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Comment by m00x | Hacker News Reader

Just like everything humans have made, AI will be scary and people will freak out. The biggest advances will be done by companies with huge resources, and with careful testing. Like with everything else, the cat is out of the bag, and the only way is forward.

We thought that after inventing the nuclear bomb, the world would be doomed. Decades later, it's barely a thought and we have enough nuclear bombs to destroy the planet.

We will have AI, it will be fine, we'll make it incredible and it'll be a tool. One thing is certain: AI development will not stop, and it's better that you're always a step ahead of your rival.

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Reasoning purely by analogy is limited. We could say the same thing about cars. Some people thought it was a bad thing, to replace horses. They might not have been right for the right reasons, but now we have one of the highest levels of CO2 in over 800 thousand years mainly because of cars (and other fossil-fuel burning devices, which would largely not be possible without vehicles).

The truth is, we have nothing quite like AI from the past from which to draw on experience. If AI becomes an incredible tool, it will an incredibly bad one, used mainly for replacing humans in most jobs and removing our reliance on each other, promoting narcissism and selfish behaviour.

Also, the nuclear story is not finished. We don't know whether someone will use nuclear weapons again in the next 100 years -- something that might affect all of our children.

>If AI becomes an incredible tool, it will an incredibly bad one, used mainly for replacing humans in most jobs and removing our reliance on each other, promoting narcissism and selfish behaviour.

Ridiculous, you have absolutely no way of knowing how this will all play out. I'm certain AI could create a lot of instability in the job market, but there's no reason to think our economy won't evolve as it always has in the past to match.

Actually, technology has already done this to a large extend, and AI is the next logical step in the process. Our economy is evolving, and evolving in very twisted ways to make us more machine like.

Well said. There hasn't even been 70 years since Hiroshima, we're definitely not past anything.

> We thought that after inventing the nuclear bomb, the world would be doomed. Decades later, it's barely a thought and we have enough nuclear bombs to destroy the planet

Nuclear annihilation might be an afterthought these days but it’s a present danger. In some recent times that danger has grown. The fact that it’s an afterthought is mostly a statement to how much risk we tolerate and absorb for whatever benefits we ascribe to the tradeoffs. But it’s still there, and in many moments even recently it’s been quite heightened. Minimizing it is probably good for presence of mind, but probably not great for future outcomes.

Almost everything can kill you. Nuclear armageddon is still a risk, but since almost everyone has one, we're mostly safe from it. Unless there's an illogical agent in control, there is no logical move that involves using nukes. It serves no one to destroy humanity.

> Unless there's an illogical agent in control

1. There always is.

2. There always was. That’s why the threat was introduced by using them in the first place.

I wouldn't be so sure about the "careful testing" part

Google AI Search Chatbot having an error in their demo: https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/8/23590864/google-ai-chatbot...

Bing AI Search Chatbot acting absolutely insane: https://twitter.com/vladquant/status/1624996869654056960

> We thought that after inventing the nuclear bomb, the world would be doomed. Decades later, it's barely a thought and we have enough nuclear bombs to destroy the planet.

If your intuition about how people feel about this now is accurate, it’s far more worrisome than anything soon to come from AI. So in a way, I guess you made your point.

The invention of nukes changed the nature of sovereignty. It's not just a background tech that just exists. If your country doesn't have nukes it's looked at as 2nd class at best.

> companies with huge resources, and with careful testing

Careful, sure, but not necessarily with your benefit in mind (unless you're a shareholder).

It's better being the king of a kingdom than a pile of dirt.

These companies have reputations, and are better off making humanity better, than destroying it. So far, they have definitely shown that this is their goal. My bigger fear is that governments start taking over this technology in nefarious ways as they have shown to do.

> These companies have reputations, and are better off making humanity better, than destroying it.

Then they have a lot of splaining to do?

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