Merged Artificial Intelligence

[Chanakya]

I don't see why not.

No? ...Well I don't know, like I said I'm no expert on the innards of how these AI systems work, and am happy to be corrected if I'm wrong: but it was my understanding that no matter how good these present-day AI systems get --- and they've gotten very good indeed now compared to those crazy and all too frequent hallucinations of just a few months ago --- but, no matter how good they get, all we get from them is parody of human thought. Of course, not all humans are able to do this either: but it was my understanding that actual original thought, that's a human preserve, so far at least. Actual critical thinking, actual reasoning and evaluation from first principles, that also is something that only us humans can do, so far at least. So far at least, all these AI systems can do is carry off a parody of the real thing, no matter how good the parody.

So that, actually thinking up Roko's Basilisk on their own is beyond what AI can do. You need a real live Roko, a human, for that. And, should some Roko actually introduce a basilisk in an AI chat, then, if it's a new idea not so far discussed anywhere, then AI won't know what to make of it --- other than, maybe, look around for what others, humans, have had to say about similar-ish ideas, like Pascal's Wager maybe.

Or at least that was my impression of these present-day AI thingies. Is that understanding ...wrong somehow, do you think?

 

[arthwollipot]

Actual critical thinking, actual reasoning and evaluation from first principles, that also is something that only us humans can do, so far at least. So far at least, all these AI systems can do is carry off a parody of the real thing, no matter how good the parody.

For a start, very few humans actually do that. Nobody reasons from first principles. We have heuristics, rules-of-thumb, clichés, all of which we have copied from other people, which is exactly what AIs do.

AIs can copy the methods of logical reasoning without having an understanding of the meaning behind those methods.

It's the genius flashes of insight that humans occasionally get that are difficult for AIs to replicate. If you trained an AI on the Principia Mathematica it could use those rules to derive all sorts of true equations. But Gödel's brilliance was in realising that the equations could themselves be subject to arithmetical operations, which meant that the equations could be the subjects of equations, which inevitably led to paradox.

That's the kind of thing that would be difficult for AIs to replicate, in my opinion. The sudden insight from seemingly out of nowhere, the completely new way of looking at something.

Roko's Basilisk doesn't involve any of these flashes of insight. It can be derived purely through the application of simple logic.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Rokos basilisk never, ever, made any sense. It's not an original idea or concept, it's just existential angst and the need for leadership applied to computers

Singularity Sky by Charles Stross is what those pseudo intellectuals should have read about a Super -AI from the future intervening in its past to make sure it will come into being.