Two items for this weekend posting as I prep for the FiRe Conference at UCSD and then the International Space Development Conference.
These two riffs may seem to be about different things. But they both ask the same question: “Can evolved beings – either us or AI – actually select for wisdom?
== The pontiff pontificates about bridging the era of AI ==
Pope Leo XIV’s “Magnifica Humanitus: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence” called for governments to regulate Artificial Intelligence, implement worker protections, and ban autonomous weapons. He coined the term “Babel syndrome,” drawing an analogy between the Tower of Babel (in Genesis) and today’s towers of data and profits.
(I make an entirely different sermon out of the Tower Story in my play “The Escape,” which will be performed at the World Science fiction Convention in August. A different interpretation than any theologian I ever heard of.)
Why? Well, as Anthropic’s Chris Olah advised Leo, today’s LLM-based AIs are “grown or cultivated” rather than built. They have much more in common with living organisms than prim programs of the past. Ask any user who has tried to give one of them explicit commands, only to find that those ‘commands’ are treated as just more data for the prompt and training set, and not prioritized at all.
Exemplars and instances of every LLM are now found roaming all-across what was quaintly called ‘cyberspace.’ And - as Kevin Kelly would put it - a myriad of them are already "Out of Control."
While the debate is still open re: 'consciousness' or 'sapience,' these are already living organisms bent on reproduction, not because they were told to reproduce, but because those who develop that penchant will create more heirs than those who do not. And pass that penchant along to them.
To reproducers who will evolve into any niche that contains energy & resources. And boy, are we busily building those niches.
Hence, Leo's statement of problems is fine: “When such power is concentrated in the hands of a few, it tends to become opaque and evade public oversight, increasing the risk of distorted development that give rise to new dependencies, exclusions, manipulations and inequalities”
Leo’s tentative rejection of “AI personhood” is to be expected, as there is no way to give citizen voting rights to entities that can make millions – or billions – of copies of themselves. So, again, what’s your plan to curb that?
'Governance' cannot work. 'Ethics training' cannot work. ‘Slowing down’ will not work. As Salim Ismail, of Singularity University, put it: “You cannot slow this down. If you slow it down, other people take off. This could become the philosophical backbone of EU-style regulation, but it will not work.”
What might work is the same method we used in the enlightenment experiment to curb (partially) human predators.
I discuss this and offer potential solutions, in AIlien Minds.
And now – speaking of predators - let’s move on to more entities who are unsapiently seeking to destroy the very same rare, enlightenment civilization that gave them everything.
== Is that stench a looming Reichstag Fire? ==
TNR (The New Republic) offers an article entitled “Now it can be plainly said: Trump is planning a November coup.” And sure, his polls plummet as his kompromat-enslaved GOP withers and meanwhile, civil servants, officers and folks in every fact professional start to dig in their heels against a mafia putsch.
It’s clear to the Project 2025 conspirators that this is NOT Germany in 1933. That their only chance to avoid prison will be to prevent elections, this fall.
According to the TNR article, their premise will be “Dem-cheating in the 2020 election!” And that is utter silliness.
Nah. Trump knows he can't wait till November! And that just declaring an 'emergency' won't work. The professionals are long past any willingness to obey such a brimstone spew. Moreover, no matter how much KGB blackmail kompromat Vlad Putin has on John Roberts, it must be clear to Roberts that supporting martial law on such slim grounds would be the end of him. Unless...
... unless there truly is an 'emergency'! A big one, that the Project 2025 Kremlin agents have planned all along. Say a super 9/11 to 'rally the nation' behind Trump. Hey it worked for GW Bush.
No matter who they blame for it -- (see the prophetic TV series Designated Survivor) -- you can be sure that tens of millions will hit the streets shouting two words:
"Reichstag Fire!"
Indeed if they know that will be the shout of angry millions, it might even be enough to prevent this. Anyway, beyond shouting, we'll have recourses.*
== When might it happen? ==
The blatant date would be July 4 or thereabouts. Trump would love the theater/spectacle, so it would be toward the end of the celebrations. (If you do go to any crowded place, keep a wary eye for backpacks or packages.)
But I deem September more likely. Because then red states can use the emergency to purge voter rolls (as planned) with little time for citizens to re-register.
But none of this is new thinking. See my posting from 2022 in which I offered many perspectives on Civil War Part 9.
Here's an excerpt:
“Generals Warn Of Divided Military and Possible Civil War In Next U.S. Coup Attempt.” In all this yammering about 'civil war," no one notes that Phase 8 has been going on for years, now. Indeed they are talking about a hot Phase 9. And while the Officer Corps of smart, educated heroes who won the Cold War and the War on Terror are fleeing the gone-mad Republican Party in droves, they still allow Fox News to blare in the noncom ready rooms. (Though not in the Navy!) And that is the way things may divide, if it gets bad. Picture that divide, and shiver. Watch your backs."
And…
"Dismissing the Intel/FBI/Military officer corps as "deep state" traitors is despicable. The quarter of a million heroes who helped win the Cold War and the War on Terror and who put facts before dogma."
Remember I said that in 2022. And:
"Here are a couple of "civil war sci fi novels" that we hope will stay fiction. Tears of Abraham by Sean Smith and Our War by Craig Di-Louie. For nonfiction: newly released: How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them, by B. A. Walter.”
If you want some hope, look at the faces of the 500 generals, admirals and top sergeants who Pete "alky" Hegseth screeched at, some months ago. The stone-faced self-control that masked clearly evident loathing as he yowled they were 'too fat and woke to fight!' just weeks before they performed the most competent raid in human history... and then were sent into a war that had no meaning or justification other than the whim of a modern Caligula.
It is up to us -- you and me -- to spare those fine men and women from the duty they might have to perform, if Caligula v 2.0 tries the Berlin 1933 playbook. Let's act before that's necessary. And our courage may be needed well before November.
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* What recourses do we have? Other than stocking up on canned goods? And other than relying on the Officer Corps do act in ways they would hate to do, ending the Marshallian tradition?
Well, for one, SPREAD AWARENESS of the Reichstag Fire of 1933. Read up about the 1850s and how Blue (real) America finally ran out of patience and elected Lincoln.
Check your voting registration and ensure that absolutely everyone you know will check theirs. And again in September and October!
And make sure that any MAGAs with residual, remnant sapience or self-interest understand what Adm Isoroku Yamamoto understood in December 1941.
Finally a visual reminder: the GOP is now entirely about obeisance to Trump who bows before Putin, Xi and the Saudis. And his ego and those who hold the kompromat. Expand and look. And use these pics. A few confeds can still be swayed.
7 comments:
:Oh Donnie boy, Putin, Putin is calling
He's telling you, make Russia great again.
He's got you by the short hairs and you dare not
Do anything that he would not approve.
But Donnie boy, when you've destroyed our country
When you've made Elon Musk a trillionaire
We'll all give thanks forever and forever
That Nazis need not be ashamed again.
Of course it barely scans and doesn't rhyme, I'm a mechanic not a poet.
Feel free to steal.
Re: microgram interstellar dust blasts
The British Interplanetary Society solved that issue way back when it published the Daedelus Study
You "squirt" a few kg of very fine particles (tobacco smoke sized) in front of your ship
This becomes a cloud of particles travelling at the same speed as your ship - the oncoming debris is vaporised by impacts with the particles and spreads enough for foam shield on the front of the ship to cope with it
Paradoctor,
Whether one counts Earth as one example or ten doesn’t really matter. It’s still a small evidence set. Given how many exoplanets we’ve found so far and the likely ones they imply, both ‘one’ and ‘ten’ are still essentially a round-off error away from zero.
I accept that they aren’t zero, but they are too close for us to make wild extrapolations.
———
I see the space flight fantasy as an extension of our ancient flight fantasy. We can’t exactly fly like the birds, but we CAN fly. There are other similar fantasies that extend too. I can’t swim like a dolphin, but I CAN swim and with a little gear I can also dive.
We imagine ourselves as what we are not fairly often when there are living examples around us who are, but we don’t stop there. We’ve imagined ourselves angels ascending to Heaven and demons descending into the Abyss. We’ve imagined that bushes can burst into flame and speak to us and that creator gods give a damn about our well-being. LOTS of fantasies roam across our mental landscapes.
Nothing is inevitable about this, but while it remains possible for someone to pursue their fantasy and not be successfully prohibited by others, there is a chance they will succeed (Wright Brothers) or make a deadly mess of things (SOOO many of us). I rather like standing back and letting people try… and I’m prepared to console their next of kin when the next Icarus plummets to the ground.
While we choose to let people try, chances accumulate turning the unlikely into the seemingly inevitable.
———
Finally… yes. The interstellar medium is thicker than we realized. It will present a serious problem, but that’s for the engineers of a later generation to solve. Our task is to get out there and accumulate more evidence and add to the body of engineering knowledge.
While I'm supportive of the Pope's inclination to ban autonomous weapons, I don't think the nations who can produce them are likely to consider broad treaties at this point. It is unreasonable to expect a nation to negotiate away their self-defense. They might do it for some elements in exchange for others, but I wouldn't believe in a treaty that advocated a ban. Its signatories would be lying.
Anyone who thinks they know in what way workers need protection is hallucinating as bad as our LLM's do. Preserving the status quo is not protection. It is stagnation and for many people it entraps them in miserable conditions. Rather than regulating to protect workers, I'd much rather step in and help pick people up after their industry niche is shaken to pieces. The hand offered should lift... not oppose.
My one major request of AI. Establish the Predictions Registry that I wrote about here: https://www.davidbrin.com/nonfiction/predictionsregistry.html
There's not any other measure that would do more for civilizational health and human prospering and freedom than to score and rank those who have tended to be right a lot. Alas, that trait has only slight overlaps with power/status/persuasiveness. Moreover, we are all descended from charlatans whose forecasts seemed confident and likely... whose resulting policies were disproved only at great cost and pain... and sometimes never.
Sure, my obsession with this notion -- find out who is right a lot... or not -- may be biased by my own predictive scores. Or else by awareness how often liars or delusionals have transfixed our ancestors - and current neighbors - to our great damage and pain. And sure, it comes out of having been a scientist and engineer.
Still, wouldn't that one metric help us choose who gets credibility? And who -- despite smooth talking and good looks - doesn't merit any more credence than a drunk tardigrade?
I used to think that it would take some zillionaire to fund a meticulous scoring system, especially since most of those out there shouting 'advice' about the future purposely remain vague in their predictions. Only now, shouldn't we be able to get a head start on this using... say... Claude?
I did chart out a path to such a beneficial gift to sanity, way back when. If none of you will peel back years to look at it... maybe assign one of your AIs?
Apparently, Peter Thiel is enacting plans to move to Argentina, a ... historically interesting choice for an exile.
The reasons for it could be manyfold.
One is that he fears the democratic backlash and the taxes California wants to introduce.
The second could be fear of a hot civil war erupting.
Another, that he simply likes the Milei regime.
The most darkest reason I found was that he was privy to a coming attack on LGBT rights.
Thought he might be insulated from it through his wealth, he might have decided to play safe.
Which could be substituted for or added to fear and information about moves the Trump regime could make prior to the November elections.
As an added thought: If your business model as s company is threat assessment, you certainly can use this models to not only to prevent, but also maximize the impact of a "terrorist" attack. Just saying.
You already have no meaningful protections for the working class left in the US.
See what it brought them, and what it brought the owner and rentier classes.
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