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Comment by thegrey_one

16 hours ago

>We could stop it

I strongly disagree. It's easy to utter this string of words, but it's meaningless. It's akin to saying if you have two hands you can perform brain surgery. Technically you can, practically you cannot, as there's other things required for pulling that off, not just having two working hands.

I doubt "stopping it" is up to anyone, it's rather a phenomenon and it's quite clear we're all going to wing it. It's a literal fight for power, nobody stops anything of this nature, as any authority that could stop it will choose to accelerate it, just to guarantee its power.

It is not AI we should fear, it's humans controlling and using it. But everyone who has a shot at it is promising they'll use it for "ultimate good" and "world peace" something something, obviously.

Yes, it would be like trying to “stop” gunpowder in 1400 or atomic weapons in 1938. Pandora’s box is open.

  • Gunpowder (weapons) and atomic tech (energy, material, weapons) are heavily regulated in most of the planet, as the risks of having free access to them for everyone (company/person) for their own selfish purpose without strong guardrails clearly outweighs the benefits.

    The fact that something exists doesn't mean that having it readily available is the only option, particularly if it has potentially disastrous consequences at scale. We are choosing to make it available to everyone fully unregulated, and that is a choice that will prove either beneficial or detrimental to society at some point.

    I don't think it is inevitable, I think it is a conscious choice made by a few that have their own and only their own interests in mind.

    As a technologist, I am amazed at this tech and see some personal benefits. As a human, I am terrified of the potential net negative effects, and I am having trouble reconciling those two feelings.

    • The challenge is that enforcing a ban would presumably require strict incursions into personal freedoms organized at a scale where AI-based solutions would be particularly effective and thus tempting, paradoxically.

      On the other hand, assuming the dangers are real, you lose by default if you do nothing.

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