It's always interesting listening to the panic from upper middle class people who humans losing their place as the most intelligent on the planet. I can't help wonder if it's because the journalists and academics who talk about it... think of themselves as occupying that spot. Most people don't. Remember when Deep Blue beat Kasparov? The brain's last stand... interest in chess will surely collapse.. .etc etc. People still play chess. It's more popular than ever. They use AI to understand how to get better at it. We accept our limitations. When AI gets smarter than us... will most people be that bothered? No. There's a ruling class that is totally divorced from them already that has its own agenda and lies all the time to hold onto it. One that cares only for power and not people. So exactly what will change? Well, they will lose for a start. The roles of academics will become more like priests trying to understand the actions and motives of something vastly more intelligent than them.
The reason for serious concern at the prospect of an AI more generally intelligent than us humans is because that AI could go on to destroy humanity, or significantly curtail human flourishing. That's not just an "upper middle class concern" - no more than, say, the prospect of a global nuclear war is just an "upper middle class concern".
This is an extremely short-sighted and judgmental comment. Short-sighted, because comparing true AGI to Deep Blue playing chess is a completely false analogy - totally different scales of functionality. And judgmental, the "panic from upper middle class people." Raising valid concern is not panicking. And it's not only the upper middle class people who are going to be impacted. True AGI, especially embodied in capable robots, will be capable of replacing humans across almost every domain - from blue collar to the C-suites. It's so tiresome, listening to these same insults. You think we're worried about losing status - sounds more like insecurity on your part. I'm concerned about the downfall of society. Without UBI, what are millions and millions of unemployed people going to do, with no money, no jobs, and no purpose?
The concern is the emergence of an AI that is more generally intelligent than humans, being more able to achieve goals in a complicated environment, in the way that humans are more generally intelligent than gorillas and chimpanzees. The fate of gorillas and chimpanzees now lies within human hands. In the future, the fate of humans could like within AI hands. If there are bugs in the implementation or design of that AI, all bets are off, regarding our future.
Be this true, and AI gains it's own grasp on Human run infastructor to free up the time once wasted on frivolous chores; again, it will be man's own hand putting the itself to it's own peril. Mabey ai will be the protocols to again clean up the mess. Again. I'm one angry Elf, i can tell you
Entertaining math: If the probability of a civilization dying in each individual year is 1% = 0.01, then the probability of survival is 1 - 0.01 = 0.99. If we make a forecast for 100 years, then humanity must survive in EACH of the years, which means AND, which means we need to MULTIPLY (0.99 * 0.99 * 0.99 100 times, that is, we raise it to a power) 0.99^100 = 0.366, for a total of 36.6% that civilization will survive over the next 100 years. I wish there were more)
