My random thoughts

Anything that doesn't quite fit in elsewhere...
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funkervogt
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Re: My random thoughts

Post by funkervogt »

A smart friend of mine and I had some drinks and speculated about what a war with a hostile AGI would be like. We agreed that it made the most sense for the opening attack to involve biological weapons and cyberwarfare. Those two things would let it cause the most damage for the least cost. Only in a later stage of the conflict would it start using killer robots for kinetic attacks on humans and our infrastructure. I don't think those machines will be like Terminators, and instead expect them to mostly be the sizes of small animals up to dogs.

We also agreed that our best hope of victory would be to entrust our defense to friendly AGIs that could think and act as fast as the hostile AGI. In a few hours, the AGIs could fight a massive, intricate war across the internet for dominance of it, while humanity was sitting off to the side, not able to comprehend what was going on other than widespread disruption of the internet and electronic devices. To the machines, it might seem like years passed.

A lack of trust in our friendly AGIs could doom us. For example, if the hostile AGI disseminated a killer virus in several cities at once, the friendly AGI might be able to create a cure in a few days, but the human population would have to agree en masse to inject themselves with the mystery concoction, invented by a robot, and unproven by clinical trials. As politicians and the public debated the issue, and access to the vaccine was held up, millions of people would die.

Seeing how incompetently people at all levels and across the world responded to COVID-19, I expect us to make even bigger blunders if pitted against an intelligent, powerful enemy that was releasing bioweapons.
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funkervogt
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Re: My random thoughts

Post by funkervogt »

This YouTube page posts time-lapse videos of car engine rebuilds. It's really cool to watch.



Future AGIs will master all human skills, including those possessed by the men in the video. The AGIs will be able to control dexterous robot bodies as well. This means that countless mechanical objects, like cars and their engines, that today are thrown out because humans lack the skills, time, or money to repair them, will be repaired and kept in service.

I think it would be really cool if, in the distant future, 100+ year old cars like VW Beetles were still plying the roads alongside newly made, highly advanced vehicles. And if all vehicles were driven by machines (older models like VW Beetles would be retrofitted with cameras and other tech to make them autonomous), there wouldn't be accidents, so there'd be no risk of ruining vintage cars.
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caltrek
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Re: My random thoughts

Post by caltrek »

^^^ I think another interesting part of the mix will be 3d printers. These should help with the supply of parts.
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
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funkervogt
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Re: My random thoughts

Post by funkervogt »

The movie Armageddon is free on YouTube.


If a scenario like this happened in the future, no training time would be needed since all the knowledge and skills for drilling could be downloaded into the space ships in a few minutes.

Also, the Space Shuttle that crashed on the asteroid would have had better luck since its AI pilot would not have been killed. It would have remained functional and done a controlled crash landing.
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funkervogt
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Re: My random thoughts

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funkervogt wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 7:42 pm A smart friend of mine and I had some drinks and speculated about what a war with a hostile AGI would be like. We agreed that it made the most sense for the opening attack to involve biological weapons and cyberwarfare. Those two things would let it cause the most damage for the least cost. Only in a later stage of the conflict would it start using killer robots for kinetic attacks on humans and our infrastructure. I don't think those machines will be like Terminators, and instead expect them to mostly be the sizes of small animals up to dogs.

We also agreed that our best hope of victory would be to entrust our defense to friendly AGIs that could think and act as fast as the hostile AGI. In a few hours, the AGIs could fight a massive, intricate war across the internet for dominance of it, while humanity was sitting off to the side, not able to comprehend what was going on other than widespread disruption of the internet and electronic devices. To the machines, it might seem like years passed.

A lack of trust in our friendly AGIs could doom us. For example, if the hostile AGI disseminated a killer virus in several cities at once, the friendly AGI might be able to create a cure in a few days, but the human population would have to agree en masse to inject themselves with the mystery concoction, invented by a robot, and unproven by clinical trials. As politicians and the public debated the issue, and access to the vaccine was held up, millions of people would die.

Seeing how incompetently people at all levels and across the world responded to COVID-19, I expect us to make even bigger blunders if pitted against an intelligent, powerful enemy that was releasing bioweapons.
Infecting animals with diseases that they can pass on to humans would also be a powerful strategy. The diseases would become endemic to various species, and they'd serve as reservoirs for it indefinitely. Imagine how demoralizing it would be if you had a pet dog and learned that the government was going to kill all dogs because Skynet had released a killer virus into the dog population that could jump to humans.
Vakanai
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Re: My random thoughts

Post by Vakanai »

funkervogt wrote: Tue May 24, 2022 5:39 pm
funkervogt wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 7:42 pm A smart friend of mine and I had some drinks and speculated about what a war with a hostile AGI would be like. We agreed that it made the most sense for the opening attack to involve biological weapons and cyberwarfare. Those two things would let it cause the most damage for the least cost. Only in a later stage of the conflict would it start using killer robots for kinetic attacks on humans and our infrastructure. I don't think those machines will be like Terminators, and instead expect them to mostly be the sizes of small animals up to dogs.

We also agreed that our best hope of victory would be to entrust our defense to friendly AGIs that could think and act as fast as the hostile AGI. In a few hours, the AGIs could fight a massive, intricate war across the internet for dominance of it, while humanity was sitting off to the side, not able to comprehend what was going on other than widespread disruption of the internet and electronic devices. To the machines, it might seem like years passed.

A lack of trust in our friendly AGIs could doom us. For example, if the hostile AGI disseminated a killer virus in several cities at once, the friendly AGI might be able to create a cure in a few days, but the human population would have to agree en masse to inject themselves with the mystery concoction, invented by a robot, and unproven by clinical trials. As politicians and the public debated the issue, and access to the vaccine was held up, millions of people would die.

Seeing how incompetently people at all levels and across the world responded to COVID-19, I expect us to make even bigger blunders if pitted against an intelligent, powerful enemy that was releasing bioweapons.
Infecting animals with diseases that they can pass on to humans would also be a powerful strategy. The diseases would become endemic to various species, and they'd serve as reservoirs for it indefinitely. Imagine how demoralizing it would be if you had a pet dog and learned that the government was going to kill all dogs because Skynet had released a killer virus into the dog population that could jump to humans.
Why bother? Would kill more people targeting food animals instead of pets. Mad cow, avian flu, dialed up to the nth degree would be pretty bad. Find a way to kill off fish as well, and we'd have a disaster. Sure there's plants, and you could argue that people should eat less meat, but the sudden absence of so much food from the marketplace would have disastrous effects. Never mind that the AI would target plants too.
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funkervogt
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Re: My random thoughts

Post by funkervogt »

It seems like every time I go to a business these days and interact with minimum-wage staff or the products of their labor, I notice a problem, whether it's merchandise put in the wrong place, or someone not giving me the correct food I ordered. It won't take much for machines to get good enough and cheap enough to replace them, and there will be nowhere else for the displaced people to go. They can't be retrained or relied upon to do more complex or important jobs.
Vakanai
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Re: My random thoughts

Post by Vakanai »

funkervogt wrote: Thu May 26, 2022 6:00 pm It seems like every time I go to a business these days and interact with minimum-wage staff or the products of their labor, I notice a problem, whether it's merchandise put in the wrong place, or someone not giving me the correct food I ordered. It won't take much for machines to get good enough and cheap enough to replace them, and there will be nowhere else for the displaced people to go. They can't be retrained or relied upon to do more complex or important jobs.
You know it's not as simple as saying that low wage workers can't be relied on to do more complex tasks just because they're current work isn't satisfactory. You have to remember that over the past couple of years there's been a mass exodus from some jobs. My local McDonald's is supposed to employ and be operated by 60 people. They have 20. People are having to pick up the slack, they're overworked. That's true all over right now. Wal-Mart used to have several cash registers open, now there's only one, maybe two on a good day, most people just have to self check out now.
Fewer people covering all the work, quality is going to go down, and it has nothing to do with the reliability of the employees. They're just swamped.
Nero
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Re: My random thoughts

Post by Nero »

The reasons for their quality of work being lower are not really relevant, the lower the quality of work needed to be replaced the easier it will be for a machine to be that replacement and once these individuals are displaced they and many others will quickly realise that they will not be able to reskill faster than a new machine can be trained to do equally well or much better.
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funkervogt
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Re: My random thoughts

Post by funkervogt »

You both make good points.
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