Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking, Hey darn, Welcome to Alward Thinking about podcast
Speaker 1: that listen the future and says Einstein can't be classed
Speaker 1: as witless. He claimed Adams were the litt list. I'm
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland and I'm Joe McCormick, and our other host,
Speaker 1: Lauren Vocal bamb is not with us today. She is
Speaker 1: in New York doing very exciting things. But today we're
Speaker 1: gonna be initiating part two of a two part episode
Speaker 1: on the AI arms race, and the last episode. If
Speaker 1: you haven't heard that yet, you should go back and
Speaker 1: listen to that one first, where we lay all the
Speaker 1: groundwork for the stuff we're gonna be talking about today.
Speaker 1: Last time, what do we do? We talked about sort
Speaker 1: of some definitions of different concepts in artificial intelligence, how
Speaker 1: likely we are we think to achieve them, what ways
Speaker 1: they might be achieved, some potential stumbling blocks to achieving them.
Speaker 1: But in the end we want to say, today, okay,
Speaker 1: let's assume that people create what's known as an artificial
Speaker 1: general intelligence. Is that going to lead to a worldwide
Speaker 1: arms race for intelligent machines? Boy, that's spoiled it. No,
Speaker 1: We've got a lot to say about this, and this
Speaker 1: is if you listen to the last episode you heard.
Speaker 1: At the end, I mentioned that we have some interesting
Speaker 1: characters to talk about, people who have perspectives on this idea,
Speaker 1: and the first person we're going to chat about falls
Speaker 1: into that interesting character category quite handily. Yeah, so this
Speaker 1: is just one example. There have been lots of people
Speaker 1: actually who have written about the idea of a looming
Speaker 1: AI arms race. But one example of a guy with
Speaker 1: this prediction is a guy named Sultan Istvan who is
Speaker 1: the presidential candidate in the United States for the Transhumanist
Speaker 1: Party ticket. He's a trans humanist journalist and I guess, now,
Speaker 1: politician I suppose, yes, enthusiasts seems too modest a word.
Speaker 1: He actually he had on his website a a suggestion
Speaker 1: of a trans humanist bill of rights, and it included
Speaker 1: things like the right to extend one's life and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. But anyway, so, uh so, Istabon has a
Speaker 1: thesis that he published in a Vice Motherboard article. Uh
Speaker 1: that was I guess a year or two ago, I think,
Speaker 1: and he he said, you know what artificial general intelligence
Speaker 1: is not going to arise in the lab of a
Speaker 1: tech company like Google, or a university research program or
Speaker 1: some genius kids garage. A g I is going to
Speaker 1: arise through the work of state actors defending their interests
Speaker 1: and as so, speaking of coming superhuman artificial intelligence, Zoltan
Speaker 1: rights quote, politicians and military commanders around the world will
Speaker 1: want this super intelligent machine mind for their countries and
Speaker 1: defensive forces, and they'll want it exclusively. Using AI's potential
Speaker 1: power and might for national security strategy is more than obvious.
Speaker 1: It's essential to retain leadership in the future world. Inevitably,
Speaker 1: a worldwide AI arms race is set to begin. So
Speaker 1: so here's the thesis that we can explore for the
Speaker 1: rest of today's episode. Now, Ralph, the face of it,
Speaker 1: I think at least part of Sultan's argument is is wrong. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily think the AI arms race part is wrong,
Speaker 1: And I don't think necessarily that nations wouldn't want exclusive
Speaker 1: use of some sort of super intelligent entity to work
Speaker 1: on their behalf. I think that's apparent right, Like it
Speaker 1: would be crazy to suggest otherwise that if there was
Speaker 1: any given nation were to have the opportunity to have
Speaker 1: a super intelligent entity on their side. It would be
Speaker 1: insane to say, now we're good, go help someone else
Speaker 1: that then what's the part you disagree with? I disagree
Speaker 1: with his statement that says that AI is not going
Speaker 1: to show up in the lab of a tech company,
Speaker 1: but instead will become the will arise because of the
Speaker 1: the work of state actors. Yeah, okay, so, and I
Speaker 1: know that's not the only thing we're going to disagree with,
Speaker 1: but that's the first thing here. Yeah, that's the first
Speaker 1: thing I disagree with, because I don't know if you've
Speaker 1: ever worked for any government agency, Joe, have you? Have
Speaker 1: you ever worked for I've worked for a university's state universe.
Speaker 1: That's close. Yeah, Because all right, so you know about bureaucracy,
Speaker 1: You know about the barriers that are there and for progress,
Speaker 1: because well I know about bureaucracy and barriers to progress
Speaker 1: in private industry. Sure, sure, it's just in government, and
Speaker 1: I think it tends to be on a on a
Speaker 1: level that's exacerbated prodigious, right, And I mean, let's be fair. Okay,
Speaker 1: So bureaucracy exists for a reason. Bureaucracy exists so that
Speaker 1: p did tasks have a streamlined process to go through, right,
Speaker 1: so that that way you have designed a system that
Speaker 1: is really good at handling very specific things. The problem
Speaker 1: is anything that's outside of that specificity doesn't fit the system,
Speaker 1: and then getting any progress on that is laborious at
Speaker 1: best or possibly impossible, depending upon the degree. Now, I
Speaker 1: would say that companies are far more nimble and have
Speaker 1: a greater incentive to invest in research and development of
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence on a scale that dwarfs anything that any
Speaker 1: government is able to do, unless you're talking about a
Speaker 1: massive government that just decides to turn its full attention
Speaker 1: on this problem. So king yes, yeah, some sort of
Speaker 1: very authoritarian approach saying all right, we're just turning all
Speaker 1: of our like if you're playing the game Civilization, you
Speaker 1: switch all your cities so that they're just producing science
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Where uh, you know, here in
Speaker 1: the United States, for example, yes, we have organizations like
Speaker 1: DARPA that's part of the Department of Defense. They are
Speaker 1: very heavily into administering projects that guide research and development
Speaker 1: in AI and other areas of technology. They're not the
Speaker 1: ones who do it themselves. Private companies or even publicly
Speaker 1: traded companies or research organizations do the work. So I
Speaker 1: think maybe state actors will play a part in the
Speaker 1: sense that there might be some funding. But I would
Speaker 1: argue that we're far more likely to see the emergence
Speaker 1: of something approaching general artificial intelligence from one of these companies,
Speaker 1: not from like a specific state sponsored program, because the
Speaker 1: companies are more nimble. They're able to respond and change
Speaker 1: their course of action much more quickly than any government
Speaker 1: agency can. There's a lot of inertia and momentum involved
Speaker 1: in government agencies, and trying to change course is very
Speaker 1: hard to do. You know. I would say, if you
Speaker 1: are a government and you're interested in funding AI research
Speaker 1: to win this AI arms race, to beat all the
Speaker 1: other countries and international competitors to beat, to establish this
Speaker 1: a g I that you can call upon to do
Speaker 1: your bidding, I think that the best strategy to go
Speaker 1: about that would probably be to set some kind of
Speaker 1: huge prize for it. Uh and and governments have done
Speaker 1: things like this before. Do yeah, research prizes, So some
Speaker 1: gigantic pool of money, you say, first person to produce
Speaker 1: a computer that can meet these five requirements gets all
Speaker 1: of this, yes and uh and so again, then you're
Speaker 1: still talking on indirect kind of influence, right, like that
Speaker 1: you've you've created the incentive, but it's not the agency
Speaker 1: that actually creates the a g I that has been
Speaker 1: the Resulten has been argueing for. Also in another article
Speaker 1: at Sultan wrote there's a bit where uh he he says, well,
Speaker 1: this would be unlike the space industry, where we see
Speaker 1: international cooperation like on the International Space Station, which to
Speaker 1: me seems to be very convenient in the fact that
Speaker 1: there he's ignoring the origin of the space race, like
Speaker 1: he's saying, AI would be different from the space race
Speaker 1: because with the space race, or rather the space industry,
Speaker 1: because the space industry, we see this relatively peaceful cooperation
Speaker 1: between nations to advance our understanding of science and technology. Right,
Speaker 1: But the space race started as a branch of the
Speaker 1: Cold War. I mean it was, it was a product
Speaker 1: of the Cold War. If it weren't for this this
Speaker 1: our space program, could could you argue that it's essentially
Speaker 1: something that was like hastily cobbled together after sput Nick
Speaker 1: because they were like, oh crap, well yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: and spot Nick did exactly what the Russians wanted it
Speaker 1: to do, which was to indicate to the United states, Hey,
Speaker 1: we can build a rocket that can reach you, right,
Speaker 1: that was really the Soviet Union's primary goal. Now, the
Speaker 1: people who worked on the spot Nik project, they had
Speaker 1: their other like their their own individual motivations and their
Speaker 1: own individual goals for that project, but the state goal
Speaker 1: was to say, we can launch a rocket that can
Speaker 1: reach you. You America, And then America said, well, we
Speaker 1: have to make sure that we have the same capability.
Speaker 1: Um and they funded it in a way where it
Speaker 1: was in the name of science, and there were legitimate
Speaker 1: scientists doing legitimate science under this program. But it wouldn't
Speaker 1: have existed without the Cold War, right, without this this
Speaker 1: competition between two massive world powers. And so really I
Speaker 1: would argue that the reason why the space industry is
Speaker 1: the way it is is because this history that predates
Speaker 1: it of of competition and kind of uh well again
Speaker 1: a branch of that Cold War, it was, it was
Speaker 1: acts of passive aggression, I guess, uh so, I think
Speaker 1: an AI arms race. I agree with this point that
Speaker 1: an AI arms race would be uh something we would
Speaker 1: expect should we reach that level of AI sophistication. And
Speaker 1: you could even argue that we're seeing an AI arms
Speaker 1: race right now. It's just we're seeing it in the
Speaker 1: context of narrow AI as opposed to general AI. But
Speaker 1: I a lot of the premises he sets up to
Speaker 1: support that I disagree with. I think that that those
Speaker 1: would need to be revisited. I do agree with his
Speaker 1: end conclusion, but his argument is not I don't think
Speaker 1: it's supportable like the actual premises of his argument. That
Speaker 1: is okay, Well, what are some of the basic arguments
Speaker 1: than about whether the world is about to be entering
Speaker 1: an artificial intelligence arms race? Well, like Sultan says, he says,
Speaker 1: an AI a really useful AI. So the furthest extension
Speaker 1: we would put to that is the super intelligent general
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence. Although I argue that's not necessary for it
Speaker 1: to be an issue. Uh. He says, it would be
Speaker 1: such a valuable tool that no one would be able
Speaker 1: to ignore that possibility, like to to to say, we're
Speaker 1: not going to go down that road. Well, I'd agree
Speaker 1: that AI is a tool too powerful to ignore. I mean,
Speaker 1: in general, intelligence is the most valuable thing we have.
Speaker 1: Intelligence is the thing that you know, not just that
Speaker 1: empowers us, that makes human life worth living, I mean,
Speaker 1: and and increasing your share of intelligence capability is probably
Speaker 1: the most important thing you could do to ensure your
Speaker 1: future success. Right, and now he makes the argument that
Speaker 1: whichever nation out there created the creates the first super
Speaker 1: intelligent a g I wins the game. Like, imagine that
Speaker 1: that geo political uh influences and forces are all reduced
Speaker 1: to a board game. Whoever hits that last square is
Speaker 1: the one who hit first, is the one who creates
Speaker 1: super intelligent a g I, and they win the whole
Speaker 1: thing automatically, hands down. Um. I don't necessarily believe that,
Speaker 1: because I think that access to a super intelligent a
Speaker 1: g I doesn't immediately solve other issues that a nation
Speaker 1: must address, at least not not so quickly that other
Speaker 1: nations can't also react to it. Yeah, I I think
Speaker 1: I'd agree with you there. I came up with a
Speaker 1: little thought experiment to sort of service an analogy. So
Speaker 1: imagine you've got two ships trying to win a race
Speaker 1: across the Atlantic Ocean. One ship is a nineteenth century
Speaker 1: style steamship, is capable of about eight knots, and the
Speaker 1: captain is assisted by a team of the world's most
Speaker 1: brilliant scientists with access to powerful supercomputers and all the
Speaker 1: tools they could want. The other ship is a modern
Speaker 1: ocean liner powered by geared steam turbines capable of thirty knots,
Speaker 1: but it is captained by a rather dim guy named Todd,
Speaker 1: who has no scientists or supercomputers at his disposal at all. Todd, Now, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: I think the fact is given what I've stated, Todd
Speaker 1: is still going to win the race, right unless unless
Speaker 1: Todd is so dumb as to cause damage to his ship. Yes, then,
Speaker 1: assuming that Todd is is at least of the level
Speaker 1: of intelligence necessary to follow a specific route, Yeah, it's so. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's good to have very smart people at your disposal
Speaker 1: to help optimize your chances of winning. But if you're
Speaker 1: stuck with a ship that's more than three times slower
Speaker 1: and and that's how you start the race, you're just
Speaker 1: probably not gonna win. But I would say maybe if
Speaker 1: the captain of the first ship is able to consult
Speaker 1: with the scientists and the supercomputers over a period of
Speaker 1: several years leading up to the race, well then you
Speaker 1: you could maybe go in with a clear advantage and
Speaker 1: win it. But then again, if if dim Todd knows this,
Speaker 1: he may get some scientists and supercomputers of his own
Speaker 1: and then you've got a right, you've got an arms
Speaker 1: race on your hands. But I would say that just
Speaker 1: having this intelligence advantage does not automatically mean you immediately
Speaker 1: become the runaway winner for all time, right though. It
Speaker 1: though it is a very strong advantage. And ce Zoltan's
Speaker 1: point is that, or the argument he makes is that
Speaker 1: whichever nation develops at first will have a dominant hand
Speaker 1: from that point forward, will become the dominant force on
Speaker 1: the face of the planet. Yeah, I know. He's also
Speaker 1: of the opinion that I think, if you have the power,
Speaker 1: so if you have a g I on your side,
Speaker 1: you have the power to shut down and prevent other
Speaker 1: nations from achieving a g I. And I think unless
Speaker 1: you're willing to take incredibly extreme measures, that's not necessarily
Speaker 1: the case either. It also presupposes that that a g
Speaker 1: I is going to have those capabilities, and it may
Speaker 1: be that it can accomplish things that we cannot easily
Speaker 1: do on our own, but doesn't necessarily mean it can
Speaker 1: magically accomplish anything, right Like I there's I think he's
Speaker 1: giving it so much credit. And to be fair, we
Speaker 1: don't know, right we we don't have anything that's super intelligent,
Speaker 1: because we've not been capable of creating such a thing.
Speaker 1: And maybe he's right, Maybe a super intelligent entity would
Speaker 1: be able to accomplish things that most of us would
Speaker 1: think of as being, if not impossible, impractical because it
Speaker 1: would be so difficult to do. But I agree with you.
Speaker 1: I think that it would be something that would give
Speaker 1: a country a distinct advantage, but not guarantee what Zoltan
Speaker 1: seems to think of as victory. Uh. He he seems
Speaker 1: to to, at least in his arguments. I think that
Speaker 1: what we're heading toward is a world that's united because
Speaker 1: whichever country comes up with a super intelligent a g
Speaker 1: I will be able to subjugate all other countries do
Speaker 1: its will. And he thinks, gosh, darn it, the good
Speaker 1: old US of A should be the country to do that. Ah.
Speaker 1: There's some elements to Sultan's philosophy that I find particularly troubling.
Speaker 1: Might be might be too strong a word. Well, I
Speaker 1: mean to defend I I don't think I agree with
Speaker 1: his philosophy either, but to defend what he says, I mean,
Speaker 1: he he does say at least what he has in
Speaker 1: mind is a sort of benevolent hegemon e. It's not
Speaker 1: like we're going to subjugate you and oppress you and
Speaker 1: do what we tell you. I think what he has
Speaker 1: in mind is that, you know, it's going to be
Speaker 1: the Federation from Star Trek. Everybody's happy, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's a utopian kind of I think that's what he
Speaker 1: sees if the United States is the entity that creates this.
Speaker 1: But I think he also imagines a world that would
Speaker 1: be in the realm of the dystopian future should some
Speaker 1: other country do it, like, for example, China or Russia.
Speaker 1: Not that he specifically names these countries, but that would
Speaker 1: be example, or North Korea. I think he had actually
Speaker 1: does in North Korea. No, I will admit I can
Speaker 1: imagine if North Korea were able to develop an artificial
Speaker 1: general intelligence long before anyone else. I think that could
Speaker 1: have disastrous consequences for the planet. Absolutely. But I think
Speaker 1: again saying that in those scenarios, you don't get that
Speaker 1: Starfleet future, you also get some other science fiction future
Speaker 1: that's probably written by Burgess or something. I also don't
Speaker 1: think that's very likely though. Yeah. Uh, Now we have
Speaker 1: other people that have weighed in on this issue, who
Speaker 1: have some really interesting points to Yeah. One thing we
Speaker 1: read is by Anya Cosperson, writing for the World Policy
Speaker 1: Journal blog about the idea of an AI arms race,
Speaker 1: and what does she say, Jonathan. She says that, first
Speaker 1: of all, AI is it's undeniably intrinsically valuable. And Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that. I think there is no way to
Speaker 1: dispute that. I think we both agree that AI is
Speaker 1: definitely valuable. Um, even in even at the extent that
Speaker 1: we have it right now, the the narrow AI that
Speaker 1: is our reality, we see that it's valuable because it's
Speaker 1: doing stuff for us. I mean that that kind of
Speaker 1: defines value. Uh. So there's an incentive for countries to
Speaker 1: pursue the development of AI. I think that's undeniable too. Now,
Speaker 1: even if those countries agree that weaponized AI is unethical,
Speaker 1: that's not enough of a deterrent, she says, to make
Speaker 1: sure that this does not, you know, blossom into a
Speaker 1: weaponized AI future, because Yeah, there's always gonna be rogue
Speaker 1: operators that may not be state sponsored. You may have
Speaker 1: independent rogue operators that are willing to either develop or
Speaker 1: perhaps more likely appropriate AI technology and then convert it
Speaker 1: for weaponized purposes, which creates pressure on all nations to
Speaker 1: consider developing weaponized AI as uh, just as a preventive measure.
Speaker 1: So in other Mr President, we cannot allow an AI
Speaker 1: gap exactly exactly. Uh. There are a lot of doctor
Speaker 1: Strange love moments I had while researching this this particular topic.
Speaker 1: You can't fight here. This is the war room. So
Speaker 1: one of the examples that you could think of is
Speaker 1: that the United Nations agrees that weaponized DAI is a
Speaker 1: bad idea. This is this is a hYP hypothetical situation.
Speaker 1: I actually had more to say about this in a bit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well we'll we'll cover it in greater detail in a second.
Speaker 1: So in this hypothetical situation, the U n says, all right, uh,
Speaker 1: we as an international community agree that weaponized DAI is
Speaker 1: a bad idea. It's gonna lead us down a destructive road.
Speaker 1: Once we head down there, there's no turning back, and
Speaker 1: the outcome is going to be negative. There's not a
Speaker 1: way of envisioning this future where there's like a net
Speaker 1: positive outcomes. So we're gonna agree no weaponized DAI. But
Speaker 1: then you've got those rogue operators like a terrorist cell
Speaker 1: or organized crime that see this as an opportunity to
Speaker 1: use AI in a weaponized way, and they don't. They're
Speaker 1: not beholden to this international agreement, they have no stake
Speaker 1: in that, right, They're they're not getting they're not worried
Speaker 1: about international sanctions from the u N. They're trying to
Speaker 1: accomplish whatever goals their particular organization has and they're using
Speaker 1: whatever tools are at their disposal to do so. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean you're invoking here the concept that and this
Speaker 1: is true generally even peace loving people who are not
Speaker 1: looking to start a fight don't tend to opt for
Speaker 1: unilateral disarmament. Yeah, because because if you were to do
Speaker 1: that and there's that one person who hasn't agreed, then
Speaker 1: that one person just runs rampant over everybody else. Right,
Speaker 1: Like if you if you had a group of kids,
Speaker 1: let's go Lord of the Flies. You have a group
Speaker 1: of kids, and each kid is given a whiffleball bat,
Speaker 1: and it's just to keep this from being like too
Speaker 1: violent for for even for a hypothetical situation. Each kid
Speaker 1: has a whiffleball bat, and you tell all the kids, like, well,
Speaker 1: you can either have that whiffleball bat and wail on
Speaker 1: your classmates, or you can put the whiffleball bat down
Speaker 1: and we'll have a fun activity. But you all need
Speaker 1: to put the whiffleball bat down in order for that
Speaker 1: to happen. And one by one they start dropping their
Speaker 1: whiffleball bats until there's that one bully in the back.
Speaker 1: It's like, no, I know what my fun activity is,
Speaker 1: hit all the kids who don't have whiffleball bats. That's
Speaker 1: the same sort of argument here and up. So you know,
Speaker 1: I made a little funny note in here saying, next thing,
Speaker 1: you know, we've got gangster drones shaking down local businesses
Speaker 1: for extortion money, Like you know, it's a you gotta
Speaker 1: you got a nice pizza joint here, and be a
Speaker 1: shame as someone I don't know assimilated it into what's
Speaker 1: growing technological layout, you know. So so you know, I
Speaker 1: think that's a legitimate argument, and I agree very much
Speaker 1: with those those assertions that if in fact, you know
Speaker 1: there's a possibility to go down this, then someone, someone,
Speaker 1: whether state sponsor or not, is going to do it.
Speaker 1: I would also argue we're already at a point where
Speaker 1: this can happen. You don't need a g I for
Speaker 1: this to be a problem. Narrow AI is enough exactly,
Speaker 1: So you don't need a general intelligence that can you know,
Speaker 1: be super intelligent and produce the next next generation of
Speaker 1: technology and innovations and everything. You just need like a
Speaker 1: really good weapon that's smart. Yeah. Or even if you're
Speaker 1: going to go the semi autonomous route right like, you
Speaker 1: could argue we're there with drones. Were there, we're using
Speaker 1: technology that removes human operatives from conflict and replaces them
Speaker 1: with robotic ones. We'll have a lot more to say
Speaker 1: about about that concept a little bit further too, because
Speaker 1: that that ties into one of the other big concerns
Speaker 1: about weaponized AI in general. Sure, okay, so let's uh,
Speaker 1: let's speculate little more. Sure, if there is an AI
Speaker 1: arms race, what's it gonna look like. What are some
Speaker 1: scenarios that could actually happen? Okay, So we have the
Speaker 1: state sponsored approach where countries decide not to essue weabinized AI.
Speaker 1: Whether that ends up being a direct implementation of like
Speaker 1: a robotic soldier or AI that's assisting in some military
Speaker 1: capacity for strategical or tactical planning, it doesn't really matter.
Speaker 1: You could have topped down AI or bottom up AI exactly,
Speaker 1: or both you know, you could have some integrated approach
Speaker 1: that's both. Uh. So one scenario is that you have
Speaker 1: established nations like the United States, Russia, China developing weaponized
Speaker 1: AI like webinized robots is a good example. So there's
Speaker 1: still some they're already examples like drones that are kind
Speaker 1: of in this category, whether they are autonomous or semi
Speaker 1: autonomous or remote controlled. Uh, there are various types. Obviously
Speaker 1: remote controlled you wouldn't call it AI because it's under
Speaker 1: the operation of a of a human, but semi autonomous
Speaker 1: or autonomous would fall into the AI category, even the
Speaker 1: narrow AI band. So these future robots, uh that these
Speaker 1: hypothetical future robots that are weaponized AI, they take the
Speaker 1: place of our soldiers, or they augment the presence of soldiers.
Speaker 1: So let's say that you would normally be able to
Speaker 1: field a couple of thousand soldiers. Well now you've got
Speaker 1: a couple of thousand soldiers and ten thousand robots. Or
Speaker 1: you get to a point where you just have the
Speaker 1: robotic soldiers and you don't put any humans in the
Speaker 1: field at all. It starts to sound like I'm playing
Speaker 1: war gaming here, but this is serious business. Uh. They
Speaker 1: those robots then use narrow or general AI, depending upon
Speaker 1: the level sophistication we've reached in this hypothetical future to
Speaker 1: identify targets and differentiate them from non targets. They can
Speaker 1: enter hostile zones and make snap decisions without any emotional considerations.
Speaker 1: So they're very cold and calculating in that sense. Because
Speaker 1: they are things and not people. They remove some of
Speaker 1: the checks that would be in place for a nation
Speaker 1: before entering into conflict. This is one of those common
Speaker 1: arguments about if we go down the road of weapon
Speaker 1: iszed ai, it makes war so easy. Yeah, war becomes
Speaker 1: such an easy decision because I mean yes, because you're
Speaker 1: you are not committing human life. You're committing resources, so
Speaker 1: it's still costs money and time and resources. But you're
Speaker 1: not You're not saying, well, we're gonna you know, we're
Speaker 1: not gonna enter into this because human lives will be lost,
Speaker 1: and we will lose citizens and families will be affected.
Speaker 1: You're like, well, the robots, you're putting more layers of
Speaker 1: abstraction between yourself and the actual carnage too. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've read that old idea. I can't remember
Speaker 1: who it was, who suggested it. But somebody who suggested,
Speaker 1: you know what, Uh, you've got the person who follows
Speaker 1: around the president with a briefcase for the you know,
Speaker 1: nuclear launch materials that you would require in order to
Speaker 1: initiate a nuclear strike. And the suggestion was, you know,
Speaker 1: the president really, uh shouldn't be able to just initiate
Speaker 1: the strike. The president he or she should have to
Speaker 1: kill that person physically with their bare hands or with
Speaker 1: a cleaver of some kind in order to get the
Speaker 1: code out of some kind of implant in the person's
Speaker 1: body in order to use it to launch the nukes,
Speaker 1: because it show a level of commitment that that is
Speaker 1: necessary considering the outcome of the choice. Yeah, it sounds insane,
Speaker 1: like that's that's insanity. Why would you ever institute a
Speaker 1: policy like that, But you're talking about a policy of
Speaker 1: launching a nuclear strike killing millions of people. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it just shows you that like you're not you're not
Speaker 1: really considering those deaths. You just you've got them sort
Speaker 1: of like a step away from you. Those those are
Speaker 1: numbers and their numbers that exist far way away from
Speaker 1: where you are. So the exactly that that abstraction is
Speaker 1: what makes that action easier to undertake. When you make
Speaker 1: it a real thing that you have to confront, it's harder.
Speaker 1: And again, like you're saying, you know, with the robotic soldiers,
Speaker 1: you've got that one concern that's taken away, the idea
Speaker 1: that well, our soldiers won't be put in danger. But
Speaker 1: then you you should start asking your question. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: the other side, that's that's people. These robots, we would
Speaker 1: be killing human beings. They're not our human beings, but
Speaker 1: they're human beings. And that's where you know, depending upon
Speaker 1: the the UH motivations and the psychology psychology of the
Speaker 1: nations involved and the military personnel involved, you get very
Speaker 1: different outcomes. Um. So there is that argument that we
Speaker 1: would become more warlike in this future because we would
Speaker 1: have fewer impediments to entering into a war um which
Speaker 1: also kind of sounds like the Terminator scenario. If you remember,
Speaker 1: Terminators were robotic soldiers that were meant to um be
Speaker 1: in the service of humans, but because of the emergent
Speaker 1: general intelligence, the super intelligence of Skynet, they turn on humans. Well,
Speaker 1: they don't have to possess general AI to be a threat.
Speaker 1: They could have narrow AI. They could even be semi
Speaker 1: autonomous where there they're consistently being guided by human intervention
Speaker 1: for it to still be an issue, to still be
Speaker 1: a very real escalation AI arms race problem. Um, the
Speaker 1: super intelligent general AI think makes it absolutely terrifying, but
Speaker 1: it's not necessary for it to be a problem, right, Like,
Speaker 1: that's that's just the the degree of the scenario. Uh So,
Speaker 1: if you do get to that general AI super intelligent,
Speaker 1: then you start entering into other possible disasters, the classic
Speaker 1: science fiction one being that the robots themselves decide that
Speaker 1: they have to unite against humans in general, not just
Speaker 1: work for one group of humans against a different group
Speaker 1: of humans. For some reason, I've never found the robots
Speaker 1: decide to exterminate humanity scenario all that plausible. I have
Speaker 1: found very destructive scenarios plausible. Like I could see how
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence could cause catastrophic damage to human civilization, but
Speaker 1: the I don't see it coming in the form of
Speaker 1: exterminate all humans. You have to you have to have
Speaker 1: some form of you know, the robots would have to
Speaker 1: have some motivation, right as opposed to just the directive,
Speaker 1: Like I can easily understand imagine scenarios where robots through
Speaker 1: a directive pursue it in a way that was not
Speaker 1: anticipated by the people who there are disastrous side effects
Speaker 1: of their behavior. The classic example being you've got a
Speaker 1: super intelligent computer and you say I want to bring
Speaker 1: about world peace, and it decides to eliminate all humans
Speaker 1: because by eliminating all humans, you've eliminated the potential for conflict. Right.
Speaker 1: That's that's the classic example of Oh gosh, I wish
Speaker 1: I had thought of that. Uh. It also falls very
Speaker 1: much into a realm that I am I love very dearly,
Speaker 1: which is dungeons and dragons. Whenever your character receives a wish,
Speaker 1: you will see players spend hours trying to craft the
Speaker 1: perfect wish to to create a a full proof scenario
Speaker 1: where the dungeon master can't misinterpret the wish and create
Speaker 1: a terrible outcome for the players. I've never seen this,
Speaker 1: so they're like genies or someone. Yes, So so you
Speaker 1: might say like, like, uh, you know the Simpsons version
Speaker 1: make me a sandwich and turns them into a sandwich
Speaker 1: because it's misinterpreted the wish on purpose. But same sort
Speaker 1: of thing with the general AI, Like there there are
Speaker 1: disaster scenarios where it's not that the general AI was
Speaker 1: setting out to cause harm. It's just that through the
Speaker 1: process of trying to achieve whatever the goal was set,
Speaker 1: there were unintended consequences that were harmful. Um. There are
Speaker 1: other scenario as though. There's the one that I think
Speaker 1: is the most likely, which is that companies, some sort
Speaker 1: of corporations, maybe multiple corporations, developed more competent AI that
Speaker 1: ends up having a negative impact through unintended consequences. Kind
Speaker 1: of similar to what I was just saying. UH, governments
Speaker 1: will end up relying on these companies, contracting with them
Speaker 1: or even just buying off the shelf components to put
Speaker 1: toward UH military use again either top down or bottom up,
Speaker 1: essentially saying like, well, I know that this this piece
Speaker 1: of software was intended to do this, but with a
Speaker 1: little modification, we can have it do this other thing.
Speaker 1: We see this all the time in all sorts of
Speaker 1: technology industries. The VR industry is a great way of
Speaker 1: pointing out how this happens in VR before we got
Speaker 1: to some of the consumer headsets and and controls that
Speaker 1: are out on the market. Now you had researchers who
Speaker 1: were they were they were appropriating video game technology working
Speaker 1: with it programming new interfaces for it, and using that
Speaker 1: as tools to develop VR applications, And it was all
Speaker 1: it was taking something that was in a related field
Speaker 1: but changing it, transforming it to do something else. We
Speaker 1: could see that, and I think that's the more likely
Speaker 1: future that we see various types of AI developed specifically
Speaker 1: to do some non military function but then get adopted
Speaker 1: into into into uses applications that it was not necessarily
Speaker 1: intended for at the beginning. I think that's very likely
Speaker 1: simply because companies have a lot of incentive to continuously
Speaker 1: innovate in this space, and we're going to see a
Speaker 1: lot more rapid development there than we would in some
Speaker 1: state sponsored program where uh, you know you've got you've
Speaker 1: got a top down pressure that work harder, do do
Speaker 1: more innovation. Um. And also we could just see AI
Speaker 1: cause massive amounts of harm just in its normal operation,
Speaker 1: not even when it's being used for something else. So
Speaker 1: we've talked about this in the past too, Like the
Speaker 1: stock trading AI, like the various simple algorithms that just
Speaker 1: look at the stock market and make very small but
Speaker 1: very rapid transactions. Uh, once you get a bunch of
Speaker 1: those acting at the same time, you don't know how
Speaker 1: they affect one another, and there can become a cascading
Speaker 1: effect where you create market and stability simply because of
Speaker 1: the collective activity of all these where if maybe it
Speaker 1: was one AI or one simple algorithm that's acting on
Speaker 1: the stock market, no one would notice. It wouldn't really
Speaker 1: make a big difference. But when you have thousands of
Speaker 1: them all working to try and make a profit for
Speaker 1: whichever company is employing them, there could be these unintended
Speaker 1: consequences leading to like a market crash, which we've um
Speaker 1: We've seen market crashes that last minutes and then in
Speaker 1: return normal, but it could be catastrophic. Uh. Then we
Speaker 1: have the rogue actors scenario. This is the one where
Speaker 1: the countries, the various nations in the world have agreed, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna take a hands off approach on weaponizing AI.
Speaker 1: We don't want to do that. The rogue actors one
Speaker 1: is that these other entities, whether they're terrorist cells, organized crime. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe it's a a group within a nation
Speaker 1: that wants to break free of whatever the the government
Speaker 1: in power is, they might be willing to take those steps. Uh.
Speaker 1: One of the examples kiss person actually brought up is
Speaker 1: to imagine a weaponized drone with facial recognition capabilities flying
Speaker 1: over a crowd, and it analyzes the crowd and it
Speaker 1: looks for a specific person, and if it identifies that person,
Speaker 1: that person is a target. It's weaponized drone, so it
Speaker 1: fires on the target and you essentially have assassination by robot.
Speaker 1: This means that doesn't sound implausible to me at all.
Speaker 1: I mean, you could you could rig something up like
Speaker 1: that today. It would not be terribly sophisticated, it would
Speaker 1: not be terribly reliable. But the other point that Casperson
Speaker 1: makes is for rogue nations, they don't not even just
Speaker 1: rogue nations, rogue actors, they don't necessarily have a high
Speaker 1: threshold of reliability that they must meet in order for
Speaker 1: them to be comfortable investing in this technology or utilizing
Speaker 1: this technology. Right like if if there if their device
Speaker 1: ends up killing someone mistakenly, well that's unfortunate, but it's
Speaker 1: they don't necessarily care, like, that's not they don't have
Speaker 1: anyone else to answer to apart from their own organization.
Speaker 1: And if their organization doesn't value that humans life, there's
Speaker 1: from their perspective, there's no problem nations is different. Right,
Speaker 1: you have a lot of people to answer to, and
Speaker 1: you can't just go killing people indiscriminately. There huge problems
Speaker 1: with that obviously, I mean you know everything everything well,
Speaker 1: like like not just the not just the obvious ethical issues.
Speaker 1: But then you've got things like the Geneva Convention to
Speaker 1: contend with two. Right, So you've got this this possibility
Speaker 1: of UH agents that are outside of state control that
Speaker 1: could potentially be using this technology, which therefore puts the
Speaker 1: pressure on all the states to at least figure out
Speaker 1: a way to counteract that, if not keep pace with it. So,
Speaker 1: by the way, I also really love the word rogue
Speaker 1: and also uge, which some people well interchange because they
Speaker 1: make a type of So I'm not talking about yeah,
Speaker 1: Mulan rogue are rouge actors. As an actor, I have
Speaker 1: a warn rouge before. I'm not ashamed to admit it.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it look good on you. Okay. So one
Speaker 1: more thing I want to point out is that very
Speaker 1: often the ideas that get tossed around when discussing the
Speaker 1: concept of an AI arms race are specifically about weaponized AI,
Speaker 1: so it has military connotations. You're talking about military robots
Speaker 1: or drones or at the top level, a g I
Speaker 1: that's some kind of military commander or creating new weapons
Speaker 1: or something like that. I was thinking about how there
Speaker 1: could very much be an AI arms race that's not
Speaker 1: necessarily explicitly military in nature, or at least not at first, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, so developing an a g I. If you
Speaker 1: have a superhuman general intelligence in a machine, that's not
Speaker 1: just useful for military advantage, it's useful for every possible competition,
Speaker 1: right right, any any application of intelligence, it would by
Speaker 1: definition be useful toward that. Right, So in market competition
Speaker 1: and trade wars and stuff like that between countries, and
Speaker 1: a g I would be a supreme advantage. I mean
Speaker 1: in any in any place you're looking to solve a
Speaker 1: problem or excel, the a g I is is an advantage.
Speaker 1: So it almost seems like an overly confined way of
Speaker 1: envisioning the transformation of geopolitics by AI to just think
Speaker 1: about AI robot soldiers and AI military commanders and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah. No, I agree entirely, which is why
Speaker 1: one of those scenarios I was talking about companies like
Speaker 1: can you imagine the first company to provide a a
Speaker 1: computer or a smartphone or a tablet or some piece
Speaker 1: of personal electronics that incorporate a g I into it
Speaker 1: in some way, whether the device itself possesses it or
Speaker 1: it has uh an Internet link to a cloud based
Speaker 1: a g I solution that would be enormous, right, that
Speaker 1: would be that would be a game changer. That would
Speaker 1: be a killer app a killer product. And so assuming
Speaker 1: it's it's super intelligent, yeah, well even if it's not
Speaker 1: super intelligent, just just imagine having a pretty intelligent person
Speaker 1: you could rely upon to do stuff on your behalf.
Speaker 1: Like think of all the narrow AI applications we have
Speaker 1: right now, but you have all of them wrapped up
Speaker 1: in a single format. Factor, So you would have something
Speaker 1: that could do everything from helping you keep track of
Speaker 1: your activity throughout the day, to making sure that you
Speaker 1: are on time for all your scheduled appointments, to following
Speaker 1: up with you about concerns, all this kind of stuff
Speaker 1: like like that that ideal personal assistant that really creates
Speaker 1: your reality. Uh as far as how you interact with technology,
Speaker 1: that would be a huge product. And you can bet
Speaker 1: that any company that works in consumer technology is looking
Speaker 1: to incorporate more and more sophisticated AI into their products.
Speaker 1: So it's there already is an AI arms race in
Speaker 1: that sense. It doesn't necessarily mean an arms race that
Speaker 1: is going to lead toward violent confrontation. But there is
Speaker 1: this competition already in the market for companies to try
Speaker 1: and develop in that space, and maybe several generations down
Speaker 1: the line, that evolves into something that is more akin
Speaker 1: to a weapon's arms race, But it doesn't necessarily have
Speaker 1: to start out that way. That's one of the scary
Speaker 1: things about this, right that we might not even intend
Speaker 1: this to be used in any way that would be
Speaker 1: remote related to military applications or acts of hostility. But
Speaker 1: generations down the line, and by generations, I'm talking about
Speaker 1: technology generations, which happened way faster than human generations. That
Speaker 1: might end up being the case. All right, So what happens? What?
Speaker 1: What are the what are the outcomes of the AI
Speaker 1: arms race? Like, what are the various things we see this?
Speaker 1: How how do we see this turning out? People stop
Speaker 1: making terminator jokes on every article about AI. I mean
Speaker 1: they would certainly think twice about it before the AI
Speaker 1: the AI kneecappers come by. I saw that joke you
Speaker 1: made real funny. You know what else is funny? This
Speaker 1: battling clamps. Now they don't need bats, but you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes you just got to do stuff for style. Okay, no,
Speaker 1: what we're what are some things? So? What are some things?
Speaker 1: So one outcome is that we get this uh competitive approach.
Speaker 1: This is what we're seeing right now. Everyone's competing to
Speaker 1: make more robust, useful AI. Eventually someone creates a super
Speaker 1: intelligent AI that's harmful to humans, either intentionally or otherwise,
Speaker 1: and then we have to deal with that reality. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: dealing with that might mean that we don't succeed, that
Speaker 1: we as a species are eliminated, because if you're talking
Speaker 1: about super intelligent AI, by definition, it is smarter than
Speaker 1: we are. It's more capable than we are at processing information,
Speaker 1: and thus, any strategy we might come up with to
Speaker 1: try and take down that AI will be something it's
Speaker 1: already considered and figured out a way to counteract um
Speaker 1: at least that's that's the general way we we frame that, Like,
Speaker 1: if it is truly super intelligent, nothing we think of
Speaker 1: will be something it hasn't already considered by definition, because
Speaker 1: it's more intelligent than we are capable of being unless
Speaker 1: we also become super intelligent. Yeah, well then there's a
Speaker 1: totally different AI arms race, right. Uh So that's one
Speaker 1: outcome that's kind of depressing. You know, everyone dies. I
Speaker 1: don't really like that, big fan. I mean, I love Shakespeare,
Speaker 1: but you know, we don't have to have it be
Speaker 1: a tragedy. Were canna have a be a comedy. Maybe
Speaker 1: everyone gets married, we get married to robots. How about
Speaker 1: that one. That's a good outcome. Uh So another outcome
Speaker 1: is super intelligent AI ends up being impossible or so
Speaker 1: impractical to create that we never really implemented. And in
Speaker 1: this scenario, we would discover either that we lack the
Speaker 1: capability to achieve super intelligent machines or we could do it,
Speaker 1: but it requires so much energy and it's so resource
Speaker 1: heavy that no one's willing to actually go to the
Speaker 1: step of making it. Yeah. I think I stick by
Speaker 1: the conclusion we talked about it in the last episode
Speaker 1: that it is pretty much demonstrated that super intelligence is
Speaker 1: in principle possible, but that doesn't mean that it is
Speaker 1: in practice feasible. Right, it might be possible in principle,
Speaker 1: but we just can't ever do it. Yeah, if it
Speaker 1: if it turned out to be something where we just
Speaker 1: don't have the physical resources to design the system, or
Speaker 1: maybe we do, but it would be to to do
Speaker 1: so would create a hardship because we're diverting so many
Speaker 1: resources from other things, or we're just too locked into
Speaker 1: patterns of stupidity to ever figure out how to do it. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: then we never have to worry about the super intelligent
Speaker 1: part at all. But here's the problem with that. We
Speaker 1: don't need it to be super intelligent for it to
Speaker 1: be a problem. Right. You don't need a driverless car
Speaker 1: to be super intelligent for it to be able to
Speaker 1: deliver an explosive, for example, which is terrifying, but a
Speaker 1: reality that we could see. Um. So then we would
Speaker 1: enter an era of rapid development to both create and
Speaker 1: prevent harmful uses of AI. UM These would be human guided, right,
Speaker 1: not necessary fairly AI guided, because if we aren't able
Speaker 1: to make superhuman intelligent or super intelligent rather AI, then
Speaker 1: we would mostly be relying on human ingenuity in that case.
Speaker 1: Zoltan's outcome was that idea that we would become a
Speaker 1: united species under one government, one flag, one nation, indivisible.
Speaker 1: His goal would be to have America be the dominant
Speaker 1: force that would then bring the rest of the world together. Uh. So,
Speaker 1: essentially the US would annex everybody else and then we
Speaker 1: would just have to worry about the possibility of super
Speaker 1: intelligent AI that we had created turning against us, and
Speaker 1: not worry so much about each other. Um. So are
Speaker 1: you voting for Zultan President? No? I I don't think
Speaker 1: that's a realistic outcome. Um. Either. Well, first of all,
Speaker 1: I don't think it's realistic that we would have unity
Speaker 1: on any on any global level. We don't even have
Speaker 1: unity on a national level, so unity on a global
Speaker 1: level to me seems idealistic to a point of being implausible. Um.
Speaker 1: But beyond that, I think again, as I've said many times,
Speaker 1: the the AI being an issue will happen long before
Speaker 1: we get to any super intelligent type of AI or
Speaker 1: general intelligence. Um. Another outcome is that we create a
Speaker 1: series of guidelines to shape AI so that it works
Speaker 1: for the benefit of humans, not to the detriment, and
Speaker 1: that involves creating a set of practices that allow us
Speaker 1: to guide AIS development a way that doesn't lead to
Speaker 1: the terminator scenario. This is where you have the people
Speaker 1: arguing we need to come up with ways to instill
Speaker 1: human value into machines problem yeah, and the and of
Speaker 1: course this leads to other problems too, right, like who
Speaker 1: defines what human value is? Under whose definition do we
Speaker 1: create this AI? And like who writes the guidelines? And
Speaker 1: who wants to stop someone from developing AI that doesn't
Speaker 1: you know, abide by them? These are all tough questions
Speaker 1: I don't have answers to. Well, I guess the last
Speaker 1: major question is is there any way to avoid an
Speaker 1: AI arms race? Well? Can it? Can it be averted?
Speaker 1: We first, we first have to think about that you in, right, Yes,
Speaker 1: the international agreements the AI equivalent of the Nuclear Test
Speaker 1: Band treaties. So the international community, Uh, they've done stuff
Speaker 1: like this before, with varying degrees of success. They've attempted
Speaker 1: to halt or limit the proliferation of nuclear weapons and
Speaker 1: the acceleration of the twentieth century at least nuclear arms
Speaker 1: race by coming up with these International Nuclear Test Band Treaties.
Speaker 1: And these treaties banned various types of nuclear weapons testing
Speaker 1: among ratified parties. For example, the Partial Test Band Treaty
Speaker 1: of nineteen sixty three was signed by nuclear powers like
Speaker 1: the US, the UK, and Soviet Union, which mutually agreed
Speaker 1: to prohibit all testing of thermonuclear weapons except for underground tests. Right.
Speaker 1: The same thing is true with chemical weapons, like they
Speaker 1: were essentially international agreement that that is a as a
Speaker 1: no go. Right, So there's a question, I guess, could
Speaker 1: we do something similar with AI? People recognize the potential
Speaker 1: for danger and make AI development illegal everywhere in the world.
Speaker 1: First of all, I'd say this seems unenforceable even by
Speaker 1: international treaty, Like, even assuming you could get every country
Speaker 1: in the world to sign on as a party to
Speaker 1: that treaty, which I don't necessarily think you could. For example,
Speaker 1: the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Band Treaty of nineteen six that
Speaker 1: attempted to extend the you know, the scope of the
Speaker 1: nuclear test band treaties that existed. They couldn't get that
Speaker 1: signed or ratified by key countries. And by my estimation,
Speaker 1: I think it's much easier to hide the development of
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence than it is to hide the testing of
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons. You can probably perform key AI research in
Speaker 1: ways that can be contained in a single nondescript warehouse.
Speaker 1: It's just not that hard. There's no radiological evidence to
Speaker 1: sniff out with an atmospheric collection aircraft or anything like that.
Speaker 1: There'd be no seismographic signature. All these things we can
Speaker 1: use to check and see if people are performing nuclear
Speaker 1: tests they're not supposed to be doing. You could have
Speaker 1: decentralized development, Yes, how would you? How would you do
Speaker 1: anything like that with AI? So in the end, I
Speaker 1: think even if you're able to get all the member
Speaker 1: states of the u N to sign a comprehensive AI
Speaker 1: Test band treaty, there would be no way whatsoever to
Speaker 1: enforce it. It would just be paper. Right, And we
Speaker 1: have to keep in mind that, like we said before,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of potential uses for a GI.
Speaker 1: The scary, right, But do we even want this? Mean,
Speaker 1: let's not forget how useful AI could be if it's
Speaker 1: a G. I's promise this, this almost certainly yields major
Speaker 1: breakthroughs in medicine, energy, all kinds of fields that would,
Speaker 1: if implemented properly, improve human life, increase wealth for the
Speaker 1: whole world, and protect our environment. But I guess the question.
Speaker 1: You know that that key phrase, if implemented properly is
Speaker 1: a big if. Okay, So would there be any other
Speaker 1: ways to prevent it? I would say nothing that I
Speaker 1: can think of. I mean, my intuitive ruling is that
Speaker 1: if a g I is technologically feasible, a different question
Speaker 1: than whether it's possible in principle, which I agree that
Speaker 1: it is. It's just not possible to prevent the development
Speaker 1: of it. You can't put anything in place to stop
Speaker 1: people from doing it, unless you're talking about some something
Speaker 1: extreme like just well, wipe out the whole human race
Speaker 1: or destroy all computers or something right like like the
Speaker 1: human race as a as an entire species gets wiped
Speaker 1: out before we have they to create an a g I,
Speaker 1: which which case that's like trying to prevent I mean,
Speaker 1: or that some other thing caused it and it wasn't
Speaker 1: It wasn't even and the the a g I wasn't
Speaker 1: even remotely connected to the reason for for the extermination
Speaker 1: of the species. Assuming human progress continues as normal without
Speaker 1: major catastrophe, if there's a way for us to do it,
Speaker 1: then we're going to do it. Someone will do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it doesn't. I mean, if it's possible to create it,
Speaker 1: someone will create it, because that's what we are as
Speaker 1: a species. It's it's not necessarily that someone would create it.
Speaker 1: In an effort to create to do malicious activity, but
Speaker 1: someone will do it. If it's possible, then we will
Speaker 1: get around to doing it sooner or later. The question
Speaker 1: is how hard is it? Right? Like if it's if
Speaker 1: it's so hard that it's possible, but we're not going
Speaker 1: to be there for another century, Well we can have
Speaker 1: this conversation, but it's not really really going to matter
Speaker 1: until a century from now. That's it's still going to matter,
Speaker 1: but it will be a hundred years later. This whole
Speaker 1: discussion does seem to make that control problems seem of
Speaker 1: of imminent importance. Like even if the development of a
Speaker 1: g I is not imminent, which I don't think it is,
Speaker 1: I don't get the feeling that it's going to happen
Speaker 1: anytime real soon. We still do need to be thinking
Speaker 1: about these control problems, like what what do you do
Speaker 1: to UH to you know, to limit the unintended consequences
Speaker 1: of a g I to UH to understand how we're
Speaker 1: going to use it and prevent people from using it
Speaker 1: in a destructive way. UH. They're they're really hard problems,
Speaker 1: but we need to be working on them. I think
Speaker 1: what we're gonna see is a new dawn of electromagnetic
Speaker 1: pulse technology to take out take out robo soldiers and computers.
Speaker 1: Is I mean that's I'm I'm kind of making a joke,
Speaker 1: but I'm kind of not because as if you get
Speaker 1: to a point where you're thinking, well, I can't stop
Speaker 1: anyone from trying to pursue this line of development, UM,
Speaker 1: and even if it takes a long time, people are
Speaker 1: going to go after it. What do I do in
Speaker 1: order to prepare for the eventuality that someone is incorporating
Speaker 1: this on some scale, whether it's a bunch of narrow
Speaker 1: AI implementations, a general AI into implementation, or super intelligent
Speaker 1: a g I. You gotta have you gotta have a
Speaker 1: plan in place. I'm I've kind of made a joke
Speaker 1: about e m p s, but I think that's gonna
Speaker 1: be a big thing. I really do think that, uh,
Speaker 1: those that technology would be an important element because if
Speaker 1: nothing else, you could shut stuff down, anything that's electronic,
Speaker 1: You could shut it down long enough for you to
Speaker 1: have a different plan to go in place too, UM
Speaker 1: potentially take care of things. Obviously, if you get to
Speaker 1: a point where it's a distributed intelligence, that's a lot
Speaker 1: harder because there's no place to aim at. It's everywhere,
Speaker 1: and at that point we're having we're having a totally
Speaker 1: different conversation. Maybe that's the point where humans and machines
Speaker 1: merge and we we truly do, become transhumanist and Zoltan
Speaker 1: rules over us all well said, yeah, um, and I
Speaker 1: know we had a lot of fun with this, but
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it is one of those things where
Speaker 1: you've got to kind of stretch your mind to think
Speaker 1: about because obviously we're talking about situations that aren't in
Speaker 1: the realm of possibility right now, but we can see
Speaker 1: kind of where we're headed, so it's easy to imagine it,
Speaker 1: even if it's not something that is pressing right now. Uh.
Speaker 1: I kind of curious what you guys think. If you
Speaker 1: have any thoughts on the subject of the AI arms race,
Speaker 1: you should write in and let us know. Our email
Speaker 1: addresses FW Thinking at how Stuff Works dot com, or
Speaker 1: drop us a line on Facebook or Twitter. You can
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