AI has advanced to that point, those tech leaders will be one step away from literally running the world. Then we'll look up at them to save us...
The late Steve Jobs didn't make Apple what it is today by being nice or deciding things by committee. Getting shit done practically requires ruffling feathers, hurting feelings and generally being an ass. Without doing those things, the world just ignores you. You have to make yourself impossible to ignore and the best way to do that is to be an ass. If that's not your cup of tea then maybe you don't belong in the tech startup scene or finance or anywhere else where competition separates the wheat from the chaff.
I really don't know how else to say this. The people complaining about "DEY TOOK OUR JERBS" are literally retarded. They have no mental capacity to learn new skills or to engage their own ambitions. All they do is sit around like vegetable complaining that they have no jobs. If someone hands them a job, what do they do? They sit around complaining how terrible their jobs are, and they fuck up until they are fired because who the fuck wants these retards around anyway? Fucking cancerous shits.
AI isn't going to be the end of the world, AI is going to be the end of retardation and idiocracy. AI will ensure that people who have no capacity for forward thinking will lose all reason to exist. It will take decades to bring the human civilization to the point where these people don't exist anymore, but in the long run they must be expunged from our society if we are to proceed forward instead of backward.
They are our sociological debt and at some point we must acknowledge that sheep have no place in a futuristic society.
So, he's suggesting that we'll all become some small part of the Borg? Yeah, that's progress. Thanks, I'll pass. And really, you want to hold up Bezos and all of his anticompetitive practices as an example of not being an ass? Sorry, I don't share the opinion.
Just another day in Paradise