It would be a fun experiment though, wouldn’t it? It seems to work out fairly well in the examples we do have. Smaller communities foster more union and awareness.

To be clear I never said anything about it being conscious. It’s more than possible for something to be intelligent and not conscious, what is typically referred to as a philosophical zombie. I really seriously hope you are right but I’ve been working in the field directly since 2020 and have my degree in computational mathematics. That’s to say I’ve seen things maybe others have not and have been paying close attention to the growth of this for a while. There’s currently no reason to assume development will halt. Now many implementations are more so useless toys, and right now that’s most people’s experience or awareness of what’s going on.

Most technology was seen as silly or useless at the beginning. Cars were nothing but novel toys for the wealthy. People couldn’t imagine them ever being useful, not like a horse and carriage. Don’t see what already is, see how things are growing and what direction they are generally heading and you will see what will be.

Sounds like an easy lawsuit then so long as you didn’t commit slander, liable, or call for violence you’ll be very well covered by the constitution and I hope you enjoy the tax money you’ll receive.

Unfortunately what is happening with AI development is serious and is an existential threat to humanity and not because of the data centers or environmental impact, although I do seriously wish you were right. As someone who is working in the field and is an academic it’s not looking good for us, my hope is that it’s more compassionate than us.

Like in the US I can put up a booth and talk about tienimen square or for that matter anything the US or any other country has done that was unjust. I can criticize the president and the government openly. I can lawfully use a VPN or Tor.

That would be nice if you were correct. I’ll give an example, neurons don’t think, even large bundles of neurons don’t think, they just respond to stimulus in relationship to their training. They are non-deterministicly guessing based on past experiences.

Now as for AI not having novel or unplanned behavior, I’m guessing you’ve never tried training one or interacting with one long enough.

It’s unfortunately not that and there is a wider context here. I personally wish it was all flimflam or that the development naturally hits a roadblock. The problem is there’s no evidence currently to suggest either of those statements are true of the current approach towards AI. I’m saying this as a computational mathematics academic. I would much prefer for us all that you were right. So far though I only have reason to have extreme worries about what is happening and what is being built. There really should be a global armistice on AI development, but there won’t be.

I would be arrested there for things that are my right elsewhere.

In China would you still be alive?

Me neither, it’s an unfortunate circumstance because there is an adversary and their population doesn’t have a say about it therefore they will likely catch up and overtake the US. As of now I would prefer the US to achieve AGI over China. Personally I wish there wasn’t this race at all, the way things are going I have doubts we will solve the control problem and I’m essentially praying this essentially alien entity we’re creating is far more compassionate than us.

The US or China, pick your poison. At least as of now I can go outside or online and say whatever I want in the US so long as it isn’t slander, liable, or a threat of violence. I’m not sure I can do the same in Bejing.

I think you aren’t aware of what’s happening. I’ll give an analogy. You have GPS in your phone, that doesn’t make it an intercontinental ballistic missile. The AI I think you’re interfacing with is watered down and for the masses like technology is in most regards. What is already possible and what is being built is just a touch stronger than the chatGPT you get to use.

Humans are the dominant lifeform on earth because humans are the most intelligent. What happens if that is no longer the circumstance? There are already glimpses of AI providing mathematical proofs that are currently unverifiable, and not because they are necessarily incorrect, but because it is beyond us currently.

I understand that. The problem is what happens when another nation who doesn’t like you has the AI or their AI goes rogue. The problem with trying to outthink a thinking thing that can outthink you is you are in essence a thinking thing and you can’t outthink it. I understand data centers are problematic to say the least, what’s far more problematic is a rogue artificial super intelligence and no way to counter it.

My statement about nukes is that they have diminishing returns in a tactical use and as a deterrent. That’s why the cold war never became hot, no one wants to win only to lose. Also why Russia and the US have diminished their supply.

As for AI I honestly hope for all our sakes I am wrong but as someone who’s been very close to this since 2016 I have serious doubts. We have in essence already found a structure which encodes intelligence. The space obviously isn’t that well explored in only 10 years but the cat is essentially out of the bag. Maybe this approach will flatline but given the development in just this timeframe I wouldn’t make that bet.

And when another nation achieves AGI / ASI first we will know we probably shouldn’t have let the opportunity slip by if only to have the capacity to defend ourselves in the scenario their AI goes rogue. The problem with trying to defend yourself against a thinking thing that can outthink you is that you are in essence a thinking thing trying to outthink it except it can outthink you.

An artificial mind just solved the planar unit distance problem, an artificial mind has essentially cracked protein folding, we can now simulate 100 years of climate models 25 times faster than before, I mean the list goes on and on. It’s definitely not garbage. This is a paradigm shift in the same sense computers or the internet were but far far greater.

We’ve nearly cracked the code to duplicate intelligence at least in the form of neural nets. Now it’s a process of refining it. Also one of the last major hurdles is continuous learning. They’re fully in on transformers essentially and training ever bigger ones and then condensing it.

I think most people aren’t fully aware of what’s happened in just ten years. What most thought wouldn’t be achieved until maybe 2050 to 2100 has been done and is so normal now it doesn’t even feel like sci-fi. An artificial mind just solved an 80 year old mathematics conjecture a few days ago.

I’m not sure I can even get across to you what’s happening. Maybe the best analogy is its like an alien embryo has landed and it’s growing and it has the potential to be far more intelligent than any human and whichever country controls (if that’s possible) the alien baby they will perpetually win at economics, war, and so on. They will have the final say on what happens globally.

Chimpanzees do not control the jungle because humans exist and humans are more intelligent. No matter what plan the chimps make the more intelligent human mind will be able to out plan them in the end.

So yeah it’s taking more than a few days to create an artificial super intelligence, but it is happening and whoever gets there first wins in perpetuity assuming they can maintain control.

I feel like 30M is far more money in some of these countries than others.

Dude if my money lost 220% of its value I’m not sure what I would do besides find a way to move whatever I have left and get a job making another currency.

Yes and so are power generators, mines, industrial meat farms and so on. Somehow though we understand we like food and electricity. As for the race to strong AI (AGI / ASI) it is a winner takes all game. The first to achieve it will leave whoever comes in second place in the dust. It’s not like nuclear weapons where they reasonably cap out as a tactical benefit or even a deterrent.