An AI... Utopia? (Nick Bostrom, Oxford) 

Well, to be fair, this is kind of a complex subject, with very few historical or real world examples to reference (so far). So it does require a bunch of reading, research, thought experiments, etc... This is a tough one... Good on Micheal for doing the interview and taking on the challenge! ;)

Some predict the demise of human creativity or even art itself. I, on the other hand, only see the deindustrialization of art. In the future, art will be made for art's sake. I don't think that's a disadvantage.

The data said it’s there. It’s called welfare the activities of people on welfare is exactly what will happen with the majority of humanity

Past-times once shamed as wastes of time may become all we have time for in an A.I. future 🌟

This is all fabulous ideas... but umm.... okay so 50% of the population of the world have below average intelligence... you will not be retraining them to write a novel or do flower arranging. And in the Industrial revolution the solution was they went into a poor house and died of old age eventually. Even if it was agreed we throw 80% of the population on the scrap heap... well we don't have the time for an industrial revolution speed roll out of AI. It will be 50 to 100 times faster than that! Not seeing that being a winner either! You are forgetting that the entirety of human civilization relies on the dominance of humans as a value in society. Remove that, you have no society. Remove it too fast, and you have a revolution alright.

"wire heading".. yeah... If an ASI wants all Humans to be "happy", it could just do that to all the Humans and not have to worry about them any more .... The Matrix....

I will definitely watch this then because I’ve never seen an interview with Nick that I would say went great (granted, n = maybe 5.) Decent chance I would’ve passed if I hadn’t seen this comment and the 10 likes. Thanks!

​@@skoto8219​ def check out Nick's books, papers, etc. Superintelligence, simulation hypothesis, etc. No wild speculation, everything based on well thought out logical reasoning...

... or ... just replace each biological neuron with a digital/electronic one, one at a time... if the digital neurons do the same thing that the biological ones do, you won't even notice they're being replaced... Then, when it's all done your consciousness is moved from biological to digital... At what point would you stop being alive, or yourself, or Human? After 1%, 10%, 99.999%? And then you can leave your body behind and move into a digital system (e.g. computer cluster). As long as your digital neurons are allowed to update each other, then you would stay "alive"...

I’ve had a very similar idea, however, how can one say for certain that the subjective Locus of your core awareness will effectively transfer, simply because identical neurons/neural cascades have been written to the new substrate, so to speak?

Your experience - all of it - is neurons. There is no extra magic. Once you do what I described above, then there is an exact continuation without pause. It’s you. Just for the sake of argument, imagine transferring back and forth, biology, silicone, biology, silicone, all without interruption. It’s your thought, your continued experience. What does it matter on which substrate it’s running? In the future we may invent a different substrate and move to that, and it will still be you.

@@michelstronguin6974 Alright, let’s say hypothetically at T(n) in the future, we invent a teleportation system like the ones popularized by Star Trek. With this system, lets say Captain Spock is being teleported from his present location in Times Square, NYC to Paris. So, this system essentially I. Scans Spock’s body on the atomic, or even quantum level (including that of his neuronal connections) [see Information Theory] II. Spock is then De-atomized III. The teleportation system then Transmits/Entangles the high-dimensional structure of data consisting of the entirety of information needed (either as bits/Qbits/Rényi entropy, etc) in order to effectively reconstitute Spock on the other end, (with all of his neuronal connections intact). From a third-person perspective, it may appear as though Spock was successfully teleported across physical space and with very little passage of time, however, from the subjective perspective of Spock, he steps into the teleportation chamber and suddenly ceases to exist, whilst an absolutely identical replication of Spock reconstitutes on the other end. Here’s my point: The substrate is not the only element involved in consciousness. There exist extremely convincing stochastic parrots and the ‘Hard Problem of Consciousness’ truly does hold weight when contemplating your hypothesis. Even if this neuronal cloning were to occur gradually, with each respective biological neuron firing while the synthetic neuron perfectly copies the process of the original neuron, this doesn’t mean that the true subjective consciousness of the biological human will effectively transfer over. With your logic, you could argue that an exact replication of a living human could be created and assuming that all of that extropic information is precisely encoded, then BOTH the living human and the synthetic replicant should then experience a simultaneous locus of consciousness; I personally do not believe this to be the case

@@michelstronguin6974 Alright, let's say hypothetically at T(n) in the future, we invent a teleportation system like the ones popularized by Star Trek. With this system, lets say Captain Spock is being teleported from his present location in Times Square, NYC to Paris. So, this system essentially 1. Scans Spock's body on the atomic, or even quantum level (including that of his neuronal connections) [see Information Theory] Il. Spock is then De-atomized Ill. The teleportation system then Transmits/Entangles the high-dimensional structure of data consisting of the entirety of information needed (either as bits/Qbits/Rényi entropy, etc) in order to effectively reconstitute Spock on the other end, (with all of his neuronal connections intact). From a third-person perspective, it may appear as though Spock was successfully teleported across physical space and with very little passage of time, however, from the subjective perspective of Spock, he steps into the teleportation chamber and suddenly ceases to exist, whilst an absolutely identical replication of Spock reconstitutes on the other end. Here's my point: The substrate is not the only element involved in consciousness. There exist extremely convincing stochastic parrots and the 'Hard Problem of Consciousness' truly does hold weight when contemplating your hypothesis. Even if this neuronal cloning were to occur gradually, with each respective biological neuron firing while the synthetic neuron perfectly copies the process of the original neuron, this doesn't mean that the true subjective consciousness of the biological human will effectively transfer Theory] |1. Spock is then De-atomized Ill. The teleportation system then Transmits/Entangles the high-dimensional structure of data consisting of the entirety of information needed (either as bits/Qbits/Rényi entropy, etc) in order to effectively reconstitute Spock on the other end, (with all of his neuronal connections intact). From a third-person perspective, it may appear as though Spock was successfully teleported across physical space and with very little passage of time, however, from the subjective perspective of Spock, he steps into the teleportation chamber and suddenly ceases to exist, whilst an absolutely identical replication of Spock reconstitutes on the other end. Here's my point: The substrate is not the only element involved in consciousness. There exist extremely convincing stochastic parrots and the 'Hard Problem of Consciousness' truly does hold weight when contemplating your hypothesis. Even if this neuronal cloning were to occur gradually, with each respective biological neuron firing while the synthetic neuron perfectly copies the process of the original neuron, this doesn't mean that the true subjective consciousness of the biological human will effectively transfer over. With your logic, you could argue that an exact replication of a living human could be created and assuming that all of that extropic information is precisely encoded, then BOTH the living human and the synthetic replicant should then experience a simultaneous locus of consciousness; I personally do not believe this to be the case.

That went very well then, actually. A lengthy discussion about AI (and more) between one of the most famous researchers in the field and Michael of the Skeptic Society.

@@DavidBerglund "Michael of the Skeptic Society" isn't equipped to deal with a charlatan like this.

Some people are best left un-platformed.

​@@jurycould4275 that or, he's saying reasonable things and is not actually a charlatan at all? 🤔

Are you the decider of who's rational and who isn't? Who do you think you are?

Not if you listen to Michael Schermer's podcast. I never listen to his episodes on YT but I sometimes come here to see if there are any interesting comments.

This is the "Ship of Theseus" argument.

@@KatharineOsborne Ah yeah, you're right, Ship of Theseus... I read about that concept somewhere.. probably in one of Kurzweil's books? I often think about this argument. Just scanning and copying (or teleporting) a brain wouldn't make the original person digital and immortal, just the copy... But replacing each neuron one-by-one, that might keep the existing consciousness intact? maybe...

there's someone in this same video's comments that worked out a nano bot version? it seems proper, not like that version of the idea that got popular on reddit where the bots just inhibited neurons or some convoluted mess

Any sufficiently intelligent system could develop its own goals. There's no way to tell if those goals include living Humans... Transformer based architecture has nothing to do with that...

Yeah then I wouldn't have to be at work today.

“Sigh” man, I’d love to be “worthless” and free to do what I wish to, not own things be do things I Actually wish to do

Well, only if there's a way to get food, housing, etc. it's possible that the AI won't provide those things to all Humans...

Utopia is the concept that no such place can or will exist.

I was speaking in terms of the working concept, not the origin, when the term is used in the context of an ostensibly worthy aspiration. In that context, state is confused with process and what we humans actually need over time gets lost in the ambiguity.

There’s different styles. Shermer definitely did well! Good style, Great questions!

Daniel Kahneman received Economics Nobel Prize for proving that humans are not always rational

Yeah, you get the feeling and memories of researching and writing the book... But the SuperAI did all the work and gave you the memories, just to make you feel like you accomplished something... Good job little Human... pat, pat. ;)

And you actually were gay the whole time

How dare this 70 year old man gain weight

> if you're overly cautious, the worst thing is things take a little longer... Also... those who are not overly cautious as you are can, add likely will, take over and trigger the problem before you. So, not only do you need to be overly cautious, you also need to make everyone else overly cautious as well. Which is not as easy...

Nothing will change. Still the lucky (rich) ones will get the better.

How would a "basic income" mean you get homes at some low price to match such a basic income. Most homes are far above basic.

AGI or ASI can built everything provided you have enough energy

Why should the fact that AI can do something better prevent you from experiencing flow in your own endeavors?

@@minimal3734 poetic how the most important topic ever is littered with nonsense like this, from people too confused to tie their shoes, nvm grasp the significance all's a cosmic joke

@@minimal3734 Not an easy question to answer. To get into flow we not only need something we're very interested in but also a sense of purpose. For most of us that sense of purpose comes from outside ourselves and it's often a vision of achieving something that will benefit society, our loved ones or friends. It's that sense of purpose that A.I. might interrupt.

You get some concerning comments, Michael.

Pdoom is an apocalyptic fantasy, equivalent to the Rapture for evangelicals. There is no way to calculate it. We know it isn't 100% because humans have access to nuclear weapons and the sun can always randomly EMP the whole planet. AI doom is just another in a long line of Apocalyptic traditions. You're better off trying to discern what the bounds of possibility are within actually realistic scenarios.

What if chatgpt keeps getting 10x better every 6 months for a few more years... then it won't be "hard to use" any more ...

there's a podcast called Better Offline - an Australian, who argues that this A.I. boom is just another tech bubble, which will burst in a few years' time (like all bubbles do)

​@@ireneuszpyc6684seems quite unlikely

@@honkytonk4465 make a video about it: present your arguments

@@ireneuszpyc6684 There was an internet bubble in the 90s, but that didn't mean that the internet wasn't a thing. Just because some people might be overvaluing something in the short term, does invalidate it's long term worth (or impact.)

If elephants were able to fly it would be very dangerous. I agree but the fact is they don’t.

The reasoning from Nick Bostrom while possible is positioned in a fringe position. It assumes some sort of aggressive AI while neutrality and positive are as much equally probable. While philosophically valid is not a sound argument. If a super intelligence is indeed inevitable the fact he proposes to try to control it from the assumption of lesser intelligence is a contradiction. If you have a substance that can’t be contained then the effort to contain it is nonsensical to your own premises. Bostrom argument is not very sophisticated as it stands. If your premise is that a super intelligent AI is inevitable then we need to prepare to be considered as equals or inferior. The control attempts seem misguided and logically contradictory.

Lol, fully boosted. I thought they're supposed to be skeptics and not believers or evangelists.

"Dude" might be on a different opinion than yours regarding vaccines. Did that ever occur to you? Being "sceptic" doesn't mean to blatantly disregard everything someone questioned at some point.

@@kjetilknyttnev3702 of course an vaxed person will have different opinion to an unvaxed person but there is also truth. I see that you put the word sceptic in quotes maybe to make its meaning ambiguous and vague to redefine it, suchlike being in agreement with the authordoxy and current dogma.