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> Rather, I fear it will be put into critical positions and will start making stupid decisions that are harmful to humans or humanity.

Yes. In a very real sense, we already share our world with powerful, inhuman entities that don't care very much about humans. We call them "multinational corporations."

The first way that primitive AI will likely go bad—and has arguably been going bad for 10 or 20 years now—is by allowing corporations to "make decisions" at an enormous scale without needing human oversight. To a certain extent, corporations could already do this by reducing humans to cogs in a mandatory process. Talk to level 1 tech support, and you'll see what I mean.

The nearest-future threat isn't Skynet. It's an algorithm that closes a 20-year-old email account, with no option for you to talk to a human. It's a corporate algorithm saying your store needs to make 15% more profits at the same staffing level, so the local manager starts falsifying time sheets. It's a ChatGPT bot that has been instructed to tell you that, no, it will not refund your airline tickets, no matter what the policy technically says.

Agree. Also consider massive bureaucracies which can send armed, sometimes irrationally violent people, with no agency, following policy, just doing their job, to throw you in a cage because some database had incorrect data.

> Uber's surge pricing algorithm caused prices to skyrocket in the middle of emergencies like shootings. [1]

Not trying to defend corporations benefitting from tragedies, but isn't this just how a market works usually? There are only so many Uber drivers, you either get surge pricing or just no taxis are available (and scared people refreshing their phones in hope somebody picks up their ride instead of just deciding to find an alternate route)?

Of course we shouldn't save people based on their material wealth, but that's a different (and very entrenched) problem - see also healthcare etc.

If Uber didn't surge-price during emergencies, the Uber drivers wouldn't disappear. Instead, a random selection of people would get an Uber - about as many as with surge pricing, probably - and the rest would see that they weren't available.

It's the randomness that makes it feel fair and prevents us from saving people based on their material wealth.

> If Uber didn't surge-price during emergencies, the Uber drivers wouldn't disappear.

They would disappear from Uber if they could negotiate a much better price on the curbside.

And I believe there's an entire subgroup of Uber drivers that monitors the current rates and opts to drive only when there's a good enough surge, thereby dynamically creating more supply.

Supply is much less elastic than that. For a short randomized surge of 2 hours, how many new drivers are going to actually come into the road? How many of the rides will complete at that price? How long will the surge last?

No one is dropping what they are doing and commuting an hour for a 2 hour surge. Odds are the surge won’t be present when the drivers arrive.

I only have anecdotes and it’s from Chicago (not SF where indeed a lot of drivers commute an hour to get to a high demand area) but here it’s not that uncommon for people to be able to quickly hop on or off driving on short notice. It probably rarely moves the supply needle more than 10-15% at most but that’s not completely insignificant in comparing vs a less dynamic fleet like taxis.

Theres a term for this kinda of "supply and demand" profiteering and its called price gouging and its explicitly illegal in many states so in times of emergency so you aren't suddenly getting absurd %1000 percent up charges buying basic necessities before a hurricane.

https://www.ncsl.org/financial-services/price-gouging-state-....

There's an alternative view on what some call "price gouging."

The idea is that the market is providing a strong incentive for you to figure out how to get bottled water to the disaster zone. This is wildly unpopular: people view it as capitalists profiteering off a disaster. And it's true, they are.

In response, people demand prohibition of price gouging.

But the result is a lack of product availability. For example, one study linked anti-gouging laws with limited product availability during the pandemic. [1]

To take the example of the increase in costs of goods leading to a hurricane: there is a risk that the hurricane will veer off path, and all the extra goods will just sit, unbought. The anticipation of high prices causes vendors to logistically stage larger quantities of goods to the market. Mandated 'normal' prices lead to scarcity.

So ultimately we're left with a choice: do we prevent price gouging, and content ourselves with lack of product knowing that nobody made an 'unfair' dollar? Or do we let price gouging happen, knowing it'll result in better product availability and reduce hoarding?

[1] http://journal.apee.org/index.php?title=Parte1_2020_Journal_...

In a non-psychopathic society, a bunch of benevolent counterforces kick in during a tragedy. People who have extra water share it with those who need it, and people who have extra seats in their car let others in with them.

There will always be those who view all scenarios where demand vastly outstrips supply as an opportunity to be exploited for money, no matter how tragic the situation.

I personally can't imagine charging people money to get in the car with me if they're trying to escape a gunman, and I like to think most people are the same. These laws are based on that assumption (regardless of whether or not it holds true in practice).

We're specifically referring to an emergency here. It's not "better" to have taxis around if they cost a thousand dollars. That's equivalent to them not being accessible. The goal is to get people out, but the algorithm only understands regular market operation.

These are the sorts of boring AI mistakes I'm talking about: in every other case, the market algorithm works. But suddenly, you have it price-gouging terrified customers trying to flee a tragedy. It doesn't know!

I think that OP is somewhat naive with some of these examples.

> Or some idiot MBA type uses these AIs to optimise some business process and the AI decides dumping radioactive waste in the ocean is the best way to do it.

The idea that a relatively simple AI (i.e. non-AGI) will have so much control over a system that it can get to the point where radioactive waste is being dumped feels outlandish to me. That would involve multiple systems and definitely some human beings. Just because an AI would theoretically make a harmful decision in an effort to optimize something doesn't that decision will come to pass - there are still going to be plenty of safeguards for things like this for the foreseeable future.

Your Uber example is sort of relevant, but I don't think it's fair to say it's the same as cutting off power during a snowstorm. One of those things is much more highly regulated than the other (maybe with the exception of Texas and their power grid).

The other thing to bear in mind here is that while it's not impossible these things are going to happen, the reality is they'll likely happen once and then face a huge backlash. Your Uber point is a good example of this - we no longer see surge pricing spiking during emergencies.

Though again, I'll exempt the Texas power grid from that claim... it'll probably freeze over year after year because it'd be a travesty to regulate that sort of a critical utility. I could AI crashing it repeatedly for the same reason.

> there are still going to be plenty of safeguards for things like this for the foreseeable future.

There aren't even safeguards for these things now. Humans routinely do what a computer tells them to, even if it makes no sense. Case in point: all the times people have listened to their GPS when it told them to turn into a river.

Remember: the original AI is the organization. How often do organizations make horrible decisions? How often are they stopped by safeguards?

> "Humans routinely do what a computer tells them to, even if it makes no sense."

I have had humans vehemently refuse to accept their own companies' receipt and a bank statement as proof of a payment because the computer in front of them does not show a payment on record … as if the computer isn't even capable of having faulty data inputted (or deleted) by a human. What's even worse is when you then ask to speak with a manager, and they back up the original idiot's decision because "Computer says…"

> Rather, I fear it will be put into critical positions and will start making stupid decisions that are harmful to humans or humanity.

In a lot of ways, that's how current corporations work with failing up, and maybe another form of AI will be achieved.

Still, it should be avoided. Today's GPT AI will not know more than someone who is skilled at what they do, only taxonomically more than someone new to an area. But that will likely be outdated soon too :)

This is in Idiocracy, the AI automatically fired all the Brawndo employees when demand decreased. Prophetic!

guess I should change my name to

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