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AIs Have Replaced Aliens As Our Greatest World Destroying Fear (qz.com)
An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from a report via Quartz: As we've turned our gaze away from the stars and toward our screens, our anxiety about humanity's ultimate fate has shifted along with it. No longer are we afraid of aliens taking our freedom: It's the technology we're building on our own turf we should be worried about. The advent of artificial intelligence is increasingly bringing about the kinds of disturbing scenarios the old alien blockbusters warned us about. In 2016, Microsoft's first attempt at a functioning AI bot, Tay, became a Hitler-loving mess an hour after it launched. Tesla CEO Elon Musk urged the United Nations to ban the use of AI in weapons before it becomes "the third revolution in warfare." And in China, AI surveillance cameras are being rolled out by the government to track 1.3 billion people at a level Big Brother could only dream of. As AI's presence in film and TV has evolved, space creatures blowing us up now seems almost quaint compared to the frightening uncertainties of an computer-centric world. Will Smith went from saving Earth from alien destruction to saving it from robot servants run amok. More recently, Ex Machina, Chappie, and Transcendence have all explored the complexities that arise when the lines between human and robot blur.
However, sentient machines aren't a new anxiety. It arguably all started with Ridley Scott's 1982 cult classic, Blade Runner. It's a stunning depiction of a sprawling, smog-choked future, filled with bounty hunters muttering "enhance" at grainy pictures on computer screens. ("Alexa, enlarge image.") The neo-noir epic popularized the concept of intelligent machines being virtually indistinguishable from humans and asked the audience where our humanity ends and theirs begin. Even alien sci-fi now acknowledges that we've got worse things to worry about than extra-terrestrials: ourselves.
However, sentient machines aren't a new anxiety. It arguably all started with Ridley Scott's 1982 cult classic, Blade Runner. It's a stunning depiction of a sprawling, smog-choked future, filled with bounty hunters muttering "enhance" at grainy pictures on computer screens. ("Alexa, enlarge image.") The neo-noir epic popularized the concept of intelligent machines being virtually indistinguishable from humans and asked the audience where our humanity ends and theirs begin. Even alien sci-fi now acknowledges that we've got worse things to worry about than extra-terrestrials: ourselves.
Why be scared of A.I.s when human brains are already the most complicated thing in the known universe, are impossible to fully understand, and already run everything?
Silicon & Charybdis McLuhan Kildall Papert Kay
Natural Stupidity is a far bigger risk right now.
Table-ized A.I.
The AP apocalypse is already upon us, meaning artificial persons -- and no, I don't mean Bishop from Aliens, I'm talking about corporations, which are considered artificial persons under the law. The Supreme Court, in its very finite wisdom, granted corporations "equal protection" under the 14th Amendment, which gives them to right to "speak" (ie: spend money) in elections and on lobbyists. They have already taken more-or-less complete control of the US government.
Our only hope is to end corporate personhood with a constitutional amendment, stating clearly that corporations are not people and money is not speech.
A couple of groups that are working on this issue now: MoveToAmend.org and Wolf-PAC.com
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
AI will probably never exist ...
Never say never. There is already a proof of concept: the human brain. Unless you believe in magic, there is no reason that what can be done with carbon can't also be done with silicon. Silicon neurons can switch 10 million times faster, and unlike biological brains, an AI would not be encumbered by the detritus of millions of years of sub-optimal evolutionary local maxima.
... so that is also an unrealistic fear.
That is exactly what they want us to believe.
I do have a rather good idea of how distant stars are, and of how improbable faster than light travel is - but you are taking a limited view of technology.
With technology we understand now you can get to about 0.1C, in maybe 100 years. (that is a power density that you can radiate with reasonable radiators, and energy densities compatible with fission reactors). So we are talking a few thousand year trips.
But is that so bad? Even humans have worked on single projects that lasted 100 years (like the NY 2nd avenue subway). Is a few thousand so out of line? Maybe they are longer lived that we are.
Maybe they have already exponentiated into most solar systems and are waiting. (robots, hibernation whatever). They could be "predators" who destroy any technological civilizations before they become an interstellar threat.
Maybe they do it for religious reasons. Or for something as incomprehensible to us as religion is to a cat. Maybe invasion is the wrong word, and they just want to build a hyperspace bypass (just kidding).
Likely - no. But I don't see how you can rule it out. Interstellar travel at a fraction of C is really not that difficult with technology we already understand (but of course don't yet have). Near C may be possible and we just don't know how yet. (making antimatter seems difficult but maybe there is a trick).
I personally find AI and aliens to be much less threatening than physical destruction... but truly the most fearsome of all is FUNDAMENTALISM in any of its forms.
I dont fear Artificial Intelligence as much as I fear Human Stupidity.
The latter is more likely to lead us to our doom.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.