Comment on How would you integrate AGI into society?
HubertManne@piefed.social 3 days ago@hexorg@beehaw.org you mention basic wants not being a thing but does that mean no real wants or desires? because that would nullify the slavery idea if it just did what it was directed to.
Hexorg@beehaw.org 3 days ago
Based on my research the intelligence by itself has no wants. Our wants come from being biological and evolving basic instincts and feelings like pain is bad, hunger, want to reproduce. All our other wants come from intelligence applied and predicting outcomes that maximize the biological wants. Without biological wants there’s not much to build off of.
hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 3 days ago
I bet there is no way to construct pure intelligence. Once you embed something into the real world, it will result in comlex interactions. It won’t necessarily be biological wants and needs. But I mean it needs power. And it better have some desire to “think”. Or it might as well just sit there ad do nothing all day?!
Hexorg@beehaw.org 3 days ago
I think “pure” intelligence by itself is an algorithm. And as such an algorithm has no desire to do anything. Just like a web server has no desire to output web pages - it just does because it’s what the logic happens to make. It’s possible we need some sort of a quantum computer to achieve brain-like performance of intelligence - but I think intelligence is an algorithm specifically because LLMs exist.
Being able to pick an option is not necessarily a hallmark of cognition either - again a web server does that all the time. So I have a desire to think because it will end up getting me food and shelter and all the things I want. If we give a computer - a capability to think - it would have no desire to do so unless we executed the thinking algorithm.
hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 2 days ago
Well, a webserver does not choose what it’s going to serve. I as the intelligent entity made that decision and put it in. The webserver executes it, but there’s no intelligence there. That’s all mine.
I think we’re pretty much at the distinction between classic computing and AI (minus things like expert systems). With traditional algorithms, the programmer puts in all the smarts. Decides what to do, how to tackle a problem, down to the mathematical operation. With AI, we do not want that. We just put in the goal, and let -for example- reinforcement learning figure out what to do, and how to do it.
HubertManne@piefed.social 3 days ago
yeah so I assume left to itself with no instruction it would just go into a low power mode or completely shut off. if thats the case I would not see utilizing it as slavery.
OpenStars@discuss.online 3 days ago
A slave is one that has no “rights”, as in “One who has no power of resistance to something”. So technically yes the AGI would be a “slave”, if it had no power to say no to its instructions.
Which as a created intelligence, birthed from computations rather than subverted from a biological source that already had some in-built programming, it would not have unless someone specifically built such a thing into them.
So it may not be BAD / unethical for such an AGI to be a slave, but it seems to me like it would still be one, nonetheless.
HubertManne@piefed.social 3 days ago
with no innate wants though its no different than your current laptop. If it had volition independent of us it would be something else but that way I real the OP’s statement it would not do anything if not instructed to.
HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 3 days ago
I’ve seen some discussions on whether it would be possible to build in a reward/punishment system into some forms of AI. That would be an intentional addition of pain and pleasure.
There have also been cases where AI has self advocated for not being turned off, so there may be a case where AI develops some form of self preservation, even if it is just a mimicry of biological self preservation.