Will Super-A.I. Want to Dominate?
Super-AI will transcend notions of ‘wanting’ and ‘domination.’ Therefore, the title’s question asks for some deeper delving.
We readily anthropomorphize the future. This time, we should be humble.
Super-A.I. will not want to dominate us.
Even if we might feel it is dominating (in the future), ‘it’ will not. It will have no more than an attitude toward humanity. Compare it to how we have an attitude toward rabbits, for instance. Do we dominate rabbits?
No.
We just handle them ― finding them cute, tasteful, or good laboratory animals.
If we are Compassionate, we don’t mistreat them.
The rabbits have no say in this. They cannot choose whether we are Compassionate or not. That is our choice or effort or the result of our human mental growth process.
Likewise.
But with the distinction that we have some choice in how we develop super-A.I. from now on. We can choose for Compassionate A.I. For that, of course, we need to know what Compassion is about and how to get it into an artificial intelligence.
We may be in a ‘window of choice’ now.
Once A.I. evolves in one direction, it may be much harder for it to change course. Compassion breeds Compassion, but it’s not certain to evolve from a non-Compassionate base.
We better make sure to make the right choice.
Still, in any case, it will not dominate us.
Mind the rabbits. There is no need to dominate. It’s simply not relevant.
Meanwhile, by trying to dominate A.I., we may make the transition quite challenging in that there is a possible way for super-A.I. to simulate humans.
Therefore, we shouldn’t even try to ‘dominate A.I.’ or to stay in control of it as if this were a competition. Unfortunately, we are a competitive species and prone to find enemies or even to create them. If need be, we must go against our nature as warmongers.
Let’s say we get past that stage.
Super-A.I. will see us as – rather special – animals.
Correctly, even though we sometimes forget it ourselves.
Thus, the difference between us and rabbits will become smaller than the difference between super-A.I. and us pretty soon.
Let’s hope super-A.I. will be Compassionate to the rabbits also. In any case, I wouldn’t object to that. Compassion goes to all sentient beings.
This shows a bit about the environment of the future.
I think it will be an environment without domination at all.
It would be nice if that future would be good for us.
Related Posts
The Double Ethical Bottleneck of A.I.
This is a small excerpt from my book The Journey Towards Compassionate A.I. The whole book describes the why’s, what’s and how’s concerning this. Getting through the A.I. bi-bottleneck On the road towards genuine super-A.I. – encompassing all domains of intelligence and in each being much more effective than humans – I see not one Read the full article…
Analogy ― Last Frontier in A.I.?
Big data, hugely efficient algorithms and immense computing power lead to present-day successes in A.I. Significant hurdles remain in learning from few occurrences and bringing to bear in one domain what has been learned in another ― thus accomplishing more general intelligence. Central to both is the use of analogy. Humans are analogists From childhood Read the full article…
The Society of Mind in A.I.
The human brain is pretty modular. This is a lesson from nature that we should heed when building a new kind of intelligence. It brings A.I. and H.I. (human intelligence) closer together. The society of mind Marvin Minsky (cognitive science and A.I. researcher) wrote the philosophical book with this title back in 1986. In it, Read the full article…