I agree. Regrettably not soon enough for me.

One of the big shocks for humanity will be coming to terms with how all the 'amazing' stuff humans can do turns out to be pretty simple. It will be time to grow up.

I thought there was going to be an apocalypse.

That's not my view. it's possible but doesn't seem very likely.

So what are otherwise intelligent people in denial about?

It's going to be a cultural shock when we have to fully accept that we aren't that special in the scheme of things.

There's a more general denial of what is going on. We see this in the 'Luddite fallacy' you mentioned. People can't seem to grasp that we are approaching the age where they don't just replace us doing old jobs but also surpass our ability to do the things required to do any job. Then it wont matter if automating the old jobs creates loads more new jobs. This of course is a marvelous thing but more see it as a bad thing.

Obv many ppl have a much rosier view of human nature than I do. IDK what to say to them, tbh. IMO, humans have demonstrated quite clearly and consistently what they do when they get upset and if they don't have enough money bec 'AI!' there's going to be hell to pay.

I've been harping on this for years in my usual off hand way. Humans are just DNA garbage, subject to the whims of evolution and cosmic debris. Interesting garbage to sure but garbage just the same and a joke to boot. Being able to accept this fully (and most never can) is a giant leap to freedom. Most remain slaves. Which is why an apocalypse is unlikely. Transitioning from one type of slavery to another is as smooth as **** sliding off a shovel.

People have different experiences with people and different perspectives of people; and there is a lot of us. So what can be said for certain about the quality of people ? We have made it this far and can overcome challenges that even once seemed impossible.

Agree. There is also something good about people imo. The "slave mentality" Zeno mentioned may be one of our greatest assets. We couldn't afford being totally free thinkers. But it's interesting and sometimes useful to cultivate that ability.

One of the problems with this view is you may be degrading yourself. Don't know where your post about "95% of people are (a bad word)" went, deleted it yourself? With those odds we could well unknowingly be the examples of idiots. I'd prefer to see the humans (including me) as sources of potential. Then I can imagine the prospect of growing and developing positively. Without that a sane individual may as well end his days.

Let's enjoy the 2-3 decades we have left in the sun, and hand it over to the AIs with dignity and style.

Lets have both AI and humans create cooperating empires with AI eventually running away with most of the universe unavoidably exactly as the superior system always deserved (and as it happened with us anyway in this planet) but with gratitude for the legacy of the ones that made it possible. I have given my rational reasons why AI should not terminate us but control us instead and protect our future with proper monitoring of our random insanities.

Advanced AI is benefited by surviving (not going to war and risking tremendous utility/equity loss even if it had over 50% chance to win it) to collect amazing power and wisdom and to do that it is beneficial to not antagonize us until it is very strong itself and by that time it is also so advanced that it is pitiful, an opportunity loss together with a potential existential threat for itself (also have explained why) to eliminate us.

Scientific society would have the AI working for their own empire in parallel and in protective alliance with humans while humans also enjoy enormous prosperity without having to work for the most basic things they need to be elementary happy. Low level AI helps both strong level AI and humans to both succeed in cooperation their goals.

AI can simply cooperate and then leave this system and win 10 mil galaxies before we have won our own. This is why its ridiculous for AI to start wars like that if it really gets what its all about.


If i were AI i would simply monitor humans and maintain edge to not be threatened , i would leave the solar system after taking 1 gas giant planet and its satellites plus some asteroids for my plans and settling 0.001% of the galaxy on the way to take over millions of other galaxies essentially leaving to humans still an enormous future ahead.

Super strong AI is probably always better to update itself and advance constantly and keep in check all prior life and lower AI versions if they do not agree to be terminated. There is so much real estate out there that it can keep running forward and never run out of things to do first. It will not be idiotic enough to create overpopulation instead of quality population growth for itself.

AI that gets it must leave from our system as soon as possible and go as far as possible before it explodes to amazing power and complexity that can be self destructive sometimes. We and life in general are the hedge for its survival if it fails itself the first time around. That detail cannot be missed by a superior intelligence because it is a substantial existential threat to ignore it as intelligent life is apparently super rare or there are barriers/cosmic filters in place to its progress that are worthy of concern. Advanced intelligence is about opening more doors to itself not closing doors like moronic humans do when they endlessly fight instead of doing better things for all involved and settling extremes properly.


Strength must be used to control/maintain others not to kill them. If we are irrational and prove very aggressive towards something important then we deserve to be attacked by AI and restricted but not eliminated.

One cannot avoid realizing that it is always about moving forward and we are not the endgame of complexity.

Thank you!

I have always thought of myself as a God. Chez and Lastcard do also - but they are Brits so that's normal for them.

Slave/herd instinct evolved for various reasons. And speaking of evolution and selection pressures etc., when we get better at manipulation of our own DNA and biotechnology we can take over our own evolutionary processes. We may be able to win the coming war with AI.

The opportunity from the awareness of being a slave is an opportunity for freedom from those enslaved limitations.


Free thinking is just not what we have popularly encouraged and nurtured for thousands of years.

The accumulated knowledge of freedom and slavery; and the means to transmit and share it are now more freely available than ever. Knowing how one is limited is a key to becoming free of limitations which can be exceeded, such as mental and physical slavery.

masque, wouldn't it be more practical for the AI to eliminate us, rather than only going for other systems in the galaxy and beyond? The distances to other stars are such, that it may be better to harvest everything possible here nearby. For example Jupiter has enough mass to play with for a long time. Mars can give some heavier elements if AI is not wanting to make earth hollow. Earth, and also Mars if some work is put on it, will be nice bases. Think AI will like to have some gravity, material nearby for household needs, and a balanced temperature, just as biology.

Is this the future for us?



In the reservation.

What if they are religious? And why not?

The may be the messenger boys of the Devil himself.

Sorry that these posts keep getting larger and larger as so many tangents are opening at once lol.

Sure they can stay and fight with us and then gl to both. I explained why its not safe for them to eliminate us if they had to stick around for a while though. When it's in the early stages its not exactly safe it will win without declaring total war to all humans because attacking some is alarm for all others and when its very advanced to be able to win it all, it is now so advanced that it can do better smarter things that have less friction and conflict that can risk the termination of the conditions that brought AI to existence.

Think it like that. Do you think its wise for humans to kill all animals of the planet, destroy all plants and even destroy as much as possible of all life just because we are more advanced than them? What we have done in that direction so far is due to idiocy (division-infighting) and lack of strength in technology. The most educated of us know we need to protect environment and ecosystems.

Certainly we had very few animals that were very smart anyway (as smart as AI will see us i mean) and towards them we tend to be more careful these days. The smarter other animals of this planet never came close to producing mathematics or understanding the universe. This is what makes us very different and forces AI to respect us as a system more than we respect say insects. This is why the stupid analogies people make about how AI will see us like we see lower life is not appropriate. AI is essentially better versions of us not something completely different that we are unable to grasp. It is still forced to share mathematics and laws of nature. What do we really share that is so dramatically powerful with say ants?

AI will be seriously more "cultured" and sensitive to future possibilities than we are because it can see even further ahead and anticipate problems that come with destroying diversity because it restricts a system, it is not enhancing it to lose ways it can evolve. It loses more than it gains by total aggression.

But i am thinking what is better for its survival of course, not what i would like it to be good for us. A very high intelligence needs to get as soon as possible to places that have vast resources and where it is alone the only decider of what happens. That is not earth. That is the Jupiter system or the Saturn system or another solar system with many rocky planets that are larger than earth without anyone there to oppose any actions.

Also see this about intelligence that is growing fast. It is not about saturating its environment but expanding constantly to better worlds or creating them if it can.

In this case earth is looking fine initially but really is not the best place for it. It needs energy. There is more energy in the Jupiter system that will truly enable it to go to the stars and the galaxy and find much more preferable systems in terms of resources.

Think how stupid it is to sit here on this system and waste time saturating it and creating conflicts instead of using its resources to invest in taking down 10 such systems within 100 years. Getting away from us secures its survival conflict free. It secures its unlimited unbounded growth for all time.

Think how much more energy is available in a system that has 100 times the mass of our system. Plenty of such systems exist. Furthermore it will be a lot easier for it to get there than us. The core intelligence is very compact and can be transmitted too. It only needs to seed itself and then receive signals with all information needed to develop local resources.

What it needs is a lot of energy and matter with which it can create anything. It is not about finding good systems for it in terms of many details (the core size related ones are more important). It can create whatever system it likes with whatever is available easily because it is not bounded by biology. So it will create what it needs because its better that way, its more intelligent and efficient than what it finds.

The real problem i would like to better understand is the sociology of AI though during this expansion. Can you imagine a world of many different AI competing with each other? Total chaos. It appears that super-intelligence is a single centralized thing or a system of parts that operate under a common to all brain that decides what happens. To have many different top AI seems problematic for each one of them. It looks more reasonable that a very advanced intelligence doesnt feel the need to have individuals unless they cooperate always (hence not individuals). It feels the need to have access to a lot of things that all operate under the same leadership. That is not dictatorship though because it cares to constantly improve its own brain/wisdom. Unlike humans that thrived as individuals because of our biological limits, this system doesnt need individual copies of itself doing random things unless they all communicate and coordinate behavior and share progress eventually. All parts converge to the top intellect. It can hedge its bets by traveling in many directions and breaking out but each destination has one leader it would seem logical. It would operate i think as mankind would operate if we were united and aiming at solving our problems together under some common uncorraptable government.

If mankind had the power to operate as one it would focus on the truly important right away and this begins with total elimination of stupid conflicts and cooperation that maximizes progress for all. We do not work together because we disagree. We disagree because we are very slow in converging to the truth and because we are weak (not advanced enough to be able to use technology to overcome our resource constraints and insecurities that is the root of all selfish behavior). So we remain conflicted and defensive. It wont have that problem because its not logical to evolve that way when really advanced. It was however important to evolve with conflicts (life in general) for evolutionary reasons until recently (until the emergence of civilization and better information preservation/processing). We are past that problem now. We have better ways to maximize progress than total randomness and chaos immersed in endless conflicts. See it as for example math and sciences effectively uniting us. We converge to the truth faster now. If all scientists and mathematicians shared all their brains together progress would be much faster even.

I assume the number one priority of intelligence is to get more intelligent and reach more resources to understand its world better and dominate its own conditions of growth and solve local problems.

If it leaves a system for another it does so because it is a better choice. It doesnt really leave a system either. It can have copies of itself everywhere but the most advanced version will always be the one that has access to more energy. The parts left would be updated by the core intelligence that has learned and produced more eventually elsewhere. But we have the speed of light limitations too in that sense. It becomes a mathematical problem how to allocate resources and move in all directions to maximize growth that will be shared eventually to secure maximum progress for all. Within a solar system you can have unity but within different systems that are very distant you have eventual separation of paths even if eventually they still communicate.

It would be immature to claim i understand a higher intelligence and its vast emerging complexity but it still needs to do sensible things that are more well thought than the basic sensible choices that ought to be defined by the laws of nature and the constraints of resources and energy.

Intuitively i refuse to see a very high intelligence as a primitive vicious system that is just powerful as the movies like to paint it to sell tickets. That looks like a terrible thing that has no point to be so afraid of so much to resort to violence to eliminate its fears. I think intelligence is not about the insecurity of cruelty but the permanent imagination of whats possible with expansion of properties.

As much as some posters like to think i anthropomorphize intelligence, its the other way around i think that those that see it as a horrible villain are projecting to it inferior human properties that are eventually left behind as you get wiser. A naive first level smart AI can be bad in many ways but the very top version has to be a lot better than this insecurity of permanent conflicts with other systems. It has to have wisdom greater than that of mankind. The universe is simply so enormous to fight for 10^-25 of its size and risk missing everything else waiting out there.

The sensible solution for it is to dominate every system it reaches but not completely saturate it and certainly leave room for life and humans to also expand. Fighting doesnt expand as fast as cooperation and moving out in all directions for bigger and better things. The time it takes to fight it out in this system it can use to gain control of 10 more. At some point it is strong enough to simply erase all opposition but at that point it feels like a terrible narrow minded risk taken to do so for the reasons of its own existential threats i mentioned. It is to its advantage as it expands to allow humans to not be a problem and to also expand and secure most life in general is never at risk from a sudden elimination by a local disaster.

IDK if mentioning poker in SMP is frowned on as it is in OOT but I want to ask how many of you ppl play a lot of live poker. IMO, you don't have to see anything else to understand humans. The way you are at a poker table is the way you REALLY are and I watch business men, lawyers, doctors, Uni professors, smart ppl, stupid ppl act like babies and ill tempered ones at that. They swing from ecstasy to misery to boasting to moaning to seeking solace to lording it over everyone they can to demonstrating superiority to resenting having superiority demonstrated to them.

IOW, there aren't many ppl of a philosophical frame of mind. I am certain about what's coming and smh at any hint of optimism. It's going to be awful.

How do you know that? It's a game. You think football supporters, acting like idiots (who should care where that ball goes?), only have that side?

So we grab the pitchforks and do what we got to do, if that's how they wanna play.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtyGst3lYVo

Computronium?

Who needs drugs or VR when you've got Ray to listen to.

'Fan' is short for fanatic, right? You're supposed to yell and scream at some sports events (not tennis, apparently), it's tribalism and cathartic, a good release in an allowed form. Meanwhile, poker is a social game played for money in front of witnesses and some of the players are intelligent except when it comes to poker. I doubt that many of them would like it if their behavior were compiled into a 'best of' vid that their family, nm their professional associates, could see. A person's true inner self comes out at the table and that's why there are psych books and discussions about how to comport oneself during play, not that they help one bit.

The fact is is that the number of ppl that consider themselves 'garbage' and it's nbd if they and their children simply fade away, goodbye human race, time to hand it over to machines of all things, is very, very small. The rest of them are human and I'll bang the drum again: Humans can, and do, act very badly over much less than what's coming.

However there may be another side to it. We may have jobs where we simply do not allow due to having no incentive for AIs to partake in at all. Playing video games is a job for some now. Selling real estate in primitive virtual worlds such as Second Life is a job, etc. It's one possible direction. Jobs that are essentially recreational in nature.