[HN Gopher] Silicon Valley Is Turning into Its Own Worst Fear (2...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Silicon Valley Is Turning into Its Own Worst Fear (2017)
        
       Author : janalsncm
       Score  : 11 points
       Date   : 2024-06-20 20:22 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.buzzfeednews.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.buzzfeednews.com)
        
       | gregw2 wrote:
       | I liked this quote:
       | 
       |  _" Speaking to Maureen Dowd for a Vanity Fair article published
       | in April, Musk gave an example of an artificial intelligence
       | that's given the task of picking strawberries. It seems harmless
       | enough, but as the AI redesigns itself to be more effective, it
       | might decide that the best way to maximize its output would be to
       | destroy civilization and convert the entire surface of the Earth
       | into strawberry fields. Thus, in its pursuit of a seemingly
       | innocuous goal, an AI could bring about the extinction of
       | humanity purely as an unintended side effect.
       | 
       | This scenario sounds absurd to most people, yet there are a
       | surprising number of technologists who think it illustrates a
       | real danger. Why? Perhaps it's because they're already accustomed
       | to entities that operate this way: Silicon Valley tech companies.
       | 
       | 'Consider: Who pursues their goals with monomaniacal focus,
       | oblivious to the possibility of negative consequences? Who adopts
       | a scorched-earth approach to increasing market share? This
       | hypothetical strawberry-picking AI does what every tech startup
       | wishes it could do -- grows at an exponential rate and destroys
       | its competitors until it's achieved an absolute monopoly.'"_
       | 
       | Somehow that quote had _way_ more resonance when read within 24
       | hours of reading this (warning: 85-pages!) detailed critique of
       | our FAANG overlords and their ability to handle tasks of forum
       | moderation or plain old customer support:
       | https://danluu.com/diseconomies-scale/
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2024-06-20 23:01 UTC)