[nologic01]

The biggest risk I see (in the short term) is people being forced to accept outcomes where "AI" plays, in one form or another a defining role that materially affects human lives.

Thus people accepting implicitly (without awareness) or explicitly (as a precondition for receiving important services and without any alternatives on offer) algorithmic regulation of human affairs that is controlled by specific economic actors. Essentially a bifurcation of society into puppets and puppeteers.

Algorithms encroaching into decision making have been an ongoing process for decades and in some sense it is an inescapable development. Yet the manner in which this can be done spans a vast range of possibilities and there is plenty of precedence: Various regulatory frameworks and checks and balances are in place e.g., in the sectors of medicine, insurance, finance etc. where algorithms are used to support important decision making, not replace it.

The novelty of the situation rests on two factors that do not merely replicate past circumstances:

* the rapid pace of algorithmic improvement which creates a pretext for suppressing societal push-back

* the lack of regulation that rather uniquely characterized the tech sector, which allowed creating de-facto oligopolies, lock-ins and lack of alternatives

The long term risk from AI depends entirely on how we handle the short term risks. I don't really believe we'll see AGI or any such thing in the foreseeable future (20 years), entirely on the basis of how the current AI mathematics looks and feels. Risks from other - existential level - flaws of human society feel far greater, with biological warfare maybe the highest risk of them all.

But the road to AGI becomes dystopic long before it reaches the destination. We are actually already in a dystopia as the social media landscape testifies to anybody who wants to see. A society that is algorithmically controlled and manipulated at scale is a new thing. Pandora's box is open.

[drewcoo]

> Algorithms encroaching into decision making have been an ongoing process for decades

When in recorded history have people not followed algorithms?

This seems as misguided as fears about genetically modified crops, something else humans have been doing for as long as we know.

AI frightens people, in part, because often the reasoning is inscrutable. This is similar to how a century ago, electrification was seen. All these fancy electrical doo-dads, absent well-understood mechanisms, gave us ample material for Rube Goldberg.

https://www.rubegoldberg.org/all-about-rube/cartoon-gallery/

> the lack of regulation

Regulation is an algorithm.

> A society that is algorithmically controlled and manipulated at scale is a new thing.

Nope. It's as old as laws, skills, and traditions.

> Pandora's box is open.

Algorithms are rules. The opening of pandora's box is exactly the opposite of unleashing a set of rules.

[nologic01]

> Regulation is an algorithm

I am not frightened by AI, I am frightened by people like you developing an amoral, inhumane pseudo-ideology to justify whatever they do and feeling entitled to act on it "because it was always thus"

[turtleyacht]

In a sense, isn't AI trained by "frequency of the majority?"

Then exceptions may need to be even more so, and it may be harder to discuss outliers.

Anyway, once they get through, even if the model is retrained, maybe there are not enough exceptions in the world to convince it otherwise.

AI that does not have a "stop, something is anomalous about this" has no conscience, and perhaps thus has no duty in determining moral decisions.

Plus, how does AI evolve without novelty; everyone will be stamped with the "collection of statistical weights."

Is that how you feel as well?

[pixl97]

This post managed to say a lot of things and nothing all at once.

Lots of people died from electrocution because we didn't really have good regulations on how to wire stuff, and even a good grasp on the dangers of electricity.

Also, some countries have pretty good regulations and are generally happy. Other countries have terrible regulations and lots of human suffering because of it.

This is why your post is really meaningless. We're trying to incorporate a new system of regulations and rules and not have it be worse then what we currently have!

[nologic01]

People are likely not to find meaning in a critical view point if their salary depends on not finding it.

Not sure what to make of your objections. Yes regulation varies and it is not always timely or effective. So?

What I have tried to do is place the current debate of "AI risks" not in the popular yet deceitful and disorienting context of "what is, really, intelligence" and other such bull, but in the context of what can we as society allow people to do to other people using algorithms.

If we agree that this is the crux of the "AI" risk everything else is up for discussion.

The creeping "AI / human equivalence" ideology adopted by some tech bros is a throwback to very dark periods of dehumanization which had dire consequences. I hope people wake up to that threat and nip it in the bud.