Post AUieF2Cq1PotMYTMpM by TedUnderwood@sigmoid.social
(DIR) More posts by TedUnderwood@sigmoid.social
(DIR) Post #AUiZwPt7LiCzUa7D9M by TedUnderwood@sigmoid.social
2023-04-16T18:35:47Z
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I think #superintelligence is going to be the flying car of the 21st century—and what we actually get will be more like what the 1960s actually got: the VW Beetle + turbulent social change.
(DIR) Post #AUia0piHH2LMkJ9QIK by Jonathanglick@mstdn.social
2023-04-16T18:36:35Z
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@TedUnderwood can you explain that analogy a little?
(DIR) Post #AUialxKYlnZZyuWk08 by TedUnderwood@sigmoid.social
2023-04-16T18:45:07Z
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@Jonathanglick Sure. It’s 1950. In the US, middle-class families are getting personal cars. It seems an inevitable extrapolation that “soon we’ll have personal airplanes!” But actually there wasn’t a huge market for that. (Not impossible, but risky and expensive.) What there was a market for was even cheaper cars, and more important than the cars themselves were the social changes associated w/ postwar prosperity, new careers for women, etc. Similarly +
(DIR) Post #AUiarovIwPeZdzViAi by anndvision@sigmoid.social
2023-04-16T18:46:11Z
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@TedUnderwood or the self-driving car, even
(DIR) Post #AUibLxvG2x8wF4rZ56 by TedUnderwood@sigmoid.social
2023-04-16T18:50:55Z
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@Jonathanglick I think people are imagining that current progress in AI will just extrapolate along a “technological marvel” axis, without thinking about issues like “who actually wants liability for that superintelligence,” etc. I think it’s more likely that we get GPT-4 level stuff & generative video on our smartphones. The disruptive consequences are less like Skynet and more like, um, hippies.
(DIR) Post #AUibVUzcSenHPkRtQm by Jonathanglick@mstdn.social
2023-04-16T18:53:20Z
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@TedUnderwood got it, thanks
(DIR) Post #AUibaORmE4M2Yox9t2 by Inquiry@mathstodon.xyz
2023-04-16T18:54:11Z
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@TedUnderwood @Jonathanglick More like #SpamNet and #SkamNet ... in other words, a whole lot more of the same ole same ole ...
(DIR) Post #AUic2HKSHgq6anpE1I by chaircrusher@masto.ai
2023-04-16T18:59:14Z
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@TedUnderwoodI wonder whether some of chatgpt's crappiness comes from devs who can code but are terrible at writing words. They were happy when it could write better than they can, they didn't care if it actually write well. @Jonathanglick
(DIR) Post #AUic53UKCUvwXDlXHc by afamiglietti79@mastodon.social
2023-04-16T18:59:39Z
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@TedUnderwood @Jonathanglick It's weird that we're in a place where the statement "Let's not get ahead of ourselves, this will merely be as big a deal, socially, as the personal automobile was for the United States" is a moderate projection of a technology's impact, but I suppose we are...
(DIR) Post #AUid9Jgm0ZnDtRBU1I by TedUnderwood@sigmoid.social
2023-04-16T19:11:45Z
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@chaircrusher @Jonathanglick Yep. And by the same token, imagine how difficult it’s going to be to produce a model that can write better than any of the human beings who trained it.
(DIR) Post #AUie45bV3564iPmyUy by MattHodges@mastodon.social
2023-04-16T19:12:18Z
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@afamiglietti79 @TedUnderwood @Jonathanglick I struggle with the car analogy because [gestures at birth date] but I think it’s similarly congruent to the PC or the smart phone.
(DIR) Post #AUie46J6QxyWteBnSi by Jonathanglick@mstdn.social
2023-04-16T19:16:46Z
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@MattHodges @afamiglietti79 @TedUnderwood So my (way too broad) interpretation of Ted’s metaphor is that both the PC and auto were initially introduced with an intended purpose of productivity and ‘power.’ But that a demographic emerged that unexpectedly used them for creativity and ‘freedom.’
(DIR) Post #AUie46rUN7TscIHG3k by TedUnderwood@sigmoid.social
2023-04-16T19:21:59Z
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@Jonathanglick @MattHodges @afamiglietti79 Yeah. I get this whole line of thinking partly from @ecourtem, who constantly reminds me that most ppl only wanted little computers in their pockets that they could use for selfies and cat memes.
(DIR) Post #AUieF1gDyfjRjPDJzc by afamiglietti79@mastodon.social
2023-04-16T19:20:54Z
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@Jonathanglick @MattHodges @TedUnderwood I'll let Ted speak for himself here, but I think he intended that, and I agree with him. I've see the Discord servers where they congregate! Of course, the hippies weren't ethical angels, for example intentional communities were often racially segregated and gender essentialist, and AI art creators aren't either. But it won't be ALL Google's stomping boot on the human face either...
(DIR) Post #AUieF2Cq1PotMYTMpM by TedUnderwood@sigmoid.social
2023-04-16T19:23:56Z
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@afamiglietti79 @Jonathanglick @MattHodges Yep. I don’t know if all of this was consciously intended by me, but it all feels consonant & persuades me as I hear it.
(DIR) Post #AUinvjhNbgOC0EC8Ya by jose_eduardo@mastodon.social
2023-04-16T21:12:32Z
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@TedUnderwood @afamiglietti79 @Jonathanglick @MattHodges I think the reason why the automobile analogy fails is because even though we didn't get the flying automobile, cars completely reshaped our cities and communities in ways that no other invention before it had been able to do it--and we don't want a repeat of that. Plus I like VW Beetles
(DIR) Post #AUip0fixuXVz4ur0C0 by TedUnderwood@sigmoid.social
2023-04-16T21:24:38Z
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@jose_eduardo @afamiglietti79 @Jonathanglick @MattHodges I agree with the premise that cars reshaped society, and have no doubt that AI will as well. Lots of people don’t want that to happen — but then, lots of people in the 20c said they didn’t want the noise and pollution of the automobile. Individually, at least in the US, they did want the convenience of driving, so it happened.
(DIR) Post #AUisekueL6W8cF7kx6 by afamiglietti79@mastodon.social
2023-04-16T22:05:30Z
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@TedUnderwood @jose_eduardo @Jonathanglick @MattHodges hence why Ted's prediction is the high impact end of my error bars. The car was a Big Deal. Especially in the US! There is also pretty convincing argument to be made that the personal car and cities built around them was basically a terrible mistake. But that's part of what makes the analogy work so well. The danger is there too, and the possibilities of responding to the danger with policy...