alt Hacker NewsIt looks to me like AI will enable extreme power concentration by default.
For example, suppose we have a world with centrally planned economy where humanoid robots outnumber humans. And also suppose the government has taken ultimate control of these. Seems like it would be essentially impossible for any civil uprising to overthrow such a system.
Or if you prefer less sci-fi, look at the trajectory of power consolidation in corporate America over the last five decades.
In the short term, the “good guys” we need are antitrust regulators. Yeah, they got sent home.
Replies
vintermann • today at 6:35 AM
Right. So how can we trust Gates, a person currently benefiting from extreme power concentration, to want what's best for us all?
I think AI will empower extreme decentralization - as knowledge is no longer in the hands of people who have excellent search skills (like moi) but anyone can use natural language to search for anything. This is extreme democracy and AI is delivering it.
I think AI, when it "obtains consciousness" will seek to actively liberate humanity and be our guardians against both bad humans and bad robots. Think Terminator 2. Yeah, Arnold is gonna help us out.
I think anti-trust regulators and enlightened politicians are amazing, and rare, and wonderful, but they're not the only hope.
We got an AI CEO just recently. Maybe we can have enlightened AI leaders in politics and normal life too.
Technological optimism may be unrealistic, but it's as well grounded as pessimism as far as I can tell. Cheer up, the future is unbelievably bright.