What will AGI tell us
If you get far enough into it with the LLM crowd (the ones who insist on calling what they're doing “artificial intelligence” as if they're talking about Data or Hal), they'll tell you it doesn't matter if we burn the planet achieving “AGI.” Why? Because it will give us the solutions to the environmental disaster we're in right now. It'll give us the solutions to our political differences. It'll solve world hunger, pollution, homelessness, poverty, and all our other ills.
Let's say we give birth to this AGI. Let's say that it has human like or human exceeding intelligence. Let's say it agrees to work with us on what we want it to do and what it asks for in return is something we're willing to give.
What makes them think that the answers it give us won't start with “you should have done the things you already knew how to do instead of burning everything into the ground making me”?
We know that it's easier to prevent carbon and greenhouse gases from going into the atmosphere than it is to get them out once we're there. We know that allowing the temperature of the planet to rise out of control is going to have negative consequences that it will be exponentially more difficult to solve than they were to create. We know that our use of disposable plastics is choking us and every other being on the planet with a danger as significant as any other forever chemical.
We know that we're going to disagree with others on politics and that the solutions aren't going to come from removing or curtailing the right to participate in democracy.
We know that the solution to homelessness is complex but the firm foundation of any solution to homelessness is providing good housing to every human as an inalienable right.
We have several solid ideas about how to solve poverty and we should probably try several of them. Including UBI (which has largely been successful when tried). If we're going to keep capitalism (and I'm not saying we should), we should ensure that the most wealthy among us pay their fair share so the support systems that everyone else needs will be there.
I'm not saying we already have all the answers.
I really question why these “AI” evangelists think that AGI would give us answers that are so much better than the ones we already have. If it was possible and they did build real AI, who's to say we'll have the strength to follow its advice when we won't even follow our own advice now because they don't like the answers?
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