[ExI] Unfrendly AI is a mistaken idea.

Samantha Atkins sjatkins at mac.com
Sat May 26 21:54:16 UTC 2007


On May 26, 2007, at 12:12 PM, Lee Corbin wrote:

> John Clark writes
>
>> Lee Corbin wrote:
>>
>>> Why would the machine have such considerations if they were not
>>> explicitly or implicitly programmed in?
>>
>> Dear God, you're not going to bring up that old cliché that a  
>> computer can
>> only do what it's programmed to do are you?
>
> Hmm, don't know.  Clearly artificial machines do many things
> never *explicitly* programmed into them, e.g., find novel proofs.
> But they do not engage in extremely focused behavior (e.g. writing
> poetry) unless someone or something has crafted this into them,
> or it evolved under selection pressure.

Ye, poetry writing, music writing and painting AI programs have all  
been developed.  Some of them are on occasion surprisingly good.   Do  
you mean did they spontaneously do these things?  Do human beings  
spontaneously do them or are they "programmed" if you will with such  
general powerful algorithms and voluminous training experiences and  
information that such things are possible results?

>
> What I meant to say (and thought that
> I did say) was that some of the things you suggest it will do, e.g.,
> "find certain things stupid", or have emotions, or have certain
> agendas, or experience boredom, are not the simple, rudimentary
> obvious things that we intuit them to be.

Finding many things stupid seems like a no-brainer for any  
intelligent system with a reasonable respect for logic.   :-)

> Each is an extremely finely
> crafted kind of behavior, a behavior that will never simply arise
> in the absence a vicious evolutionary struggle.  But maybe you are
> talking about an evolutionary struggle (see below)?

I don't think you are capable of determining what can and cannot  
arise in different circumstances to such a categorical degree.

- samantha





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