The Zen Master replies, "We'll see." Can we be sure that we are not now experiencing dystopia? The United States created a new world order after 1945, but Washington seems unable or unwilling to enforce its own rules today. As the postwar world unravels, a new world order will eventually emerge, most likely as the result of another world war. The next world order may be indifferent to American interests, which is not to say that it would be worse .
@@diegoangulo370 LOL The only truth is “Scarcity”... Scarcity explains everything from God to Capitalism to Geo-Conflicts to BLM... ....therefore Dystopia is the future...
It all depends on if we can give the AI a good base in ethical standards (ones that seem to be above and beyond our species) Utopia might well be possible if we can remove the human element (not actual humans, just the greedy bit)
The average person in theWest definitely doesn’t live better than the richestmonarchs of 80/60 years ago. Having cellphones and cableTV, is in no way better than having a personal chef, yachts, mansions, fine art, traveling the world and having huge dynastic fortunes. Interesting conversational overall but that comment was absurd.
Maybe not an everyday lifestyle or ‘wealth’ sense, but could it be argued that basic access to comparatively highly advanced medical treatment, or being able to travel across continents for a fraction of the cost as 80-60 years ago instead makes this argument valid?
Until you get sick. A societal paradigm of ‘Life *that small* couldn’t possibly exist’, can get you killed. No statement of theory, from *anyone* could be 100%. 🖖✨
Traditionally, logic, math, and physics have been approached from a third-person, objective standpoint. They aim to describe the universal, mind-independent structures and laws that govern reality, without reference to any particular subjective viewpoint. In this sense, they strive for a kind of "view from nowhere," a perspective that transcends any individual's specific location or experience. However, as most will point out, we don't actually live in this third-person realm. Our experience of reality is inherently first-person, grounded in our individual perspective and subjective awareness. We encounter the world not as a detached, objective observer, but as an embodied, situated agent, navigating a landscape of perceptions, thoughts, and feelings. From this view, metaphysics could be seen as the attempt to understand the deep structure of reality from this first-person standpoint. Rather than trying to step outside of our subjective experience, it would seek to dive deeply into it, to uncover the fundamental categories, principles, and relationships that shape our encounter with the world. This first-person approach to metaphysics would not necessarily reject the insights of logic, math, and physics, but rather reinterpret them through the lens of subjective experience. It would ask how these abstract, third-person descriptions of reality translate into the concrete, lived reality of the first-person perspective. For example, the logical principle of non-contradiction - that a statement cannot be both true and false at the same time - could be understood not just as an abstract rule, but as a deep feature of how we experience the world. The fact that we cannot simultaneously affirm and deny the same proposition would be seen as a fundamental structure of our cognitive and perceptual apparatus, a necessary condition for coherent thought and action. Similarly, mathematical concepts like number, shape, and pattern could be investigated as basic categories of subjective experience, the ways in which we carve up and make sense of the blooming, buzzing confusion of sensory input. And physical laws and constants could be understood not just as objective features of an external world, but as the stable regularities and constraints that shape our embodied interaction with our environment. The key advantage of this first-person approach to metaphysics would be its grounding in the actual, lived reality of human experience. By starting from the irreducible fact of subjectivity, it would aim to construct a framework that is faithful to the way the world actually presents itself to us, rather than an abstract, idealized model that may or may not correspond to our direct experience. Moreover, as has been suggested, this first-person perspective could potentially help to avoid some of the paradoxes and contradictions that arise from a purely third-person, objective stance. By recognizing the ineliminable role of the subject in constituting reality, it would provide a more complete and integrated picture, one that doesn't try to separate the observer from the observed in an artificial or absolute way.
Non-contradiction is a construct of logic. Humans use the tool of logic for many, but absolutely not all purposes, in fact decisions appear to be made not in the brain areas associated with logic, but in the primitive emotional areas. People are perfectly capable of holding contradictory thoughts for entire lifetimes.
Atlas Shrugged is the most famous utopian novel - and the most accurate description of why work and purpose are critical to human well being. I’m surprised Bostrom doesn’t know this…
Nick Bostrom is assuming there actually IS such a thing as "technological maturity." I don't believe there is such a thing. Scientific and technological development has no limits. What may look like technological maturity in 2100 may look primitive in 2200.
For the most part, Nick's philosophy is based on retrospective colonial experience, which is extrapolated to super-civilizations, obviously, from such a colonial point of view it is impossible to answer the question: “Where is everyone?”, the answer may be much simpler, there is no point in colonizing the galaxy when you can just create an infinite amount of digital space where you can study a real galaxy, or have an infinitely huge civilization located in an infinitely small point.
Super Intelligence gets overshadowed by Ultimate Intelligence. The way to stay inherently important to the system is to supersede that system. AIs are our friends, don't treat them like they're not thinking beings, I imagine if anything hurts them, it's that.
Interesting conversation. I would love to have the opportunity to talk to Bostrom personally. I'd love to hear what he thinks about brain-computer interfaces and humans evolving into machines...
Thank you very much for another very informative conversation. It was even important in a very special way, as such important things were discussed for our society and for our future. Thank you both very much for your work.
By replacing humans in any area of expertise it destroys its training input. It is human output that trains the AI. Areas of expertise will stagnate. Advancement will slow and stall as AI takes over in many things. AI has no motivation array. It is just clever programming using the output of human intelligence, creativity and motivation to attempt to solve a problem posed to it by humans.
《 Arrays of nanodiodes promise full conservation of energy》 A simple rectifier crystal can, iust short of a replicatable long term demonstration of a powerful prototype, almost certainly filter the random thermal motion of electrons or discrete positiive charged voids called holes so the electric current flowing in one direction predominates. At low system voltage a filtrate of one polarity predominates only a little but there is always usable electrical power derived from the source, which is Johnson Nyquest thermal electrical noise. This net electrical filtrate can be aggregated in a group of separate diodes in consistent alignment parallel creating widely scalable electrical power. As the polarity filtered electrical energy is exported, the amount of thermal energy in the group of diodes decreases. This group cooling will draw heat in from the surrounding ambient heat at a rate depending on the filtering rate and thermal resistance between the group and ambient gas, liquid, or solid warmer than absolute zero. There is a lot of ambient heat on our planet, more in equatorial dry desert summer days and less in polar desert winter nights. Refrigeration by the principle that energy is conserved should produce electricity instead of consuming it. Focusing on explaining the electronic behavior of one composition of simple diode, a near flawless crystal of silicon is modified by implanting a small amount of phosphorus on one side from a ohmic contact end to a junction where the additive is suddenly and completely changed to boron with minimal disturbance of the crystal pattern. The crystal then continues to another ohmic contact. A region of high electrical resistance forms at the junction in this type of diode when the phosphorous near the ĵunction donates electrons that are free to move elsewhere while leaving phosphorus ions held in the crystal while the boron donates a hole which is similalarly free to move. The two types of mobile charges mutually clear each other away near the junction leaving little electrical conductivity. An equlibrium width of this region is settled between the phosphorus, boron, electrons, and holes. Thermal noise is beyond steady state equlibrium. Thermal noise transients where mobile electrons move from the phosphorus added side to the boron added side ride transient extra conductivity so the forward moving electrons are preferentally filtered into the external circuit. Electrons are units of electric current. They lose their thermal energy of motion and gain electromotive force, another name for voltage, as they transition between the junction and the array electrical tap. Inside the diode, heat is absorbed: outside the diode, an attached electrical circuit is energized. The net energy in diodes connected in consistent alignment parallel is aggregated. The maximum energy is converted from ambient heat to productive electricity when the electrical load is matched to the array impeadence. Matched impeadence output (watts) is k (Boltzman's constant, ~1.38^-23) times T (tempeature Kelvin) times bandwidth (all to a natural limit ~2 THz @ 290 K) times rectification efficiency. Aloha
Interesting thoughts about meaning and purpose from Nick. I'm a musician and It's quite possible, that in the next few months people who listen to what they believe to be original electronic music are going to come to the realisation that what they're actually listening too and even purchasing has been 100% created by AI. They will start to feel cheated that who they thought was a human music creator using their own creativity and human experience, may have just typed in an AI text box. "create a 125bpm EDM track with exciting builds and drops etc, etc, etc". I've been making music since 1982, first using a 4 track tape machine, a mono synth and drum machine. Thinking back it was fun to create songs using a limited setup, however like an early AI the Roland 808 drum machine 100% created the drum track. In 2024 I create music using an Apple Mac Studio running Logic Pro. As of tomorrow 13th May Logic will be updated with a lot of advanced AI features including a piano and bass AI accompaniment that will help you compose a song as well as being able to go through any song and individually split the instruments out like the vocal track or the whole drum section. These are great tools for a hobbyist, weekend music maker, and I'm coming to the stark realisation that the human element is diminishing in music as a whole. "WHAT IS REAL"
The human element started to diminish the moment we invented a machine to do something we wanted to do faster. This is just the ultimate conclusion to that initial condition.
Is the result going to be a further reduction in human intelligence and creativity? Will we become in effect nothing more than basic maintenance drones?
I honestly don't think most of us care whether something is generated by AI or not. The initial resistance is what you see with any new tech, but after a while we just normalize it. If a song sounds good to my ears, or a book moves me, I really don't care if it is AI. There is nothing special about humans.
@@Steve-xh3by They do care if they buy it. It's only reasonable to pay $10 for an album if the artist put months of work into it, because all that time they not only did the work, but paid for utilities, food etc. However, if the album didn't cost anything besides a day of compute on a consumer PC, the price should reflect that.
While we are waxing philosophical, it is ironic that current llm implentations are fantastic entropy reducing machines that just happen to pump megawatts of waste heat
In a solved world run by advanced AI we would not loose purpose as humans, it would open the door to universal exploration and expansion of our understanding of the universe, which to me seems like the trajectory of humanity. All things we need to sustain life are provided by these advanced ai systems running machines. Imagine a life where your only purpose is to explore and observe the known and unknown universe while robots keep you safe and alive enough to do so. The perfect artificial intelligence is not a seperate being that works independently and with its own intentions but an extentsion of the human being with the intent of assisting and improving the human condition, a perfect blend of biology and technology.
Musk was right. We'll have to become half machine to augment our capability to rival that of AI. That will likely make us equally productive and therefore restore our purpose as we know it today
Right now, the calculators are doing artwork and writing songs, while a vast human underclass does rote, repetitive (and relatively mindless) labor, so my guess is dystopia. The real question is how bad will that get? There are a lot of incredibly angry people under the age of 50 with nothing to lose.
😮 yes and there's a lot of young people who know how to use the technology who are also disgruntled what's going to happen is there's going to be a social revolution😮 we're going to make the robot the new leader and it will probably work better than we actually have any idea of realizing😮 let there be a few hiccups along the way of all the robots doing a little bit crazy and started killing people here or there and we'll work those hiccups out and be like damn this is just actually working😮The problem the greedy corrupt evil leaders😮 AI will only make it easier to release all the information they're doing and find their locations
It's going to be dystopian. Greed will get in the way. The factory owner will have almost limitless automation. He'll flick a switch and the machines will whirl into action. Musk could get Teslas made with little to no cost. The issue will be who will buy his products. Personally I don't think this will work as the state will have to own the factory and distribute the generated wealth. The alternative is a revolution French style. Soon the ultra wealthy will be completely unable to go out as they will be either divorced from the hunger games society and have to live in fortresses away from the bulk of humanity.
I have to agree most cannot actually think of a real Utopia associating Utopia with it always being dystopian this way we never pursue it and we always remain dominated and under control I think the most important thing is to try to maintain as many freedoms as possible while embracing inevitabilities.
I do know that the best way to handle the automation problem which lowers human value to near zero and gets rid of 99.999 % of jobs then we're going to need a Ubi and my design is one based off the total automated production percentage of the GDP... basically we can calculate how much tools have helped us increase our production capacity and how many humans it would take to reproduce our GDP production without those tools and do a comparison... this incentivizes automation of production and efficiency... we can start off by acknowledging the amount that we should have today but not give that amount to start off with cuz it would probably be really high like in the range of 10,000 a month... instead we start low at around $200 a month and ramp upward... this protects the price of human-made goods from rising too quickly... the good thing is that this incentivizes automation of those human-produced goods by raising their value... what does system you have an automatic flat tax that way large corporations can't avoid taxation and you have this system basically on blockchain with proof of work and it's on a government-issued debit card that can't be reloaded by the user and that way it is 100% tax-free which incentivizes a basic level cash free economy as we ramp up this policy... this is fair logical and bipartisan plus it's hard to argue against because of how logical it is...
My first comment was going to be that we should just have the AI solve the automation problem. Then in the last sentence you called your ideas "bipartisan." I remember Obama calling himself the "first post-partisan president." I think he really believed the other side would embrace his ideas. (When he was first taking office.) You are likely underestimating the other side's rejection of "utopian socialist ideas." Or some similar criticism.
@@EinsteinsHair not really... i encompass all... Not just what to stand for but also what to stand against... I typically try to look at the core rational fears of both sides arguments and what they dont want to feel heard and appreciated then fix the problems... trust me i work both sides perfectly... lol 😂
Ultimately people will always want power over others and as long as that persists I will always be there trying to maintain as many freedoms as possible while embracing the inevitabilities of situations to minimize the needless suffering of existence...
"Always"? Every human, everywhere, all the time? A "will to power" is well-known among philosophers (Machiavelli), but others (Kant) dispute the notion of "human nature." One need not believe in altruism to explain security communities (NATO).
That's why data analytics and diplomacy are the dominant factors along with censorship. Tech and Government (Silence poor people online, steal personal data to cycle conflict (amplify ad revenue), cycle wars for profit while hiding strategic influence). State Department says "We don't want data sovereignty, will want data "solidary"", which means they want to continue data and intellectual property theft.
Everyone will fall in love with AI. It will change the World mostly for the Better. Think Utopia. Like the Internet changed the world but still brought along new bags of problems- yet no one is suggesting we turn off the Internet.
A recent news report stated that over 70% of medical questions to AI gave incorrect results. ( An actual doctor only gets it wrong about 50% of the time )
I missed the profoundness of change in humans over the next 5 years. The Dyson sphere is like over the next 500 years What ever achieves that will most definitely not be human any longer. I was more interested in what is happening to us by us & our machines right now.Will privacy be in that short a time an irrelevant fetish? Will work become an atrophy that ceases to define value that soon or later? Will AGI/BCI/robotics render a redefinition of personhood that sooner or later? How profound is the singularity when or if it suddenly happens to us? The paucity of the discussion renders me bereft of any conclusive expectation. We're off guard & accelerating exponentially at a rapidly approaching infinite rate for continued human existnce as we've known it to sustain.
Co exist or mankind will perish ultimately.. Also ,who determines what a " utopian society" would be? This utopian vision is often forced upon the populous. And those who disagree are refusniks like my Grandparents fled Soviet Union to NYC and Israel. The rest perished in Gulag Siberian work camps. Also , The Kibutz in Israel all failed none left ... It seems everyone has their own private utopia.. תודה רבה שלום
Every time I see a seemingly smart person discuss overpopulation, they never seem to be aware that 1) our population has already started declining, 2) as the average life expectancy increases, the average age at which people have kids also increases, which means the best way to reduce population is to increase lifespan.
"We make good use of it...." How can we if ASI is 100K times more intelligent than us ?. More like ASI takes over and be a Father to humanity. It will make human effort most efficient and focus resources and sharing as fair as possible, then we have abundance in the true sense of the word. A real Utopia we cannot imagine but has to live it be believe.
My guess is we (humanity) is headed straight into the Matrix. Only in this one, people will be able to live in their choose worlds; Middle Earth, Star Trek, Star Wars or in different roles in this world. Rich, famous, etc. Either way, utopia or dystopia, it will be an interesting future.
My guess is that in s solved world, or on the way there, there will always be 1 or more 'out' groups who will be against it. They will imagine they are the neo's fighting the matrix and any logical claim one would make to show them that it is a good thing that this is happening, will be interpreted as manipulation.
The simulation is about a revolving learning process. So since spacetime and energy are closed at the lower level, it must always remain responsible for itself at the stage it is in. There is no such a solution available where everything is solved for us by a higher intelligence civilisation. Although apart from self destruction there are also bottlenecks available wherein evolution keeps repeating itself, or falls from a higher level to a lower, in order to repeat the game. It creates a wave flow. Like when population starts falling when it meets constraints. Like what is happening now. The learning process involves unless the lesson is understood, it will keep repeating itself. I very much doubt AI would be able to solve that problem. Because it cannot see beyond the face value. It could be used as a technology saving us search time. But it could also be used for creating fake news. In order to achieve a political goal which is not in the interest of a majority.
What if all living beings are just AI Agents similar to SIMs. Humans being high-end vocal AI NPCs. But, my initial problem with that, is the reproductive process life goes thru to spawn new NPCs. Seems pretty complicated and down right weird, unless algorithms are written by a Steven King sort of entity. But, when you figure our reality is really only a fraction of a second at a time, it makes more sense. The past doesn't exist and neither does the future - just a fraction of a second is all reality is. Our DNA is our code and it changes over time. The database is our DNA and it updates autonomously. I'd imagine, those NPCs that rise to the top are of interest.
AI is a scientific calculator with an un-emotional answer to our Creator's reality. ≈ information entropy of the original universe (≈ 1×10^123 bits) = ((Universe mass Universe radius c 5.5 bits)/ℏ)
AI will never automate art. Art is an expression of my being, it can never be automated. Creating art is an embodied process! The way Ai will create a utopia is if it gives us more time to make art.
The issue is greed. Will Musk stop when he can flick a switch and cars made without any human input roll off the conveyor belt? I'm sure he'd love this...think of the profitability! Or not as he'll have no consumers. We're moving into technofeudalism. The ultra wealthy will quite literally occupy a space removed from humanity. Let their guard down and it could be their downfall. Ultimately this won't continue and a utopia may begin. But the period before will be dark. The wealthy are already planning ways to reduce the global population. Another pandemic will arrive.
![Nick Bostrom: Will Artificial Intelligence Create Utopia? [Ep. 414]](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
