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I try to maintain an optimistic outlook because the AI race is now unstoppable anyhow.

Mass unemployment is a likely outcome, but modern states already have amazing safety nets in place and they're not far away from a universal basic income.

As technology has improved, so has life on almost all relevant metrics (education, longevity, poverty, crime etc.) and even though technology amplifies greed, criminals do not prevail because they are heavily selected against seemingly regardless of the level of technological sophistication.

As for paperclippers, there is actually no indication that larger neural nets misinterpret human intention. Rather, larger NNs mostly become better at understanding. Current AIs when prompted to make paperclips do not interpret this as us wanting to turn the entire world into paper clips, but in terms of (the more sensible interpretation) of meeting the economic demand for paperclips, hence giving advice on how to optimize the machinery for producing paperclips etc. Small models do tend to find weird, unintended shotcuts, but my hunch is we are seeing this less with very large NNs.

Lastly, we can always employ AIs to control other AIs. AI scammers will be counteracted by scam detection AIs. Same for fake news, mind control, drone warfare, propaganda, etc. AI will allow us to make better political arguments against mass surveillance and for freedom, and it will make journalism more efficient at exposing crime and injustice. Demonopolizing AI is hence extremely important, so that every misuse of AI or misaligned AI can be counteracted by other AIs.




>> Mass unemployment is a likely outcome, but modern states already have amazing safety nets in place and they're not far away from a universal basic income.

very few western and east asian nation have that. 80% of population dont have safety net


True, but AI will accelerate progress and make every product extremely cheap, almost for free. It will be extremely cheap even supporting a population 1000x as large as today (including cleaning up after them, filtering water and soil etc.).




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