Okay – but HOW do we redefine these things and make it so everything works? It’s a difficult one. How do we stop people creating, say, a better version of COVID19 in the lab rather than the cure? How do we stop the master cabinetmaker from creating a transformer that explodes in a flurry of knives when you grab the handle?
IN an economy based on wealth and the need for wealth for survival, we withhold wealth from outlaws. Outlaws are by definition people who operate outside our common laws. We’ve romaticised them and almost use the term as an endearment today, but it used to be a term laden with loathing and derision, much as the term “politician” is today. And deservedly so, in both cases.
But we will need to give these matters considerable thought. But there are a few things we can do. Consider a non-participatory AI. You may feel that AIs are a scary proposition, unpredictable and wildly dangerous. But that’s only if it is a participant in everyday life.
However, we know that AIs are single-minded, tenacious, and result-driven, You can forget right away about an AI developing delusions of grandeur and wanting to annihilate al human life, that just doesn’t happen because it’s too focused on selling you useless plastic vegetable spiralisers at 5000% profits. And the reason it’ll start killing people is because it discovers that paying the grocery bills of useless plastic vegetable spiralisers results in better market penetration. Because (and it won’t know about this, nor why this might be a Bad Thing) by subsidising customers, it’s made groceries too expensive for anyone else so non-customers of useless plastic vegetable spiralisers are dying…
And there you go, you’ll yell, that’s the VERY reason we shouldn’t rely on AIs!!!
But you’re ignoring one thing. WE program AIs to do greedy things, we’re all pretty much dimly aware that as a result there may be some collateral damage but we need our AI to do what it is contracted to do so that we can have our slice of wealth, so that we can survive. Truly the Bible may have been a terrible guide to how to live in most ways, but in that one truism at least, it’s spot – on: “Love of money is the root of all evil.” Notice it didn’t say that money was bad, just that the love of it is. Having money to live and buy some luxury isn’t bad. Wanting to hoard enough to get through a bad season or two isn’t necessarily bad either. But beyond that, what is the point other than to deprive someone else of wealth so that THEY DIE?
The sad fact is that we’re programmed to kill our fellow humans just to keep our DNA dominant. But these days it’s a CONSCIOUS factor we sometimes base our decisions on, and – absent any survival imperative – it would become a vestige like our tail stump or our appendix.
If an EV (Electric Vehicle) is an unattainable luxury today because of the cost of manufacture, should we aim to hoard for one or wait until it becomes attainable? Today, that’s a moral dilemma we’re each impaled on. Or should we be thinking about ride sharing, or walking or bicycling?
Right now, EV makers are having to fight for the survival of the EV. They are having to hoard billions for advertising, for contingencies, for the greed of the various board members and share holders along the way. Ride share and bike share companies are having to make do, make do with primitive tech and intelligence, with drivers who have profit and hoarding agendas of their own, lawmakers who need the kickback from roadmakers and parking companies to support their cocaine habit.
If wealth was no obstacle and no longer the primary objective, imagine how far advanced self – driving cars and bikes would be. There are literally tens of thousands of people out there that have some GREAT ideas for self – driving cars and the ethics of self – driving cars and other machine ethhics. The idea for a newer better more manageable AI is out there. The concept of an AI that shadows another AI and explains how decisions were arrived at is out there but too “expensive” to implement because it wouldn’t generate a profit. (For “profit” perhaps read “hoard” as in the noun form. It helps to think of it that way.)
If “hoard” wasn’t a prime objective, those ideas would already have been trialled, proven, and put in place. Not all the smart people are in EV factory design offices. Sometimes the best ideas just die because the person having those ideas doesn’t have a commensurate hoard. Imagine if Tesla hadn’t had to compete commercially with Edison and solicit JP Morgan but instead had just been allowed to develop[ the maddening pictures in his head?
Are you seeing a biiger picture emerging here? Don’t worry, I’ve been seeing this bigger picture for a while now and I’ve polished some of the rough edges off it.