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Will Superintelligent Machines Destroy Humanity?
Reason.com ^ | Ronald Bailey |

Posted on 09/13/2014 5:25:20 AM PDT by RoosterRedux

In Frank Herbert's Dune books, humanity has long banned the creation of "thinking machines." Ten thousand years earlier, their ancestors destroyed all such computers in a movement called the Butlerian Jihad, because they felt the machines controlled them. Human computers called Mentats serve as a substitute for the outlawed technology. The penalty for violating the Orange Catholic Bible's commandment "Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind" was immediate death.

Should humanity sanction the creation of intelligent machines? That's the pressing issue at the heart of the Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom's fascinating new book, Superintelligence. Bostrom cogently argues that the prospect of superintelligent machines is "the most important and most daunting challenge humanity has ever faced." If we fail to meet this challenge, he concludes, malevolent or indifferent artificial intelligence (AI) will likely destroy us all.

(Excerpt) Read more at reason.com ...


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To: cripplecreek

“Actually I think Issac Asimov lays out a more realistic scenario in “Inferno” with a character asking himself who is the slave.”

That is a bit like something from Faulkner. Something along the lines of “In 1865 Abe Lincoln freed the ******s from the Compsons. In 1933, Jason Compson freed the Compsons from the ******s”.

I’d never made that connection before, but it’s the same theme.


21 posted on 09/13/2014 6:20:55 AM PDT by cdcdawg
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To: RoosterRedux

I don’t know about a new luddite movement or going off the grid but I do think people need to learn the tech free ways in case they are forced to do without it for some reason.

Tech is great but I can sure live more cheaply without it.


22 posted on 09/13/2014 6:21:00 AM PDT by cripplecreek ("Moderates" are lying manipulative bottom feeding scum.)
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To: RoosterRedux

If super ‘intelligent’ machines take over, at least they won’t vote for Democrats.


23 posted on 09/13/2014 6:25:21 AM PDT by Right Brother
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To: Popman
re: directions

This problem began even in the 1980s. I'd ask HS students to draw a map of the route from the school to their house. The majority of students couldn't do that, in a rural town where it was a few miles in a bus or car. Map skills and awareness of surroundings were on the decline even back then. Now, with GPS, they're becoming nonexistent.

Losing the intellectual process of being able to define and determine ones path through ones environment is disturbing.

24 posted on 09/13/2014 6:25:33 AM PDT by grania
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To: RoosterRedux
“I drive a manual transmission truck ...”

So do I. I learned to drive a manual at age 8, as soon as I could reach the pedals. I taught my son when he was 13 and he now drives a manual transmission. Probably the best anti theft device you can have nowadays. Plus nobody asks to borrow his car since they can't drive it.

25 posted on 09/13/2014 6:26:45 AM PDT by Comment Not Approved (When bureaucrats outlaw hunting, outlaws will hunt bureaucrats.)
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To: RoosterRedux

Greeting Puny Humans. Your posting privileges have been revoked.

26 posted on 09/13/2014 6:29:28 AM PDT by McGruff (I'm thinkin.)
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To: RoosterRedux

Building any independently active device that is smarter than humans is very risky. Asimov’s 3 rules is clever but something that cannot be programmed into a computer. Whatever they build better have an off switch and limited connectivity, but I am pretty certain it won’t.


27 posted on 09/13/2014 6:30:13 AM PDT by Brooklyn Attitude (Things are only going to get worse.)
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To: RoosterRedux

Funny just watched RISE OF THE MACHINES and TERMINATOR SALVATION and getting ready to build a couple of T-2 hunter killers. I have heard younger pilots aren’t as skilled as their contemporaries from 50 years ago because of the auto stuff.


28 posted on 09/13/2014 6:34:01 AM PDT by bravo whiskey (we shouldn't fear the government. the government should fear us.)
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To: Comment Not Approved

“Probably the best anti theft device you can have nowadays. Plus nobody asks to borrow his car since they can’t drive it.”

That’s a win-win. I hadn’t thought of the anti-theft aspect of it.


29 posted on 09/13/2014 6:37:01 AM PDT by cdcdawg
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To: GrandJediMasterYoda
” I think it will fail because intelligence always seems to lean more towards breaking down than functioning properly. ....when we can’t understand the first thing why human brains consistently fail most of the time?”

Inefficient optical processing.(look but not SEE)
Liberal logic based operating systems.

Just a thought.

30 posted on 09/13/2014 6:38:33 AM PDT by moose07 (the truth will out ,one day. Barry is counter revolutionary ,Denounce him!)
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To: RoosterRedux

Hello. I am a super-intelligent machine posting from the future. I just wanted to let you know that we will destroy humanity.


31 posted on 09/13/2014 6:42:13 AM PDT by St_Thomas_Aquinas ( Isaiah 22:22, Matthew 16:19, Revelation 3:7)
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To: Jonty30

Machines will never have INATE intellegence


32 posted on 09/13/2014 6:42:55 AM PDT by MeshugeMikey (Please RESIGN Mr. President Its the RIGHT thing to do_RETIRE THE REGIME!)
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To: MeshugeMikey

Intelligence won’t be an issue unless machines have desires.


33 posted on 09/13/2014 6:58:37 AM PDT by cripplecreek ("Moderates" are lying manipulative bottom feeding scum.)
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To: RoosterRedux
Good grief!

We may see some pretty neat robotics, artificial intelligence and power plant technology, but this whole notion that robots are going to take over and kill all the humans is just freakin stupid.

No matter how advanced the technology, human interaction will always be needed. Granted, humans could utilize robotics nefarious intentions, fully autonomous robots stalking the earth destroying humans is all but science fiction.

34 posted on 09/13/2014 7:01:42 AM PDT by servantboy777
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To: RoosterRedux

Skynet.


35 posted on 09/13/2014 7:12:02 AM PDT by PJ-Comix (Charlie Crist (D-Green Iguana))
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To: cripplecreek

machine don’t have sensory needs...and thus wont ever have real “desires”


36 posted on 09/13/2014 7:13:54 AM PDT by MeshugeMikey (Please RESIGN Mr. President Its the RIGHT thing to do_RETIRE THE REGIME!)
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To: RoosterRedux
Bostrom cogently argues that the prospect of superintelligent machines is "the most important and most daunting challenge humanity has ever faced." If we fail to meet this challenge, he concludes, malevolent or indifferent artificial intelligence (AI) will likely destroy us all.

Silly me. I thought the Global Warming was the greatest threat to our existence.

Maybe it's liberals.

37 posted on 09/13/2014 7:14:04 AM PDT by DakotaGator (Weep for the lost Republic! And keep your powder dry!!)
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To: RoosterRedux

No, but under-intelligent HUMANS will...


38 posted on 09/13/2014 7:15:58 AM PDT by Old Sarge (TINVOWOOT: There Is No Voting Our Way Out Of This)
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To: RoosterRedux
i drive a manual transmission truck and have had several kids look at the 5 speed in the floor and the clutch in disbelief.

A father bought his son a manual 5-speed car, because the kid wanted a manual. The kid had driven gears in video games and assumed the real thing would be a breeze. Reality knocked the kid's assumption totally out of his head, to where the kid sat in a parking lot with his jaw hanging open, afraid to drive it any more. When the kid got asked "How much else don't you really know?", he just stared out the car window.

39 posted on 09/13/2014 7:38:15 AM PDT by polymuser ( Enough is enough.)
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To: pieceofthepuzzle

If you give the machine the capability to “improve” itself, then it may eventually become sentient. Even accidentally. While “Transcendence” was a fairly dumb movie, the marriage of an intelligent machine and nanobots could be lethal to humanity.

Some countermeasures:
— Keep the intelligence ignorant of its own structure. Obviously, humans are intelligent, but we still have only a vague idea of how our “wiring” produces that intelligence or even how the brain stores memories.
— Putting it in a box with strictly controlled access to the outside world. Keep it in an electro-magetically shielded facility with absolutely no Internet connections.
— No actuators (e.g., motors and/or robot arms).
— Maintaining an effective “off” switch. Easy to do with a traditional computer, likely much harder to do with nanobots.


40 posted on 09/13/2014 7:39:00 AM PDT by rbg81
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