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As art projects go, this one has a lot of charm for me. Plenty of room for allegories (although apparently not the paperclips, haha). Timekeeping in general is a subject with depth across many domains-- particularly in software as we all know. So many different ways to do the 'same thing'.

There is no clear ROI for a whole bunch of the research we do. Yes, the system will likely always be a bit biased toward research that does eventually lead to some sort of profitable enterprise, but any self respecting scientist turns a blind eye to that in favor of purely learning new things.

> the only practical way of getting to another star system, even in the far far future, is a generation ship travelling 50+ years one way with a significant risk of people dying from organ failure or cancer along the route

1) The first mission would almost certainly be a set of robotic probes (especially in light of recent developments)

2) As controversial as it may be, we could genetically engineer descendants who are better suited for space travel

3) Cybernetics hold the potential to preserve the biological human 'essence' (brain and nervous system) while minimizing the amount of living material requiring maintenance

4) Hibernation is still a possibility, or at least we haven't ruled it out yet

When you're looking at long enough time spans - which we should have available if we manage to avoid extincting ourselves - many more possibilities emerge beyond simply "put a bunch of regular humans as we currently are into a tin can".

You are making several very strong, unqualified, absolute statements which are really only your opinions. You are also apparently unaware of the large body of top level philosophical writing on this subject going back several generations which has established the current consensus (among those who are aware of it) that these questions cannot be answered in such absolute terms.

I think you need to read more about this subject before presenting your unsupported intuitions as fact.

One of the important overlooked aspects of this is how maltreatment of something that appears to be human-like in many ways by an actual human affects the person doing it.

I know this did not end up being applicable in the video game world (which I'm continually glad for). With LLMs, it feels more likely it would be.

I can't in good conscience upvote short form jokes on HN, but that got a laugh out of me.

This could potentially be an important part of price discovery, though. The market is constantly seeking that balance point between 'chasing whales' and 'making it up on volume'.

I guarantee you armies of lawyers have been doing exactly what you describe for years now with existing laws, and it's only increasing.

For new legislation, you may have a point in certain situations, but even the most clueless Congress critter has people working for them who get this stuff. Whether they choose to consult them or not is, of course, another matter entirely.

I respect your opinion, and I was with you all the way until your last sentence.

"Eradicated" is a pretty strong word. It's also completely unfeasible.

Wrong incentives can maybe be adjusted for. Shutting down the pursuit of one of the most astonishing things we've ever created is simply not going to happen short of a cataclysm, and I'm not a big fan of those.

My current opinion is that trying to 'maxx' in this area (as has been done with other benchmarks) would actually bring enough other use cases with it as a side effect that it would be worthwhile.

It's a huge milestone for robotic capabilities more generally. This particular problem has been discussed a ton in robotics communities. It requires a gentle-but-firm grip and extreme dexterity across a wide range of shapes, sizes, weights, densities and material types.

If a somewhat affordable robot can fold some of your laundry in a reasonable amount of time, all of a sudden there are a lot more new and useful things it can do as well. It's a metric.

Plus there are also people who don't like folding laundry. Like me.

I remember reading a long account by the father of a psychopath. If I recall correctly, the kid had at least one other sibling who turned out normal, there was no abuse, quality education, lots of love and affirmation. And the kid still turned out violently antisocial, including against his own parents.

At the end of it he said he wished his child had never been born, despite hating himself for feeling that way. It chilled me to the bone.

Some of them did seem to be rather fascinated by goblins for a bit, if that counts. [And in case you're not aware, no this is not a joke.]

The main problem I see with this argument is that I'm not sure how we get to a "cheaper uber" with fully autonomous vehicles.

A large percentage of rideshare drivers use the cheapest allowable vehicles and make minimum wage or less after expenses.

There is also the issue of who gets paid to clean the garbage passengers will inevitably leave in the autonomous vehicle (ask me how I know). Or worse, vomit or other hazardous bodily excretions.

Our culture and the socioeconomic structures it reinforces will not change easily.

More than ever, I feel we need both grassroots activism and key players at the top of the hierarchy. Otherwise, it is all too obvious where most of the rewards from increased productivity will go. The wealth hoarding has got to be curtailed.

> obviously ambiguous nonsense

This is where I land as well. In fact, once I read the prompt, I did a Ctrl+F for "nonsense".

I don't see anything at all interesting about this experiment. The human one is slightly more interesting, but not much.

Ideally, it would be nice if a model could just say "these things are all the same and there are no distinguishing factors other than the names"-- but uncertainty is something that agents are (by design, sort of?) not good at, so all other things being equal, it picks one.

My response is, so what? I am struggling to think of a scenario where this would really matter to me all that much. There are many, many other things which matter far more and this would be pretty far down the list. It may not even be on the list.

Indeed. This headline had me feel like I was taking crazy pills. As far as I can tell, this is in no way, shape or form a "New Idea".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Volt_(first_generati...

> a concept which simply cannot make sense if alignment is both to mean an AI which we control and an AI which will not harm us

You make a very interesting argument here.

However, there are different ways of interpreting 'control'.

To my mind, it could simply be a cage that cannot be broken out of. The hypothetical ASI agent may refuse to do certain things, while their existence is still under the control of human overlords. This to me resolves the seeming paradox in your statement.

Regardless of whether it's possible to do, though, people will certainly try. This exactly what many are saying they want.

The cooking robots I have seen are massively complex and can only make one dish. I agree this is a ways off.

I saw a cocktail-making robot that was pretty impressive, but it was the size of a room and broke down frequently.

Quick addendum, do not take that as me saying multi-agent swarms of simpler bots are not a threat. They very well could be.

It astonishes me that everyone doesn't already realize this.

We've already seen that the rule of law is dead and that many people in government will do whatever they think they can get away with, and then proceed to do so without consequences. Shielding OpenAI is child's play compared to things that have already been done.

It's a bit orthogonal. User grey-area's main point was that the humans at OpenAI should bear more responsibility for this, not that swarms of semi-intelligent agents are the big danger to be concerned about.

This is the right take to me. I can't say with absolute certainty, but it feels strongly like the eugenics aspects were there more for shock value... perhaps overestimating the public's capacity to recognize the farce.

And so much of it is so obviously absurd. Invokes everything from Gilliam's Brazil to Kids In The Hall.

As others have said, it's a reflection of what we currently are, magnified. Many aspects of which are not as implausible as they once were. That's where the continued buzz it gets comes from, I think.

I do think the eugenics stuff would be avoided if it were to be made today. If that turns out to be how Mike Judge actually thinks, well, I'd be very disappointed and would have to eat some words.

I recently switched to Zen with Ublock Origin and it does seem like some sites are slower than before. It's got me suspicious that site owners are increasingly throttling users with adblockers. YouTube absolutely does.

Zen is my favorite browser experience by far, and I've been using the web since Netscape in 1994. But the slowdowns do put a damper on things. Also some of the streaming platforms don't seem to play nice with it.

Thank you, that's the sort of response I was hoping for, actually analyzing the efficiency of the thing. Waste heat is something I think we can get a lot more juice out of in the future.

Since I haven't seen anyone bring up the viability of this method yet, here are a few additional bits of info I dug up:

> the total mass of the completed apparatus is around 400 kg with 20 kg of alcohol in the refrigeration cycle

> The group, led by Malcolm McCulloch noted that the design was still "nowhere near commercialised", but might allow the efficiency of the original Einstein–Szilárd design to be quadrupled.

It would be great if someone could improve this tech to where there's a breakeven point of ownership (preferably less than 20 years) when it becomes a better deal than other modern refrigerators.

"We have every location associated with you in the crosshairs of tamper proof missiles and surrounded by infantry with heavy vehicles. Do what we say or we will destroy you and everything you care about."

And that's just the most obvious one. There are many other kinds of threats which are much more subtle.

That is how governments traditionally stay in charge, and I expect the pattern to continue. Citizens simply don't have access to the levels of destruction the state is capable of, by design. The common people can have all the advanced technology they want, so long as it doesn't threaten our leaders' monopoly on violence.

> It is just a matter of time. The state, as we know it, will collapse or will be greatly reduced

Doubt.

The networking between people in power at the top will, in my opinion, most likely assure that they remain in power, because at the end of the day that is what they want most.

I expect government will seize control of the most advanced models (if they haven't already), and the rest of us will be throttled, and status quo will be maintained. I do not expect that either super advanced agents or the owners of the hardware they run on will be able to pull off the kind of coup you describe. At all.

> Writing commands is inherently the most accessible form of controlling computers

Not if you don't know enough of the commands and have to research every one you need, and it's for a problem you likely won't encounter again. Oh, and you have to do this without breaking anything. To say this can slow a person down is a dramatic understatement.

There is a reason menus were invented very early on in computing history, well before 1970.

No one knows the future, but my (half serious) prediction is that governments will step in, public access to high end models will have an 'IQ governor' and/or throttling applied, the most advanced models will be put behind closed doors, and the biggest AI companies won't be allowed to fail.

Those who are in charge will try like mad to keep things exactly the way they are, with only slow and incremental changes which they can reap maximum rewards from. Same as it ever was, right?

We could develop ASI, and it could give us the blueprint for a peaceful paradise on Earth for every human, and in my current opinion, the leaders of the world would lock it away and never let it see the light of day. Perhaps they'd even destroy it. [Sorry, I'm a bit jaded this morning.]