Comment by Dalewyn | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Dalewyn | Hacker News Reader

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>I would say at the very least that the empire of Japan clearly evaluated them differently when it surrendered unconditionally directly after being attacked with this new technology.

The atomic bombs certainly played a part in Japan surrendering, but it wasn't the only one. They were also facing a land invasion from the Soviets, had an utterly depleted military, waning support from the public, and a potentially devastating land invasion by the US on their doorstep.

>You are saying magnitudes don't influence the identity of something, this is obviously not true.

I am considering these things very dryly and very objectively. I am putting aside emotional pressures and processes and only considering the results which are ultimately all that matters. We already know how much damage an ill-willed intelligent being can achieve, we already know how much more efficient computers can make certain tasks. "AI" is not a "gravest of dangers", given that knowledge.

> I am putting aside emotional pressures and processes and only considering the results which are ultimately all that matters.

But what results are you really considering? The "dead is dead" approach makes everything equally meaningless, because in couple hundred million years the Sun will burn the Earth to cinders and everything here will be dead too. Or, some 100-120 years from now, everyone now alive will be dead, etc.

Processes, and emotional pressures which steer those processes, matter too. In theory, machine guns could be used to kill everyone on the planet; in practice, it's economically and socially impossible - too much effort, too many people involved. Nuclear weapons, on the other hand, can realistically achieve this outcome. Which is why nukes can be used to keep the world mostly at peace through MAD, while conventional weapons can not.

OK, perhaps we should go back to your first statement:

> If "AI" is actually intelligent, then it's no worse a threat than any living being known to man.

Combined with:

> I am putting aside emotional pressures and processes and only considering the results which are ultimately all that matters.

Imagine a super-intelligent being that can invent a biological agent that is incurable to current science, spreads rapidly through aerosols, and causes 100% guaranteed death if not cured. That superintelligence can furthermore list a recipe of this biological agent using household items that may be available to anyone who has contact with it, allowing an untrained individual to create the agent after receiving instructions from the super intelligent being. This being you would classify as "no worse a threat" than any living being known to man? Is that "putting aside emotional pressures and considering the results"?

Or are you saying that an intelligence, no matter how advanced, can never do the above?

A hypothetical magnitude difference of intelligence obviously poses a threat to us, what other explanation is there for the mass extinction of most animals after the Anthropocene started.

>This being you would classify as "no worse a threat" than any living being known to man? Is that "putting aside emotional pressures and considering the results"?

I mean, any man sufficiently ill-willed can certainly do all that today. I am unbothered, to say the least; I have better things to do with my limited time.

>what other explanation is there for the mass extinction of most animals after the Anthropocene started.

You're wildly overestimating the effect humanity has on the ecosystem, many species also went extinct before we showed up. The species we see today are merely a very small handful of all the species that ever graced this planet.

> I mean, any man sufficiently ill-willed can certainly do all that today. I am unbothered, to say the least; I have better things to do with my limited time.

Uh, no? In fact humans do not currently have a way of causing human extinction (nukes wouldn't do it with current stockpiles). That would require scientific advancements which we have yet to make, and most possible routes seem pretty non-trivial... except, unfortunately, AI.

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