Artificial intelligence officially gets scary

[Clinamenic]

I think, if this stuff occurs, you won't even own your own thoughts, let alone your body or any material items.

You could make the argument that that's already happening due to the influence various media inputs have on our thought and who controls and manufactures them, but I'm talking about direct control of the human brain and thought processes, like that implant I posted about a while back that a chronically depressed person had installed which would shock her brain and eliminate any negative thoughts which arose.

Yes I think much of this anxiety is due in part to elite institutions and individuals exercising unprecedented power, and in part due to exponentially increasing technical complexity in every part of our lives. Most people have zero idea what the internet is, and we’re just getting started really. I think that kind of overwhelming complexity only exacerbates the paranoia.

 

[Clinamenic]

One plus side is that this added complexity means more jobs, but that is a treadmill, pursued by more advanced machine learning that can eventually automate these jobs.

 

[Clinamenic]

The trick is to see through it all. That’s why I place ultimate importance on enlightenment.

 

[Clinamenic]

People have seen through it all since time immemorial, regardless of the technological state of their world, as far as I’m aware.

 

[Clinamenic]

Another thing is even well-meaning people can range from clueless to dangerous, see: some of the particularly extreme progressives who end up arguing for things like segregation, just dressed up in presently acceptable language.

Yeah, so you have good reason to distrust anyone who seeks out positions of power, regardless of what they preach. Especially when they move toward this or that extremity, as you say.

 

[Clinamenic]

Even in light of all this, blockchain is an existential beacon of hope.

 

[Clinamenic]

What do you mean?

 

[Leo]

Even in light of all this, blockchain is an existential beacon of hope.

god like elites are fully capable of ignoring -- if not eventually finding a way to manipulate -- blockchain. just because it exists doesn't mean it automatically exercises dominance.

do you think for a minute Putin or Xi wouldn't knock out server farms that run blockchain if push came to shove? a bunch of nerds in Silicon Valley ain't gonna be able to stop that.

 

[Clinamenic]

That what was being delivered would be less important than the delivery system itself.

That’s very much the case now. In crypto, much of the actual value of the assets is just a reflection of how sophisticated the protocol is that the asset represents.

And more broadly there seems to be an intellectual trend talking hold since the mid 20th century, about meaning being structural in nature, and that the system of meaning/value itself is ultimately what is in question.

 

[Clinamenic]

god like elites are fully capable of ignoring -- if not eventually finding a way to manipulate -- blockchain. just because it exists doesn't mean it automatically exercises dominance.

do you think for a minute Putin or Xi wouldn't knock out server farms that run blockchain if push came to shove? a bunch of nerds in Silicon Valley ain't gonna be able to stop that.

Totally possible, just a matter of if the cost of such an attack is justified by the outcome. Knocking out a sufficient amount of servers, or simply buying them an reprogramming them, may often be preemptively disincentivized by the architects of the system, I.e making such an attack too expensive for most actors to even consider.

And even though such an attack would most likely have collateral damage, seeing as our economic system is as integrated as it is, that isn’t to rule out such a possibility.

I have difficulty imagining what a multinational hot war would look like today, but knocking out servers would most likely be involved.

 

[Clinamenic]

There’s a chance that war and peace, as we traditionally know them in a Westphalian paradigm, have reached a metastable state, existing simultaneously.

States contracting private military companies or hackers to do their bidding, while preserving deniability. A fragmented patchwork of proxy conflict may be our ongoing new form of war.

 

[Clinamenic]

But yes knocking out servers would be a prime tactic in this new paradigm, as far as I’m concerned. That said, I have doubts as to whether or not taking Bitcoin down is feasible.

Similar to taking down the internet. Virtually impossible to kill a rhizome, or even monopolize it, hence my ongoing optimism re: blockchain.

Bitcoin is a rhizome par excellence, as are all the blockchains that have followed in its steps.

 

[Clinamenic]

That said, I don’t understand enough about internet service providers to assess whether or not such a business could stand to monopolize something like the internet.

But even an oligopolistic cartel can do the trick, if not a proper monopoly.

 

[Clinamenic]

Anyway I think an elite executive figure would either need to have an enlightened galaxy brain to manage such power, or else have a blackmailed coterie of expert advisors. The former would seem more difficult to attain but less stable, and the latter the inverse.

 

[Clinamenic]

Yeah I think it’s tough to reconcile a mechanistic understanding of the world with a genuine sense of compassion. Which yields to which?

 

[Clinamenic]

And part of it, at least for me, is that I don’t just think a mechanistic understanding is the best understanding, but also party because I am trying to account for the dominant trend, rather than voicing something too idealistically removed from where/how the world is moving.

 

[Clinamenic]

Similar to how luka described yuval harari, as being a mouthpiece of the future, rather than an ideologue as such

 

[Clinamenic]

I.e. more oriented around predicting the future than around judging it.

 

[Clinamenic]

This sort of thing is why I find Gus' tone unsettling at times, the way he favours this very mechanical vision of things like human interactions and breaks them down into optimal strategies.

Also reminds me of that Hegel (I think) quote along the lines of “evil resides in the eyes of those who see evil everywhere” only “cut throat strategic essentialism resides in the eyes of those who see cut throat strategic essentialism everywhere” hence the perennial arms wars of strategy and technics. All that is needed is the suspicion that some adversary is trying to beat you.

 

[Clinamenic]

One of the horrors of WW2 was its mechanised vision of humanity, particularly in the case of the Holocaust.

Yes and even today I think much of it is adolescent and unenlightened. I think money and power tend to corrupt minds, but I think such authoritative figures are largely warranted in terms of making social systems work. Blockchain will change this but not entirely, just another increment.