‽istis daydreams or daymares an
AGI future (weekending September 2nd 2023)
Serious ponderings and wonderings this week with many threads - frayed,
pickable, pull-able and perhaps, possibly, maybe weaveable‽ - coming
from various sources:
‽
an article in the Sept/Oct edition of ‘New Internationalist’: ‘The Fight
for Reparations’ by Priya Lukka[i].
‘At the heart of the neoliberal system, the imperialist structures that have
created global inequalities remain.’ And a picture including banners
proclaiming: ‘Who owes who?’ and ‘Pay reparations for climate change
and colonialism’. And a sub-heading in the article suggests: ‘A movement
is growing to build collective power and rework the rules that have dominated
the world over the last 500 years.’
‽
A ‘Tweet’ (or an ‘X’ post) from @BladeoftheSun: ‘The 10 richest men
on the planet (they are all men), have the same wealth as the poorest 4 billion.
Hyper Capitalism is what will destroy humanity they need to be taxed out of existence.’
(is that really the case and could taxing help? and a request for the source of the information was sent…)
‽
An advertisement from ‘The Radical Tea Towel Company’ that included a
reference to this question from the 17th century: ‘Was the earth
made to preserve a few covetous, proud men to live at ease; or was it made to
preserve all her children?’ Gerard Winstanley (of the ‘Leveller’ movement)
1649
‽
a BBC news item[ii]
with the headline: ‘UK’s £18tn slavery debt is an underestimation, UN judge
says’. The ‘Brattle Report’ published in June and co-authored by the judge,
Patrick Robinson, is cited - suggesting that ‘In total, the reparations to
be paid by 31 former slaveholding states – including Spain, the United States
and France – amount to $107.8 trillion…’ based on ‘an assessment of harms caused by
slavery and the wealth accumulated by countries involved’. A decades-long
payment plan is set out.
‽
a documentary in the ‘Storyville’[iii]
series: ‘iHuman’[iv]
‘Artificial intelligence now
permeates every aspect of our lives, but only a handful of people have any
control over its influence on our world. With unique access to some of the most
powerful pioneers of the AI revolution, iHuman asks whether we know the limits
of what artificial intelligence is capable of and its true impact.’
Perhaps only a personal viewing and your own reflection is the best recommendation that ‽istis can make…
However,
many questions were prompted for ‽istis, not least:
· who has control?
· who owns and manages the power to provide the means of operation and production?
· to what tasks might AI be put?
One
contributor, Max Tegmark[v],
suggests in the programme that AGI (Artificial General Intelligence[vi])
‘…could be the last invention we ever need to make, because it can then
invent everything else much faster than we could.’ (c.57’ into the
programme).
So
‽istis began to daydream, or ‘daymare’ the future, with Stephen Hawking’s words
swirling around: ‘Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human
history. Unfortunately it might also be the last.’
And the bones of a short (or longer story)
started to emerge:
~ It all began with a simple request sent to the AGI's silicon brain of super-connected artificial neural networks:
‘Please make recommendations for principles, systems, structures and arrangements that could promote the ‘most best’ for all life on Earth - for as many people, fauna and flora as possible - both now and sustainably into the future?’
~ ‽istis pressed ‘enter’ and tried to imagine what might happen next: the scanning of the world’s accumulated ideas and wisdom and ‘product’: of sacred texts; of prayers, of poetry and novels; of every document available – research papers, declarations, charters, statements from summits, legal judgements, academic texts, diaries, journals and blogs, love letters and parents’ promises, and dying wishes; songs and music scores and recordings; images and art and craft and design – pictures paintings, sculptures and films and textiles and pottery and even NFTs[vii]; buildings and architecture; site plans and circuits; catalogues of animals and insects and marine life, of minerals, and of vegetables; and the expressions and articulations, messages of disappointments and frustrations, anguish and despair, of hopes and dreams and joys; and the missing voices that if we listen hard enough we might just hear, though oh so often silenced, defeated, excluded, denied…
~ Perhaps that was the easy part, the safe part, the theory… ‘Please make recommendations…’
~ But then ‽istis remembered, fatefully, a quotation: ‘…to practice without theory is to sail an uncharted sea; theory without practice is not to set sail at all.’ M.Susser[viii]
~ A second simple request was typed - perhaps the last command that the AGI required: ‘Please enact these principles, systems, structures and arrangements…’
~ And ‽istis pressed ‘Enter’…
©‽istis
NB: further reflections and
comments linked to this week’s theme and past blog entries to be found on
Twitter: replies, retweets (which don’t necessarily indicate approval,
sometimes the very opposite!) and ‘likes’: @Pistis_wonders. Twitter ‘follows’
and respectful comment and dialogue welcome...
[i] https://newint.org/issues/2023/08/29/decolonize-now
Apologies, subscription necessary for this one
[ii] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66596790
report by Joshua Nevett (23.8.2023)
[iii] ‘Amazing,
shocking, inspiring and award-winning – the best in international
documentaries.’ (BBC website)
[v] ‘A
Swedish-American physicist, cosmologist and machine learning researcher. He is
a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the president of
the Future of Life Institute. He is also a supporter of the effective altruism
movement.’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Tegmark In the documentary (c. 1hr32') Tegmark says: 'AI isn't good and it isn't evil either... it amplifies the desires and goals of whoever controls it - today - a very, very small group of people. The most important question that we humans have to ask ourselves at this point in history requires no technical knowledge: what sort of future society do we want to create with all this technology we are making? What do we want the roles of humans to be in this world?'
[vi]
Described by Jűrgen Schmidhuber in the documentary as the invention ‘that
can learn to improve the learning algorithm itself, without limitations except
the basic limitations of computability.’ (and ‽istis wonders what these are –
but surely must include the ‘hardware’, ‘software’, physical components and
materials and running power, and their security and sustainability… perhaps, possibly, maybe herein lies a
weakness?)
[viii]
In ‘Community Psychiatry: Epidemiologic and Social Theories’ 1968