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Comment by davidy123 | Hacker News Reader

I love the comment that he doesn't really know what space flight is for. It's exciting though, but compared to many other issues, a linear problem. More important in reality around its side effect creations.

WRT AI, Hollywood aside, if existentialism is the issue, then it's really about technological unemployment. And your social sciences/philosophy/etc friends apparently working in cafes are the leaders here.

I'm hoping the future doesn't consist of following a dated and contrived Hollywood script (in terms of people's vision), but humans are simple creatures.

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Musk's concerns have nothing to do with "Hollywood". There are very real concerns about the dangers of AI. See the Intelligence Explosion FAQ: http://intelligence.org/ie-faq/

He leaves a vague foreshadowing of an existentialist threat. So we design these super intelligent machines, and avoid the Hollywood mistake so they don't (bizarrely) want to destroy us. Instead they solve our problems. We're left with an existentialist problem, all right, but one that social scientists/philosophers/etc are better equipped to handle; we have to learn to get along, or else destroy that which we don't agree with, which isn't actually harmful, just different, and avoid reducing our diversity and capability as humans.

Your link is barely worth reading since it suggests AI could provide world peace. This is something we have to work out ourselves, it cannot be handed to us by an algorithm. We can already feed everyone and there's more than enough engagement involved in serving each other. The AI it describes is not logical, there is no logical reason for AI to want to compete with other forms of life, unless it is programmed to do so. That is a life form issue, and AI can only be imbued with it at the direction of an issue emanating from the first paragraph.

I believe he said "existential". An existential threat is something that threatens the existence of humanity.

A good AI would provide world peace. It could take over human governments, work out conflict, stop destructive behavior etc.

>The AI it describes is not logical, there is no logical reason for AI to want to compete with other forms of life, unless it is programmed to do so.

That is the problem. An AI programmed with almost any goal, will try to capture as much resources as possible to complete that goal. E.g trying to capture as much energy from the stars as possible, to preserve itself as long as possible against heat death. Or trying to build as much redundancy as possible to prevent against disasters. Or trying to build as much computing power as possible to solve difficult problems.

AI running human government is a Hollywood/sf fantasy, it's not something desirable within any real foreseeable future. Today technocratic governments are rejected and there is a very long tail of working out what people need that can't be determined by logical rules. It would be dangerous to go down that path because some 1950s book suggested it to us and a certain level of society went along with it. So the danger is human choice, not AI.

It is also a choice in how to give control to AI, but the species is not likely to survive an event like heat death without strong AI.

A hypothetically benevolent AI would surely figure out what is "best" for us and probably redo our governments or replace them entirely with it's own rule.

Ya people might not like it at first, but what are they going to do? Fight the super powerful AI?

>He leaves a vague foreshadowing of an existentialist threat. So we design these super intelligent machines, and avoid the Hollywood mistake so they don't (bizarrely) want to destroy us. Instead they solve our problems.

It's "existential" threat -- "existentialism" is a philosophy.

As for the "we avoid the Hollywood mistake", how exactly you propose we do that? The very idea about AI is that, beyond a level of sophistication, it can think and decide for itself.

Existential (ultimate existence) or existentialist (purpose and free will) are linked, particularly in a world benefiting from AI.

We avoid the Hollywood mistake by not relying on its visions, since it limits as much as it illuminates. Star Trek, for example, is a very shallow universe.

Can you be a little more vague?

A super-intelligent AI, that is, an AI far more intelligent than the most intelligent humans, may have motivations we can't possibly understand. Especially if the path to super-intelligent AI involves AI that can improve its own intelligence.

In Musk's interview with Vanity Fair it's honestly hard to take him seriously when he starts speaking about AI: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPsHN1KyRQ8#t=1879

I am impressed and many times inspired with the progression we are seeing in AI, but I don't think that there is much to worry about in the form of a "Hollywood" robot take over... I do think that the potential danger is increasing equally with the growth and development of the IOT, and the ability to manufacture home-made drones.

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