
The Singleton Manifesto (1/5) – Using AI to Save Humanity from Extinction - starbeam_leo
Humanity is dying.  It may seem that society has come a long way to preserving and protecting the human race. Yet, after less than fifteen thousand years as a civilization, we are just as much at risk of extinction.<p>In the twenty-first century, we are force-fed the ideology of the enlightened human. We are taught that with freedom, liberty, and justice — all nicely tied up in the gift of democracy  — humans can create a paradise on Earth, an environment that allows the human spirit to thrive. In this worldview, the human collective prospers when each one of us is given a voice. The human race survives because the collective is responsible for its survival.<p>Unfortunately, this is a lie. Democracy was supposed to save us from the evils of tyranny. It was supposed to ensure our survival by creating stability and equality. Yet, it too is cursed by short-sightedness.<p>This leads to a claim that has already been repeated over and over again: human government has never worked and will never work when it comes to optimizing for long-term survival.<p>In turn, our only fighting chance comes when we choose to fight for the future. And the only way to do that is to remove humans from power.The only practical way to do this is to put computers in charge of our governments.<p>This concept, termed the Singleton, is tainted by hyperbole. If you talk to any expert out there, you will usually be met with one response - put artificial intelligence in charge of our governments, and humanity faces extinction.<p>We believe otherwise. We believe that the singleton is not a harbinger of extinction, but our only hope against it.<p>This is the first in a series of letters to challenge the status quo surrounding this issue. And hopefully, by the end of this correspondence, we hope to convince you that the Singleton is not something to be feared, but embraced.<p>And so we begin this delicate balancing act. Welcome.<p>LEO
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gus_massa
> _we are just as much at risk of extinction_

That's not true. Even the worse predictions for Climate Change and Nuclear War
don't predict humanity extinction in a close time. (Perhaps 99% of death, that
is really bad, but it's not extinction.)

For supervolcanos and big asteroids impacts we are doomed with or without AI.

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tmpforresponse
This raises some questions. Is this really a problem of human government or
another structural problem : capitalism, inequality, concentration of power or
corruption? In what way is it an inherent problem of human government? What is
artificial intelligence ? Machine learning, deep learning? Are there not human
biases in artificial intelligences?

