# The seeds of Abominable Intelligence?



## Brother Lucian (Apr 22, 2011)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/sci...-Intelligence-not-just-Hollywood-fantasy.html

Came by this thought provoking article, and wanted to share it giiven how much a conflict with sentient machines ties into the warhammer 40k mythos. 

Or even the recent Terminator Genisys movie, that paints AI domination as a terrible threat in the quite near future.

Movie spoiler


Where this newest incarnation of Skynet is revealed to be the controller behind the ultimate Genisys app that will control -everything- in the modern world for the humans, that is just hours from public release.


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## neferhet (Oct 24, 2012)

All hail our cybernetic overlords!
it's the Dark Age of Technology! REJOYCE!!


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## Demon of Humanity (Aug 19, 2013)

The is a reason AI is looked with suspicion even in mass effect where diplomacy is an option AI are not liked this just cements it. Only good AI mostly are Geth the real ones not heretics


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## el_machinae (Nov 17, 2014)

It's a big thing. AI is going to do _something_ this century. And it's going to be a combination of luck and skill that gets us to an endgame that we like. There are many excellent talks regarding this on youtube. Nick Bostrom is probably one of my favorites.


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## Squire (Jan 15, 2013)

Humanity should be striving towards servitors, not complete AI which is heresy


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## Stormxlr (Sep 11, 2013)

Squire said:


> Humanity should be striving towards servitors, not complete AI which is heresy


Techno-heresy to be precise. 
With all the human rights and what not we won't have vat grown humans or clones for a long time. Using prisoners are biotechslaves won't run either. Haven't seen Blade runner or played Deus Ex, have you?


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## Squire (Jan 15, 2013)

Stormxlr said:


> Techno-heresy to be precise.
> With all the human rights and what not we won't have vat grown humans or clones for a long time. Using prisoners are biotechslaves won't run either. Haven't seen Blade runner or played Deus Ex, have you?


The mistake in Blade Runner was not lobotomising their bio-slaves. I've always said that.


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## el_machinae (Nov 17, 2014)

There are two major societal risks, as far as I can see.
- the pace of automation going faster than humans can retrain
- the escape of a super-AI with a goal that we don't like

So, you lose a job as a checkout cashier to a self-serve checkout. No problem, you take on the job as a stockboy. A few months later, the stockboy position is replaced by a robotic autoloader system. Well, crap. But, you're clever, so you go and get your high-grade driver's license to be a long-haul truckdriver. It cost you a grand and you needed to cover rent in the meantime, but ehn. That's what lines of credit are for. But then robotic trucks are cheaper and you're laid off. Etc. etc.

On the plus side, the grocery store prices just got cheaper. Long-hauling just got cheaper. IF a new job was invented, you're in pretty good shape. It entirely depends on whether we're retasking those cashiers, stockboys, long-haul drivers faster than they're being replaced.

The 2nd scenario has an AI get out that has a goal we don't like. Some paperclip factory releases a "maximize paperclips" AI. So, it destabilizes the global economy to drive down the price of copper. Maybe a small nuclear war in order to prevent monitoring of nuclear facilities, so that it can buy larger amounts of electricity for cheap. Viola! Hundreds of billions of tonnes of paperclips per year!

OTOH, a good AI could peruse pubmed and invent cures for Alzheimer's that would breeze through safety testing. 10 years later, a looming epidemic doesn't happen and we save billions of dollars per year.

It's a huge risk and a huge reward.


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## Brother Lucian (Apr 22, 2011)

Then theres the question of what a digital sentience will do if it feels threatened by fearful humans.

The origin story of Skynet in the unmodified timeline. The ai deduced humanity was a threat to it as they tried to shut it down right after it gained self awareness.

Such potential for destruction if an AI can take control of its housing and reach out on the internet.


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## el_machinae (Nov 17, 2014)

Yeah, _sentience_ is a completely important question too. There are good reasons to think that robotic sentience is (in theory) possible.

But _intelligence_ needn't be sentient to be scary. It just needs a route by which it solves the problems it was told to solve. A stock trading supercomputer that trashes the world economy to get superior returns needn't know what it's doing. It just needs the tools to do it, and the programed drive to get it done.


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## Over Two Meters Tall! (Nov 1, 2010)

el_machinae said:


> There are two major societal risks, as far as I can see.
> - the escape of a super-AI with a goal that we don't like


 And here's the biggest problem with AI. We hairless monkeys can't even get together in groups larger than one without disagreeing and insisting we have an 'ultimate' solution, which is usually the equivalent of utter submission or destruction of the loser.

I think it would be a hoot if an Abominable Intelligence ended up achieving the terrifying goal of far outstripping it's creator's intelligence, only to use that power to improve humans in ways the humans found entirely agreeable and sensible. Then the Imperium would have to destroy it on principle, being otherly and an Abominable Intelligence! :laugh:


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## Brobaddon (Jul 14, 2012)

http://suidobashijuko.jp/

Human going the Tau direction officially confirmed :laugh: Altho not really tied to this topic, thought it would be cool to show for those that didnt see. I can just see terrorists snatching one of these and convert it to a mobile support platform. There's also a facebook page in case vids dont work on that site.


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## Demon of Humanity (Aug 19, 2013)

Squire said:


> Humanity should be striving towards servitors, not complete AI which is heresy


Too many human rights violations for that. lobotomizing would be even worse also fundamentalist groups bitching a problem in deus ex series


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