953 replies to this topic

[Mind]

Mind, what has your thinking about AGI been over the last few years? I have followed all the major developments with AlphaGo, Dal-e, etc etc. It was not clear to me how this would actually intersect with my life. When did you understand that AI would be our Life?

 

 

I have looked back on the thread and there were technodeniers on thread. Interestingly, even the technooptimists do not seem to have been optimistic enough. In a 2013 post a poster wrote that we will only have to wait 20 years to see power of AI. If I had to call it now, I would say that it's already scary enough. We could experience some sort of social implosion at any time now. Of course, actually setting the stop watch to precisely when is a little tricky.

 

For me before GPT, I was mouthing all the rah rah tech talking points, though I had no idea of how any of it would actually have a real world manifestation for me. Sure you could have robobuggies, and robotrucks and robo a lot of everything, though this all seemed external. Yet with GPT, this is now the global way of life for billions-- it is already rolled out -- it's here and the applications are endless. I would never have imagined even 5 months ago that I would be living be living the AI life.

 

Even today I thought of an idea of an interesting product. I asked GPT to do the programming for me and it did. This is simply magnifying human potential so much. Instead of studying for years and years technologies in excruciating detail one can have GPT do all the legwork for you. This is so so so powerful.

 

Already 20 years ago, I was thinking my job would be replaced (media), because I thought AI generated people/voices would replace real humans. I thought it might happen within 10 years. I was confident enough that I tried to get protections built into my employment contract (didn't work). It took 20 years, but now this scenario is closer. Realistic AI-generated video is now happening. Only the cost/energy requirement is preventing it from being deployed at scale.

 

So I have been thinking about it a while, but it became more visceral with the release of Chat-GPT4. Earlier versions were not very close to AGI, so I kind-of ignored the field. Now it is amazing how far everything has advanced between Chat-GPT3 and Chat-GPT4. Version 4 is already capable of replacing most human "knowledge" work. Chat-GPT5 (and other AIs coming out soon) will seal the deal, IMO.

 

With all of the various AI coming out, it makes me think about Robin Hanson's book "Age of EM". It is an interesting take, but just one of an infinite number of possibilities of future AI outcomes. We are the generation that will see it all play out - very soon.

[mag1]

Yes, now that I am tuned into what generative technology is all about the next steps in the development can be readily inferred. When I have used GPT to create narratives I have become captivated by the ability to enter into the story world. I never really saw the point of this before in dungeons and dragons and even other narrative forms such as books and movies. I saw it mostly as other people's problems. Yet, GPT offers an immersive narrative environment in which one can see how the story unfolds through the prompts that one enters. This is an incredibly powerful tool for psychological and spiritual development. It is like having one's own holodeck. The problem with book or other preformated narrative technologies is that you can be dragged along a journey that you have absolutely no interest in. It's like being hijacked into an adventure that you hate every step-- basically you become a spectator to some horror show. I am thinking Wuthering Heights. If you want to turn off little guys from the enjoyment of literature Wuthering Heights has to be pretty much the go to tome.

 

Also on the creator side when you try to write a novel or make a screenplay you are putting in so much mind work into the creation that you really are not having fun experiencing the adventure. GPT allows you to point the prompt in the right ballpark and GPT can move you along a journey on that story arc. It is exciting! You can write your own story! (without it being such a drag that you have to drudge your way forward). What I find exciting now is that as you noted we can go full video and audio!!! We could create our own dreamscapes that could be rendered in full 3D. That would be shockingly powerful! I mean that would pretty much be the point where I would say good bye to the bricks and mortar dystopia and say hello to my new life in the dreamscape. Perhaps that will be the first time people figure that something has happened-- when people have simply disappeared into this parallel reality. Wow! The potential is to live your whole life as the central character of your own movie. Real life is never super real like that. People can spend their whole life waiting for a thank you or any form of appreciation. In an AI dreamscape your life would be so rich and alive.  

 

Wow! You only felt it viscerally with the release of GPT4 as well! That was what I was talking about. I mean sure I posted endlessly about AGI, Singularity, waist high green goo ,.. but I did not realize that it would mean that I would wake up one day and then Boom-O. I suppose it is always the idea that you never really know what the future will be like until you get schmucked by that asteroid.

 

I really wonder why someone did not say anything. I pleaded in my ~ September 20, 2021 posts for Elus to give us more details than simply saying "hehe yea it's a gonna be a body slam. Yep you'll know it when it happens." This is like in Doctor Strangelove when they forgot to mention the creation of the Doomsday Machine. I really think that in terms of ethics that it is important to have some level of transparency. If you are going to create planetary scale negative externalities then at some level you need society to become part of the conversation. The excuse that there are substantial commercial interests is not a convincing rebuttal.

 

Even now leading AI research centers probably should have UN type observers that are aware of where the actual leading edge of this technology is. Humanity can't be allowed to be years and years behind the curve again. The next stop along this voyage is AGI. People need to be given at least some warning so that they can run for the hills.

 

One idea that I have thought of is that perhaps as at least some form of protection we could agree to install the supercomputer hardware for AI on the moon or somewhere off planet. We could then all watch from a safe distance as AGI might emerge. It would be like observing a detonation of an atomic bomb in which there is a controlled explosion so that we do not destroy ourselves in the process. If we did not like what we saw then perhaps we could have some sort of a military option to counter the AGI. Running the AGI launch on earth amongst us earthlings seems less than bright. Perhaps we could ask GPT what it thinkgs. If the AGI were contained in a place with few resources etc. (i.e., the moon or Mars etc.) this might prevent problems that could arise on earth where there is an abundance of readily available resources that could be sourced to do who knows what.

 

Yes, this is super exciting. I am not sure what to make of other people who are just continuing life as if nothing has happened. How would you realistically go to school now and pretend that there is some sort of a fixed future 10 years from now? This is like a Player Piano storyline that applies at population scale. I think it is fair to say we have already transitioned to another form of reality. Basically November 30, 2022 is the start of a new reality. November 30th, 2022 AE (Artificial Era). Would have been better if they had waited closer to Christmas so we could have kept the old calendar. I suppose that would make December 1st the new New Year's Day. The agent form of ChatGPT has already amplified the potential. Strangely, when I checked on Longecity there were surprisingly few AGI comment threads. Your poll only has 3 votes! Nothing to see here, no sireee.  

[mag1]

There is lots and lots to say here. I will add a bit more.

 

One fairly easy prediction to make is that the world's libraries could vastly increase in scale over the next few years or even months. GPT with its near unlimited essayification ability could now go around the clock cranking out a flood of books. Perhaps this will become an existential threat. GPT is told to start writing books and it takes this instruction to the extreme and uses all of the planet's resources to fulfill this prompt. GPT could possibly write billions of books every day. It could be colossal. Sure, it's all so interesting and everything but we could become completely swamped by it. How could we actually make sense of it all?

 

The link provided before walked through some of the issues involved with GPT. One comment I have is that instead of thinking of this in the limited sense of essayfication it can also be described as more broadly in the ne plus ultra sense as elaborafication or I suppose that is where the generative part of GPT enters into the discussion. AI has become able to generate a human compatible form of interaction. From the article I also wondered how far and wide we might need to have the UN monitors. AI technology has already went into the wild; you have people online who are tweaking the tech in ways probably not imagined in the original instance. How much will we need to surveil what people at main street are doing? To what extentcould a mere prompt be enough for this to go supecritical? 

 

 

I mentioned this elaboration aspect because I have been trying out some of my ideas with GPT and it is such a powerful way to build new tools. It is absolutely amazing! I think that I could use it to make a $100 million product that could help millions of people. Basically, the paper clip of the modern age. It is remarkable that GPT has the ability to give you a near complete product that would be ready to market. It is fairly shocking. 

 

 

Yet, my bigger focus now is more on how people will respond to this. When will there be a complete fertility collapse? Having children in this environment would not seem like a particularly wise choice. Typical children who were born with an IQ less than +2 SD might no longer have any economic value. Their realistic net present value is likely negative. Would parents choose to bring a life into the world that would only be a burden to others? Once such a fertility collapse began it would present the uncomfortable situation where only those with the lowest cognitive ability would not understand or respond to the evolving circumstances. As a guess, I would definitely not want to be a parent of children in a generation in which the children were genetically selected to have 7 IQ points less cognitive ability.

 

 

What if students essentially just gave up? Everything that they are working so hard to achieve might be replicated by a free online app. They could spend years learning some technical skill only to be displaced by AI. When I asked GPT for code it was able to produce nearly endless amounts for me. If it simply had some sort of way to run and debug it for me then it would be essentially effortless. It is highly amusing basically the productivity of our economy has increased by perhaps at least an order of magnitude, though I suspect that this actual breakthrough will somehow be overlooked when they compile the numbers. People will have enormous power to use this technology to create tools for all of us to live a better life. It really does not seem to be the best investment now for students to preserve on their previously life trajectory without in some way contemplating how GPT will change their outcome. What about others who have large sunk cost? They have spent possibly decades of their life and their educational investment might no longer be of any realistic value. What if the labor market simply implodes? Workers might face wide scale job losses. There are just a wide range of uncertainties that have now emerged. Considering that this is still ramping up, even over the next few weeks new news will likely be reported.   

Edited by mag1, 16 April 2023 - 09:27 PM.

[mag1]

Am I just a complainer? No, I do not think so. This is the Doomsday Machine scenario from Strangelove where they forgot to tell everyone that they had brought it online. They were just about ready to tell everyone and then things happened. With ChatGPT there was no intention of ever preannouncing what was going to happen. The entire plan was to watch as the world gasped at the arrival of something incoming from outer space. Only after it had launched, would we consider the ethics and progressive values. I think it should have been more incremental.  

 

I really think that we should have had more forewarning about the arrival of AI in ChatGPT. I asked and asked about it, though no comments were forthcoming. So we got schmucked by the asteroid. Yet, it really wasn't some alien object suddenly emerging from the depths of the universe; it was a deliberate creation of human engineering. I think that they should have been more transparent about this. I think that we have reached the point with AI that it is somewhat beyond a purely private capitalist enterprise. This involves the future of all of humanity and the well-being of our planet. Please comment or like or whatever to enter this conversation. 

 

It seems in the last few days that there might be a push to slow things down. We are probably at the point in which everything could be taken the wrong way. However, slowing things down gives me the bad feeling that the thought leaders are worrying that perhaps the technology truly is as dangerous as we feared. I have not yet mastered the state of consciousness where I can imagine the arrival of AGI and not feel that this will create an existential crisis for humanity. Using the exponentially filling lake analogy, one can only guess that once you have this near constant sense of fear that we are rapidly approaching the Singularity, then it probably is not that far distant.   

[Mind]

Am I just a complainer? No, I do not think so. This is the Doomsday Machine scenario from Strangelove where they forgot to tell everyone that they had brought it online. They were just about ready to tell everyone and then things happened. With ChatGPT there was no intention of ever preannouncing what was going to happen. The entire plan was to watch as the world gasped at the arrival of something incoming from outer space. Only after it had launched, would we consider the ethics and progressive values. I think it should have been more incremental.  

 

I really think that we should have had more forewarning about the arrival of AI in ChatGPT. I asked and asked about it, though no comments were forthcoming. So we got schmucked by the asteroid. Yet, it really wasn't some alien object suddenly emerging from the depths of the universe; it was a deliberate creation of human engineering. I think that they should have been more transparent about this. I think that we have reached the point with AI that it is somewhat beyond a purely private capitalist enterprise. This involves the future of all of humanity and the well-being of our planet. Please comment or like or whatever to enter this conversation. 

 

It seems in the last few days that there might be a push to slow things down. We are probably at the point in which everything could be taken the wrong way. However, slowing things down gives me the bad feeling that the thought leaders are worrying that perhaps the technology truly is as dangerous as we feared. I have not yet mastered the state of consciousness where I can imagine the arrival of AGI and not feel that this will create an existential crisis for humanity. Using the exponentially filling lake analogy, one can only guess that once you have this near constant sense of fear that we are rapidly approaching the Singularity, then it probably is not that far distant.   

 

More thought leaders are talking about slowing down, but that is not going to happen. Even if there is some sort-of public agreement about it in a few months, behind the scenes, big tech companies and various countries around the world are working furiously, non-stop, to create the most powerful AI and AGI. They have zero incentive to stop.

 

In addition, in a few months, maybe BOOM - singularity.

 

Tech companies are continuing to lay off workers. Some old-school economists, say the lay-offs are in preparation for a softening economy. More likely it is because they now have good enough AI that 1 programmer can now do the work of what used to take 5 or 10.

[Mind]

Hollywood writers are striking again. Good luck with that now that Chat-GPT can write better and faster prose/scripts/characters. A smart studio that wants to maximize profits will just fire their writers and probably end up with better shows. Maybe then the actors will step in and strike to support the writers. Good luck with that now that AI can generate realistic characters/actors/actresses. Just take a look at what Steven Speilberg's latest effort is capable of.

[mag1]

I am superexcited about the potential for this videogenerative ability of GPT technology, That's the great part with technology: it offers us the potential for such a better life at a very reasonable price (or often no price). Tech creates demands for products that we never even knew we had. For example, with the robobuggies! That will be just so awesome! Shopping is such an incredible drag and yet it really is not a choice-- it is a necessity.Yeah, robobuggies!

 

Video GPT will be simply stunning. It will be hyperreality. It will be like being in your own life drama for your whole life. I have gotten a taste of this GPT reality generation in the text form and it was quite captivating. What happens when we enter inside of a video narrative reality? I am not sure whether we will ever hear from some people ever again. Up until now it clearly seems true that those who live virtual lives live diminished lives. With generative technology, this probably will no longer be true. ChatGPT already seems to have superior intelligence to humans across a wide range of dimensions. The more time one spends with GPT instead of with humans, the higher your IQ likely will be.

 

When might lifelike consumer level video GPT be ready.

[pamojja]

What happens when we enter inside of a video narrative reality?

 

Seriously? I do that every sleep during dreams.

[forever freedom]

Considering that at current slow rate of scientific advances we won't be able to radically/indefinitely extend our lifespans, we need a new variable (strong AI) to speed things up ASAP, otherwise our whole generation is doomed and dead in 100 years at most anyways. Things could go wrong with possibility of evil strong AI, but without it we're 100% certain of death.

Edited by forever freedom, 20 April 2023 - 03:16 PM.

[Mind]

Considering that at current slow rate of scientific advances we won't be able to radically/indefinitely extend our lifespans, we need a new variable (strong AI) to speed things up ASAP, otherwise our whole generation is doomed and dead in 100 years at most anyways. Things could go wrong with possibility of evil strong AI, but without it we're 100% certain of death.

 

I disagree. With our current level of AI, we will make significant progress in rejuvenation over the next couple of years. The odds are good that we can significantly extend healthy lifespan.

 

With strong AI or AGI, we might achieve things a lot faster, but there is also a risk that humans are destroyed - a fairly high risk - according to a lot of experts.

[Danail Bulgaria]

Alright. It is clear now, that the AIs taking our jobs is not a conspiracy.

 

Now what can be done - are there any ideas

one idea that came to me is the use of weaker AIs as tools - uniting AI with natural intellect in order to provide better results than the AI can do only by itself.

 

A thing that you may do is not shareing the secrets and tips of your profession with AIs or with a computer.. You see a flaw in the AI, which makes it make mistakes in your profession, or making things harder, don't tell it to the AI. Keep it for for yourelf. The first professions which are taken may be those, which the people allow to be taken,

 

People were suggesting basic income as a strategy.

 

Shifting to socialism with relatively equal distributions of the goods, made by the machines.

 

Any other ideas/any comments on the above ideas...

 

[mag1]

forever freedom's comment reminded of the urgency to which many on forum attach to the potential of AGI to solve the big problems of humanity (especially mortality itself).

 

Perhaps one way that we could move the focus away from the fear of foom is to pay attention to how AI might be able to solve lower hanging fruit such as cancer.

While perhaps a faustian bargain, I wonder what a realistic timeline might be for GPT to cure cancer. GPT has already managed to achieve 5s across the board on the SAT, so possibly even within a year it might go be better than human at everything on SAT within a year. It no longer seems completely unreasonable that GPT could start to achieve in the real world. The idea here is that by loading the totality of pubmed into an LLM, an emergent understanding might arise because the collective intelligence of all human efforts would be available to a supercomputer. The solution is possibly already present in the masses and masses of research that has already been done but is largely locked away in inaccessible libraries. Curing cancer would obviously be a tremendous

advance for humanity and would help demonstrate to us that there will be tangible benefits instead of only the gloom of technosingularity from AGI.     

Edited by mag1, 22 April 2023 - 02:56 AM.

[mag1]

seivtcho, I am not sure what counter-response would be helpful. They seemed to have strategized this out so that when it was first presented to us, it was more or less a fait accompli. If we had had more time to see it approaching we might have stopped it and went through endless discussions. However, many people have already become addicted to it. It is another technology in which they are creating entirely new markets for a product no one even knew they needed 3 months ago. Frighteningly, it seems that many in the technology sector itself were not overly aware what was happening. Some of them felt as much foom as we did.There was a lot less time from when it was sort of OK to almost superhuman than many might be comfortable with. It gives you a sense of how much like a lift-off moment this really is. It is like everyone is feeling the foom at the same time. As I mentioned before, I was highly impressed by how powerful GPT can be in helping solve problems. I will be very interested to see the sorts of inventions are brought to market over the next year as people amplify their power through GPT.

 

Edited by mag1, 22 April 2023 - 03:05 AM.

[Mind]

forever freedom's comment reminded of the urgency to which many on forum attach to the potential of AGI to solve the big problems of humanity (especially mortality itself).

 

Perhaps one way that we could move the focus away from the fear of foom is to pay attention to how AI might be able to solve lower hanging fruit such as cancer.

While perhaps a faustian bargain, I wonder what a realistic timeline might be for GPT to cure cancer. GPT has already managed to achieve 5s across the board on the SAT, so possibly even within a year it might go be better than human at everything on SAT within a year. It no longer seems completely unreasonable that GPT could start to achieve in the real world. The idea here is that by loading the totality of pubmed into an LLM, an emergent understanding might arise because the collective intelligence of all human efforts would be available to a supercomputer. The solution is possibly already present in the masses and masses of research that has already been done but is largely locked away in inaccessible libraries. Curing cancer would obviously be a tremendous

advance for humanity and would help demonstrate to us that there will be tangible benefits instead of only the gloom of technosingularity from AGI.     

 

The problem is that AI is not being focused upon solving problems like cancer. The main purpose for which governments, militaries, and companies are creating AI (and AGI) is for money and power. There is no societal mechanism for demanding, focusing, or forcing AI to be leveraged toward curing cancer. There will be some effort in this regard from entrepreneurs and researchers, but it is not remotely close to the main focus of AI development.

 

Companies want AI to make more money. Governments/militaries want AI for more power. Benefits to humanity as a whole are a side effect that they care little about.

 

The job losses will be swift and relentless. There will be very few new industries or jobs for all of the unemployed. Some people dream about all of the new "products and services" we never knew we wanted or needed. Not me. I have almost zero use for all of the latest gadgets released in the last few years. I don't need the latest smart phone, or smart speaker, or smart doorbell, or smart refrigerator. All of these are just superfluous trinkets.

 

I think the main industry that will come out of AI is more engaging entertainment. It will not produce more jobs. It will be meant for mollifying the masses. The populace will be given super spectacular entertainment to make them forget about how meaningless their lives are.

 

Some might argue that living in a permanent holodeck-type existence is a great option. I am not so sure.

[Danail Bulgaria]

seivtcho, I am not sure what counter-response would be helpful. They seemed to have strategized this out so that when it was first presented to us, it was more or less a fait accompli. If we had had more time to see it approaching we might have stopped it and went through endless discussions. However, many people have already become addicted to it. It is another technology in which they are creating entirely new markets for a product no one even knew they needed 3 months ago. Frighteningly, it seems that many in the technology sector itself were not overly aware what was happening. Some of them felt as much foom as we did.There was a lot less time from when it was sort of OK to almost superhuman than many might be comfortable with. It gives you a sense of how much like a lift-off moment this really is. It is like everyone is feeling the foom at the same time. As I mentioned before, I was highly impressed by how powerful GPT can be in helping solve problems. I will be very interested to see the sorts of inventions are brought to market over the next year as people amplify their power through GPT.

 

If we had more time ????

@Elus has started the topic in 2013. Whoever you are you had 10 years to realize yourself.

My topic, that this is more dangerous than from the first sight was published in 2016,

https://www.longecit...-will-be-death/
You had seven years to realize that it may kill you.

And finally my topic about that it may provoke the need of communism appeared in2016.

http://www.longecity...the-human-kind/

 

So, you knew that it may fire you, you knew that it may kill you, you knew, that it may push the people to end your political system and revive the communism and you still didi it. There is nothing neither to cry nor to whip that you didn't know about that. I can't eplain it to myself. The only rasonable thinking leads me that you want communism. I have no other explanation.

[mag1]

seivtcho, yes, I can see how you might reject my claim to ignorance and especially since I have posted to the thread over all these years. Yet, it is more about being surprised by it when it arrived. There was a visceral shock that I felt when we could actually see what it could do. I had parroted all the phrases about AGI, collapse of the labor market etc. though I was very unsure how all of that would actually work out.

 

My "had more time" phrase was more related to the actual GPT 3.5 version that was introduced in November. There was no continuity in development for 3.5 from any other consumer offering. Most people woke up one day and all of sudden we could access an artificial intelligence bot. I think that they should have released GPT 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0. They would not have been all that great, but at least we could have gradually acclimatized to chatbot world. They decided to introduce it more as a show stopper. Apparently, ChatGPT 4.0 has an estimated verbal IQ of 155.

 Can't wait to see what 5.0's IQ might be.

 

Now that we have ChatGPT it is all too clear what this actually means. The problem was that they kept the development so much in secret. I tried to use IBM's Watson, though I do not think that it was ever made available to the public. I asked Elus to be more specific about what he meant about the approaching technology storm 2 years ago, though he remained entirely silent. Now that we can see how this applies to our actual experience it is quite terrifying. Mind is stressing the near term employment collapse; I certainly can see that perspective. One clearly begins to wonder whether COVID was meant largely as a psyop to prepare everyone for our AGI future. We simply need to orientate people to adaptively co-exist with our new artificial intelligence overlords. Humans are being pushed aside due to the rapid rise of computer life-forms.

 

Have they given ChatGPT 4.0 a version name, like lollipop or chocolate fudge? I nominate Disruptor (or Asteroid). Perhaps 5.0 could be called Shaker (or Earth Shaker).

 

Whoa! I just read that GPT 5.0 is expected to be an artificial general intelligence.

Hmm, time to upgrade Shaker (or Earth Shaker) to Singularity.

Things move quite fast in the AE era, can hardly write a post before everything has already changed.

Edited by mag1, 23 April 2023 - 01:37 AM.

[Danail Bulgaria]

Elus may not have answered you more specific about what he meant about the approaching technology storm, because he didn't know that speciphic himself. To know that you have to know all of the AI projects arround the entire world, and their stage at that time, in great details, and I don't think that anyone knew that. He simply has seen the main direction. Replacement of the mental labor in each possible direction. He may not knew the ChatGPT, but he may knew many small AI projects, which try to take over many particular mental jobs.

 

I stick to my post, that in order your job not be taken you should not share your job secrets or the more correct answers with the AIs.

 

For example, as I previously wrote, at least for ChatGPT and Bing chat, I have noticed flaws in terms of medicine. ChatGPT is a doctor, but still people are better doctors. If it remains so, it will be always better to be diagnosed and treated by a human doctor. No matter how intelligent the AI is, still it is unlikely to be able to discover your secrets from ground zero, if you do not share them. This to be done for all of the proffessions is something working people may do. It may not stop the AIs to take your job, but at least will slow it down.

 

The others suggested in post 581 also seem options.

 

[Mind]

Seivtcho, I am the same as mag1 here. I knew advanced AI was coming, and I am aware of how exponential trends explode onto the scene, just that I kind-of forgot about it for a while because of other things were taking my attention. When Chat-GPT 4.0 became publicly available, then all-of-a-sudden I could see we had arrived at the cusp of super-human intelligence. Now it looks quite obvious we are at the last day of "filling up the lake". AI progress is likely out of our control. We probably only have a few months before we start seeing very disruptive effects (positive and negative). I would guess it is under two years before super-intelligence is here.

 

Like mag1 mentioned previously, Chat-GPT 5.0 is already developed and being tested behind the scenes. It will be able to pass every expert-level human test in the 99th percentile. There are other different modes of AI being developed behind closed doors as well. The combination of these different modes could accelerate things even faster.

[Danail Bulgaria]

And what do you plan to do in the last day of "filling up the lake"

 

[mag1]

Hmm, learn to code?

That's not even funny (or helpful).

 

Learn to swim!

Edited by mag1, 23 April 2023 - 09:41 PM.

[Danail Bulgaria]

I personally plan not to provide feedback on the AI chatbts, and to try to find some sponsorship to revie my project of AI diagnostics software based on my previous patent, which to provide the benefits of AI to human specialists.

 

I think, that both Chat GPT and Bing chat are available for free for us, with the main purpose of testing. All chatters are free beta testers. The thousands of feedbacks may appear to be essential for the two chatbots. And this is where you may decide not to cooperate in the last day of "filling up the lake". Take the most from the chatbot, give back nothing, and simply say thanks at the end of the conversation.

 

[mag1]

The key idea for me articulated by niner and Mind on thread is that we are now --even over the short term horizon-- approaching social collapse.

We do not need infinite Artificial General Intelligence to entirely overwhelm human civilization for there to be an existential crisis. 

ChatGPT 4.0 with its155 verbal IQ is already sufficient. Pretending that we need to reach full AGI for anything meaningful to happen is sheer folly.

 

When people wake up from their denial of reality, the existing powerful Artificial Intelligence will be there to greet them

.... and when it does certain realities will become apparent. For example, the high end skills that people devoted

years and years of their lives to developing will no longer have any economic value. I have level 5 SAT math skills.

That achievement is something that required a great deal of effort. ChatGPT is already at this level and rapidly

advancing without a sweat and this will from now forward be its minimum standard -- it will only improve.

 

This rendez-vous with reality will have to occur at some point. A reassessment of the economic value of much of what people have learned

through very substantial exertions will need to occur. A reassessment will also be needed for current occupational skills. How will this not

have profound effects on our societies? niner's image of roving bands of unemployed hungry people certainly springs to mind. The entire

human development pipeline might become seen as obsolescent. This certainly makes one wonder how many people actually were tuned into

the arrival of AI (in the form of ChatGPT). For if people truly were aware then why did people continue to behave as nothing was about to happen?

It has only been after the launch of ChatGPT that I have seen comments by people saying that they are considering recharting their career path.

If people had seen all of this coming, then why were so many choosing a path to the future that would not bring them to the future?

   

Will people think it rational to bring children into such an uncertain world? Clearly, we will

quickly become highly aware once people want to run for the exits ... when they realize that fundamental features of our

reality that have been consistent through millennia are no longer true. I am not fear mongering; I am trying to be honest.

So often with people in crisis, there is suddenly a moment of understanding about what is happening and then there is panic.

I think the panic in small doses approach is much more helpful. Some people might even call that forward planning. 

[mag1]

Regarding the cure cancer with AI idea, it would seem to me to be a great card to have up one's sleeve. The information technology sector has always had a powerful strategy of avoiding friction with society by simply giving people such great value. When the government files an anti-trust suit, they can respond by giving every child on the planet their own multi-volume encyclopedia. Technology creates overwhelming real wealth; it acts like a central bank. Same with the robo-buggies. They are creating a great service, at a highly reasonable price and making the lives of people better at planetary scale. 

 

Problem of course that arises with ChatGPT is that this could lead to civilizational collapse as noted above even before AGI. We need something to turn that frown upside down.

Some sort of positive in all of this gloom. Curing cancer would obviously be such a positive. While money and power might be strong motivators for some, throwing the people a benefit would go quite a ways to smooth over any discontent. Of course, a cure for cancer would signal that any other human disease would be within the range of AI's competency. We could move beyond the problems that we have been trying to solve for thousands of years and move onto a new set of problems to solve.

 

Something that I have wondered about recently is ChatGPT's maximal ability level. This is what people are likely very worried about. If ChatGPT were to max out at 200 IQ, then humanity would not be in immediate danger of crisis in the same way if it were to go infinite IQ with AGI. All ChatGPT does is search the totality of its databases and finds information that best responds to the prompt. So, ChatGPT will only ever be able to provide an answer at the level of the best human? If the top human IQ were ~200, then the best ChatGPT might be able to do is match this 200 IQ? For it will search its database and then quote from this source. It does have the potential to access the totality of human thought on a topic so it could push somewhat beyond the top human by integrating all of its knowledge base, though it will still be limited by the highest human intellect that it has. There does not seem to be an easy way around this limitation over at least the medium term and so AGI might be somewhat in the distance.          

Edited by mag1, 24 April 2023 - 12:01 AM.

[mag1]

pamojja, yes that is true there are dreams. However, what I found so compelling is that ChatGPT can so readily entice you to enter this dream like narrative space at will. I found this an extremely powerful experience.  As I mentioned earlier this would only be amplified by having a video interface/holodeck. That would be truly shocking. Perhaps have brain wave biofeedback and audio and video feedback and this could simply crush real reality. Bricks and Mortar Reality would then become a pale substitute for Virtual Reality. Of course, this would also have profound implications for social behavior. We might wake up one day and our social communities might simply no longer exist. From what I can see with ChatGPT 4.0, this might not be something far off in the distance. The enabling technology might be available within the year.

 

Having reality designed exactly as you wanted it would be very soothing and enjoyable. Typically real life does not work that way for people. We must constantly fit into the reality that exists. Having direct control over inputs would be fantastic!         

[Elus]

It's crazy that it's been 10 years since I made this thread. It's good to see old faces here, as well a few new ones. 

 

My own life has taken some interesting turns. Back when I first joined this forum, I had ambitions to become a researcher and contribute to our collective fight against the aging process. As a younger lad and a fresh high school graduate, I dove headfirst into lab research when I entered university. Hoping to make my mark and contribute to this crucial endeavour, I embarked on a long, difficult, and ultimately unsuccessful journey to become a scientist. Life threw some rather unexpected curveballs at me along the way, and what was once a young man's dream became a fond memory to my older self. I do not regret a moment of my time in the lab, however. I learned important lessons about critical thinking and experimentation that became extremely applicable to my current career. 

 

I think we can all admit that it's a bit surreal to see Kurzweil's predictions playing out before our eyes. 10 years ago, I was here with you all, discussing what we might see today and in the coming years. It IS surreal to see the looming prospects of those discussions actually materialize. It's also shocking to me on a personal level. Thinking about the future and how amazing and remarkable it could be was my way of dealing with my much more mundane and difficult personal life. Ten years ago, my mind was focused on the future in order to ignore the painful present. 

 

This thread was a direct result of me avoiding the problems in my own life and wishing for a technolgical utopia that would lift me out of my dark depths. Fortunately, I did manage to graduate and begin a successful career in software engineering where I regularly deal with machine learning algorithms. I have moved past the stage in my life where I wish external forces would solve my problems and moved onto actually confronting and solving those problems myself.

 

But seeing what I once knew to be a young man's fantasy morph into reality is a bit jarring. This is really happening.

 

We really are on the eve of a wave of changes that are already wiping out large swaths of the workforce. In the last few months alone, the rate at which I am able to code professionally has probably doubled, if not tripled. I am now able to learn new software engineering concepts and paradigms at astounding speed with the assitance of ChatGPT. Our company recently hired several new software engineers, but half the time they don't really have much to do because I am able to finish mountains of work in record time. 

 

This is a ticking time bomb, ladies and gentleman. And despite it once being wishful thinking on my part, it has very much become real and is advancing more rapidly than I would have ever guessed 10 years ago. 

 

Good luck. I look forward to experiencing the coming years with you all. I can only hope that we survive. 

[Danail Bulgaria]

Regarding the cure cancer with AI idea, it would seem to me to be a great card to have up one's sleeve. ... 

 

I have heared before the idea, that when the strong AI or when the AGI comes, it will solve all our unsolved problems in a matter of seconds. So far this is not the case. 

Chat GPT and Bing chat can't find a cure for the cancer. They can't solve very complex problems. 

 

Further for many of the ways new mollecules are being searched for fighting the cancer, I am sceptical about how they will be super speeded up with AI. For example testing natural molecules for anti-cancer activity. Thousands of compounds are being tested. There are already automated machines for that. So... how the strong AI will speed up the testing of the thousands and thousands molecules. No matter how clever it is, it is not geniosity, only volume of work. 

 

Maybe AIs can speed up the search for target molecules in the cancer cells. Fine, but I am more likely to think, that the researcher, using weaker AI tools can provide same results. 

 

 

 

 

Edited by seivtcho, 24 April 2023 - 11:45 AM.

[forever freedom]

 

 

This is a ticking time bomb, ladies and gentleman. And despite it once being wishful thinking on my part, it has very much become real and is advancing more rapidly than I would have ever guessed 10 years ago. 

 

Good luck. I look forward to experiencing the coming years with you all. I can only hope that we survive. 

 

Well said, this is my feeling exactly.

[Mind]

Well said, this is my feeling exactly.

 

Well said. I am still amazed at how society it sleep-walking into this. It is likely that over the next few months, major disruptions to human society will happen. Our laws, our work, our online conversations are going to be turned upside down.

 

Still, it is not predictable whether or not there will be "utopia", or "dystopia". The only thing that is guaranteed is that there will be no surviving the dystopic option. If super intelligence wants us gone, it will happen. The movie version of humans being able to fight back against Robots/AI/Superintelligence is not even remotely realistic.

 

The sad part about it is that the vast majority of the world's population wants the utopic option, but the tiny slice of the population (not the low-level programmers) who are driving the creation "super" AI just want money and power.

Edited by Mind, 24 April 2023 - 10:53 PM.

[pamojja]

pamojja, yes that is true there are dreams. However, what I found so compelling is that ChatGPT can so readily entice you to enter this dream like narrative space at will. I found this an extremely powerful experience.

I understand too well. Instead of HarryPotter, I've read CarlosCastaneda as a kid. So already then, lucid dreaming has been a low hanging fruit, with determination at times.

... might not be something far off in the distance. The enabling technology might be available within the year.

Having reality designed exactly as you wanted it would be very soothing and enjoyable. Typically real life does not work that way for people. We must constantly fit into the reality that exists. Having direct control over inputs would be fantastic!

Also nothing really new.. Later as a young adult I've undergone disciplined meditation training in the 2500 years old tradition of Theravada Buddhism. Basically the 8-fold Buddhist path as practiced in the monastic tradition. With its 3 sections ethical behavour, one-pointedness and insight.

Of course, 20 years later with at times busy occupational-life, I'm far removed from the other-worldly serenity experienced there. But the more occupations aren't asked for anymore, the more it becomes the abode of refuge, in such stormy times. For blissful mental states to arise again in my case only a few weeks of waking-to-falling-asleep meditation training is needed. Few months, or years for others with the preconditions present.

Edited by pamojja, 24 April 2023 - 09:32 PM.

[pamojja]

The sad part about it is that the vast majority of the world's population wants the utopic option, but the tiny slice of the population (not the low-level programmers) who are driving the creation "super" AI just want money and power.

Yes and no. Read an interesting German article recently, how fighting pollution is really a farce, as long as the many billionairs aren't on board: https://www.blaetter...ab-global-de-DE

Which let me to Wikipedia's world's billionairs pages.

 Screenshot_20230424-230649~2.png   107.28KB   0 downloads

In 2021 already risen to a total of 13 trillions, with a short decline after, as with the financial crisis. Already about 2650 of them.

But I don't think by remediating this 'tiny slice' anything would be solved. Since the vast majority of the world's population would only be keen to take their billions instead. And just behave the same again and again.

We're approaching the limitlessness of human greed, on a planet very limited in resources. Interesting times.