
The Future Bubble - dreamweapon
http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/the-future-bubble/
======
tjradcliffe
The claim the author leads off with is not plausible: capitalism has seen
enormous changes in social relations since its earliest days.

The author is a sociologist, not an economic historian, but they should still
be aware of that economic historians (even ones on the Left) tend to place the
emergence of capitalism sometime in the 1600's, and break it up into multiple
phases, each of which is embodied by significantly different social relations.

Once upon various times anti-capitalists proclaimed that unionization,
emancipation, universal suffrage (giving the vote to all men rather than just
men of property), women's suffrage, labour parties and social democracy would
all overthrow the capitalist order _precisely because_ these were seen as
radical departures from existing social relations upon which capitalism was
presumed to depend.

Instead, capitalism has proven an enormously resilient mode of economic
organization that can be instantiated in societies with extremely different
social relations.

So the claim that the modern worker in a mature capitalist society like Sweden
or Canada or Germany (to pick a few at random) stands in the same social
relationship to their employer as did workers in 17th century Amsterdam or
18th century London or 19th century New York or 20th century Shanghai is
extremely implausible.

To further claim that social relations in the future must remain as they are
today for the preservation of the capitalism mode of economic organization is
equally implausible.

~~~
astrocyte
If the current modes of operations around the world are of any sign, it's
quite clear that capitalism is already on its deathbed.

A lot of systems produce good outputs when good intentions drive them. Of
course, in long runs, it's always clear that man's silly, short-sighted, and
greedy nature runs even the best of systems amok... From there, a new one is
birthed with lessons learned and a sharper focus on good intentions (or so we
hope).

The current 'capitalistic' system is based on social foolery and the ignorance
therein of its functional mechanisms.

What you mean to say is that man's well bodied intentions are proven as an 'an
enormously resilient mode of operation that can be instantiated in societies
with extremely different social relations'. When a particular economic system
breaks ties with this, it collapses under its own weight (by the weight of the
larger society). Maybe because this is universally an unstable state of
existence.. Who knows.

Sociologist could teach economist a great deal given the Frankenstein of an
economic engine they've created. The economist are so buried in their
institutionalized ideals to recognize the damming social impacts their
misguided systems of obfuscation and unnecessary complexity have caused
throughout modern history. Just because you have some cool swag as a result
says nothing about the fragile and hollow foundation that the whole global
economy is currently teetering on. A historian could tell you about all the
empire swag that was destroyed throughout history due to ignorance and lack of
concern for social balance.

If there was ever something man truly feared and kept hidden with all their
might all throughout history it has been : truth. People will spend their
life's fortune on hiding truths... Empires are built on it. Wars waged over
it. Power is structured on it. Institutions and edifices of grandeur charged
by the productivity of generations are created to ensure it never gets out.
Yet, it always seems to somehow.

So, if anything, that's what this 'high finance' system is all about (hiding
truths). Security through obfuscation and it doesn't take some crackpot PHD
Nobel Prize winning economist to see that. Maybe it takes one to construct a
convince-able lie.

------
shopinterest
Loved the article - VCs and investing is indeed an approach where you want the
future to be 'X', so for that, in the present you want to do 'Y' at 'Z' costs.

In essence, we are doing exactly what this describes, and every time investors
or founders take cash off the table on a round, they are indeed taking future
'gain' money into the present, without knowing exactly if the future will turn
out as described and anticipated.

------
api
"This rendering—the unknowable future that eats the present—may resonate more
with an anxiety endemic to capitalist societies; as we will see, it is a
characteristic nightmare of the capital-accumulating class. Capital always has
one foot in the future, and even packages and exchanges “futures” as a
financial instrument. A time bubble that erases the future would mean a
collapsing asset price bubble in the present. For capitalism’s reality, it
turns out, is stranger even than science fiction. Radical challenges to the
system can change conditions in the present by, in a manner of speaking,
altering the future."

I had this exact thought the other day in another context.

Lately I've been trying to puzzle out why there's been this outbreak of
seemingly absurd and ridiculous nail biting over artificial intelligence in
and around Silicon Valley circles. Rationally it makes little sense.

If you don't know, I am referring to this kind of thing:
[http://blog.samaltman.com/machine-intelligence-
part-2](http://blog.samaltman.com/machine-intelligence-part-2)

We have no evidence that "Hollywood AI" is nigh, no evidence it will "explode"
and become super-human in a short period of time (and some very good counter-
arguments against this scenario), and no evidence it would be intrinsically
more dangerous than we are to each other. The whole fear mongering topic seems
rooted in a tower of speculations that becomes increasingly precarious as you
ascend.

I wrote a maybe 3/4 of the way baked blog post on it here:
[http://adamierymenko.com/on-the-imminence-and-danger-of-
ai/](http://adamierymenko.com/on-the-imminence-and-danger-of-ai/)

That blog post addresses some of the issues such as whether AI can or will
"explode," but to me it felt like I was still struggling with the ultimate
question of what really lies behind all this. Then maybe yesterday or the day
before I realized that these fears might be rooted in the fear of
_disruption_.

Consider Francis Fukuyama's very similar -- and perhaps equally shaky -- fear-
mongering about transhumanism.

[http://reason.com/archives/2004/08/25/transhumanism-the-
most...](http://reason.com/archives/2004/08/25/transhumanism-the-most-dangero)

So transhumanism, which is basically the nebulous idea that we should attempt
to radically _improve ourselves_ , is what Fukuyama thinks is the most
_dangerous_ idea to _future human welfare_? Really? I can think of a few
concerns, but how is this more dangerous than other much more obvious
candidates like religious fundamentalism, totalitarian nationalism, or certain
varieties of misanthropic nihilism? You know, ideas already drenched in blood
that seem to have a disturbing ability to recur throughout history?

Fukuyama is also well known as the author of "The End of History," which is
basically a court intellectual feel-good tome assuring today's leaders that
the world has achieved a steady state and nothing much is going to change.
(It's since become a laughingstock, as it should have been on the basis of its
absurd title.)

Perhaps what scares certain people so much about AI is its potential to upset
the world order. Human systems of control and authority are largely based on
the systematic exploitation of human cognitive biases and fallacies. Even if
an AI weren't explosively super-human, it might still operate in ways that are
_non_ -human. In so doing it might simply not be vulnerable to the same
techniques of persuasion. How exactly does one rule aliens?

Maybe the fear isn't so much that AI is going to kill us all (especially since
it would probably be symbiotic with us), but that it'd be a loose cannon on
the deck.

At the same time, even a non-sentient but very versatile and powerful AI -- a
programmable "philosophical zombie" if you will -- could obsolete entire
industries overnight. As the article says, capitalist economies can cope with
some amount of so-called creative destruction but too much is bad news. What
happens if/when some kind of AI can do >50% of the job of lawyers, doctors,
politicians, journalists, non-fiction writers, bankers/financiers, etc.? You'd
have wave upon wave of bankruptcies both personal and corporate.

A real deep and wide breakthrough in AI could be hyperdeflationary. So might
real "transhumanism" for that matter, by radically increasing the
effectiveness of labor among other reasons.

I do know this: the reason you constantly hear financial types harp on about
their terror of _inflation_ is because their real fear is the opposite.

Interesting food for thought, don't you think? I'm not sure I share all this
article's sentiments, but I agree with the basic sense that present economic
systems demand conformity and conservatism at some level and fear large
disruptive changes.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _Lately I 've been trying to puzzle out why there's been this outbreak of
> seemingly absurd and ridiculous nail biting over artificial intelligence in
> and around Silicon Valley circles. Rationally it makes little sense._

From my observation, there's a huge confusion generated by people (mostly
journalists) who have no knowledge whatsoever about the research of AIs as
existential risks, but who write texts comparing AIs to science fiction movies
people know. Rational basis for "fear of AI" is actually quite simple - a mind
is a strong optimization system; if we somehow create one that is as powerful
as our own, there is no reason to assume it will automagically share our
values - and any strong optimization that does not share our values (note: we
don't really know what they are anyway) will most likely destroy us. All the
talk about "terminators" and "rise of the machines", etc. is just muddying the
waters.

~~~
api
I live around tons of people with wildly varying value systems, and very few
people hurt each other. Differing value systems do not guarantee conflict,
especially if there are common interests and economic interdependence. Common
value systems also don't prevent it... Witness the centuries and centuries of
bloody conflict that has raged between humans of the same religious belief
system, ethnic group, and even the same language and similar culture (e.g. the
perpetual Middle East bloodbath).

A wildly alien AI might actually have fewer reasons to fight with humans. It
might simply carve out some economic niche to earn income to purchase what it
needs, and go exist in some physical and/or virtual enclave somewhere. Last I
checked Antarctica was big, uninhabited, and reduces the need for active
cooling. Then there is space. Why wouldn't an AI with no interest in living
with humans just go to the Moon? There are points on the Lunar surface in
perpetual daylight, meaning tons of free energy. Lots of mineral resources,
lava tubes big enough for cities, and no oxygen, mold, fungi, water, or meat
sacks, and surely a superintelligence could do something valuable enough to
buy a couple hundred heavy lift rocket launches. Funny if Elon who seems
worried about AI got it as a customer. :)

Like I said: I see no intrinsic reason AI is more dangerous than the 350000
other minds born daily.

~~~
TeMPOraL
You are underestimating the amount of the values human share :). No matter how
different our beliefs are, we all can love, hate, laugh, be jealous, greedy,
selfless. We all share the feelings of pain and joy, hunger and lust. We all
think in similar ways, because we run on the same cognitive architecture.
Whatever the first AI will be, it will be unlikely to share any of that with
us - especially if it will be some random process you happened to pull from
the space of possible minds.

> _A wildly alien AI might actually have fewer reasons to fight with humans.
> It might simply carve out some economic niche to earn income to purchase
> what it needs, and go exist in some physical and /or virtual enclave
> somewhere. Last I checked Antarctica was big, uninhabited, and reduces the
> need for active cooling. Then there is space. Why wouldn't an AI with no
> interest in living with humans just go to the Moon? There are points on the
> Lunar surface in perpetual daylight, meaning tons of free energy._

Did _we_ do it? Did Europeans "carve out some economic niche" and engaged in
trade with America? No, they just invaded it. Did we all move to Antarctica so
that cows have space to live? No, we _eat them_. Because they're _tasty_. Did
we go to the Moon, because Earth has so beautiful ecosystem, full of various
life forms, many of them quite smart? Of course not. We dominated it all.

There is no reason for AI to "leave us alone" unless we put care about human
values in it explicitly. Because otherwise, why should it care?

A lot of confusion stems from people thinking about AI in anthropomorphic
terms. If you want a good example what an actually alien mind can look, see
the pretty much proto-AIs we managed to create, namely corporations, big
bureaucracies and market economy. Even though they're "made out of people",
they're not optimizing for anything close to what any human would want. Hence
various problems we discuss every day on HN.

I very much like the definition of intelligence as a very strong optimization
process - it highlights the fact that a process doesn't have to be like human
to be dangerous.

~~~
api
This is a big topic, and there's a lot to unpack. I agree with some of what
you say, and that's partly why I am not _dismissing_ dangers associated with
AI. I just don't think it ranks as something to lose sleep over compared with
the much more tangible, imminent, and guaranteed-to-be-bad threats we already
face.

One thing I disagree with is that intelligence is just a very strong
optimizer. It is that, but I don't think it's _just_ that. I think it is very
much a multi-modal / multi-paradigm thing, and I think there's a ton of stuff
we don't understand about the operation of our own minds. It's yet another
reason I don't think human-level or beyond AI is imminent. We barely
understand how we think.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _One thing I disagree with is that intelligence is just a very strong
> optimizer. It is that, but I don 't think it's just that. I think it is very
> much a multi-modal / multi-paradigm thing_

I agree with that. I didn't want to imply that you get intelligence by
throwing enough compute at a gradient descent. It's multi-domain, cross-
paradigm kind of optimization. But I find it worthwhile to deanthropomorphize
intelligence, so that it's easier to appreciate how different can a powerful
mind be from the ones we have.

> _and I think there 's a ton of stuff we don't understand about the operation
> of our own minds. It's yet another reason I don't think human-level or
> beyond AI is imminent. We barely understand how we think._

I also don't think AI is imminent - hell, we can't even get a decent webapp
generator working, we have a lot of research in front of us to build self-
improving systems. But I share the concern of the FAI crowd that we may
_eventually_ get there, and when we do, it's important to do it right the
first time - otherwise, a runaway optimization process may not give us another
chance. As you said, we barely understand how we ourselves think - so it's
good to figure that one out before someone manages to build an actual AI.

~~~
api
One thing I've learned by being a "smart person" is that intelligence is not
everything. I do not believe that high intelligence or even super-intelligence
would automatically yield power, wealth, influence, or anything else that we
might fear, especially if it has a high chance of coming with various forms of
baggage and trade-offs.

We can't assume that the apparent correlation between intelligence and mental
illness would hold in non-humans -- or that it wouldn't. That's because we
don't understand why that correlation exists. But there is one trade-off that
I think is likely to be universal: the smarter you are, the more effort you
seem to have to put into "meta" thinking like philosophy to keep yourself on
track.

Think of it this way: it's easy to drive a Honda Civic, but a supercar can
actually require performance driving classes to learn to drive it safely.
Otherwise you can do things like accelerate into the car in front of you very
easily, lose control, etc. because it does not drive like a commodity car.

Many people with very high IQs use their high intelligence to create elaborate
delusions and rationalizations that land them in a ditch. That's a "meta"
problem, a philosophical problem, not a problem with engine size, but it's one
that probably gets worse as the motor gets bigger.

It's another factor that I think might place rate limits on the rate at which
an AI could self-improve. Technically it's just a special case of the
combinatorial search problem associated with improving intelligence beyond
known local maxima.

An AI just thinking "hey I can just double my processing power and storage and
get twice as smart!" might very easily end in some novel form of madness, not
super-intelligence.

