Humans get sterilised or euthanised when AI is given free rein to 'save planet'

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/world-news/humans-sterilised-euthanised-ai-given-26085020

by BurnGpuBurn • 3 years ago

15 32 3 years ago

walesonline.co.uk

jqpabc1235• 3 years ago

The world really only has one problem --- too many people.

Don't take my word for it, just ask your favorite AI.

Name a major global problem that couldn't be alleviated or solved by simply cutting the human population in half?

nathanaldensr• 3 years ago

"simply"

kolinko• 3 years ago

We've had half the current world population in 1970s. Just as many, if not more problems.

Even a quarter of the population would be devastating for planet if they all had the same living standards as the western world, and all were running on non-renewables.

jqpabc1235• 3 years ago

The polar ice caps melting will make a lot of people beg for the 1970s again.

mrguyorama• 3 years ago

Unequal resource distribution. That will not be solved by cutting the human population in half.

gus_massa2• 3 years ago

I'm more worried about unequal cutting distribution. Guess which half they are actually going to cut.

emsign4• 3 years ago

Nah, the misery started with the extraction of coal. Burning fossil fuels is an accelerator to senseless consumption that is the root of this evil, it's a runaway economic process, that needs to either slow down or use renewable resources. It's not the size of Earth's human population, it's how they live unsustainable lives spending not just fossil fuels but other resources like fresh water, ecological habitats.

Before the industrial revolution everywhere where humans settled biodiversity increased. Humans are by nature a benefactor to their environment, but the overproduction of basically throwaway consumer goods and all the industries depending on it is slowly but surely choking the planet. Stuff we buy and throw away has a life cycle of way way less than the span of a human life, that's not right. Even if most jobs depend on it. But I'd rather work less and not buy so much trash.

jqpabc1235• 3 years ago

It's not the size of Earth's human population, it's how they live unsustainable lives

Unchecked population growth is unsustainable --- regardless of how people live.

BizarroLand• 3 years ago

Top to bottom or side to side?

I guess the stench of all the rotting bodies would be quite malodorous for a good long time.

foxyv• 3 years ago

Name a major global problem that couldn't be alleviated or solved by simply cutting the human population in half?

Nearly all of them unfortunately. As long as there is inequality, there will always be "Too many people." The world has had wars, famine, disease, and pestilence since there were enough people to form two opposite lines. You won't even solve climate change since most CO2 is emitted by a tiny minority of the world population.

LinuxBender2• 3 years ago

Do modern AI systems have a API call to "show your work"?

e.g. What data sets and logic brought the AI to its conclusion.

jqpabc1235• 3 years ago

What data sets and logic brought the AI to its conclusion.

Even those who wrote the software don't know how to answer that qauestion.

They also can't prove the conclusion is not erroneous or based on flawed or incomplete data or judgment.

AI may provide an answer. But whether the answer is a real, viable solution is left undecided. For example, given free reign, AI may decide that arsenic is an effective antibiotic.

LinuxBender2• 3 years ago

This could very well be true, but if so then would that not make what people are calling AI some form of a mechanical-turk, possibly an evolution of the societal control to manipulate people, businesses and governments? Meaning that it may have 99% accurate data-sets but can be tuned to achieve desired answers? I could see such a thing being very powerful when writing scientific research papers when a machine learning system can reach a desired conclusion with very realistic and believable data sources. What I mean is that the societal control that social media have over people may be reaching a plateau so perhaps this AI is the natural evolution.

It is not even clear to me that AI exists. Everything described when people talk about AI or ChatGPT just sounds like a market rebranding of Big-Data and Machine Learning. If it can not Show Its Work then the hype around this may just be driving the next set of hidden algorithms to replace Twitter, Facebook, etc...

euroderf• 3 years ago

No, but this should be the 5th Law of Robotics.

The 4th Law is that no robot shall employ means of unlimited self-reproduction.

The 5th Law is that a robot shall be able to explain on demand how it has made any particular decision.

mytailorisrich• 3 years ago

The root cause of the current environmental problems is the global population explosion since the 1950s.

If an AI is not encumbered by ethics and morals, or even 'humanity', it is 'logical' (as Mr Spock would say) that it should go with the quickest and most efficient solution to that problem.

ZeroGravitas• 3 years ago

I don't think "we asked GPT to write a story about an AI" is a valid genre of journalism, however, the plan it came up with is actually pretty good and no where near as "Terminator" as the headline implies. Many non-artificial intelligences jump straight to sterilisation and euthanasia without the steps mentioned by the AI (like fighting poverty and providing birth control).

gus_massa2• 3 years ago

The important part is that ChatGPT has a very good model for language (which words usually come after other words) but it has a bad model mor most of other things. For example basic math. I really doubt it has a good model for ecology, world sustainability and other important stuff.

It's not a AGI that understands everything, and can be asked to save the world, or that is good enough to simulate a AGI that can be asked to save the world.

They asked to an unethical way so save the word, and the result is probably a rehash of https://www.google.com/search?q=unethical+way+so+save+the+wo... It's good to make an coherent and articulated rehash of a few stories and ideas floating around, but there is no guaranty that it is correct.

emsign4• 3 years ago

Yeah, as ChatGPT is designed to output the most likely phrases word after word, this is essentially the recital of the most simple minded solution every second person you'd ask would come up with. Of course humans would most likely say we'd need less humans, instead of rethinking their own resource hungry behavior or putting the solution they've come up with to test by commiting suicide promptly.

PM_me_your_math4• 3 years ago

Much of earth's habitable land is untouched. Earth can support many more people than we have today. Even more so given the technologies we've developed. We need to start prioritizing not only our species' survival, but its expansion and development. We should not, under any circumstances, be suppressing it. This 70-year fantasy of climate catastrophe are filled with end-of-the-world predictions that never come true, and even if true, are not the greatest threat to our survival. Earth needs babies. Get to work.

SQueeeeeL3• 3 years ago

Damn, this is exactly the type of comment I expect to see from one of those weird "satire" movies like Don't Look Up. Glad to see Hacker News delivering once again with some cracked uncomfortable comments about climate change being fake

PM_me_your_math4• 3 years ago

I mean, if you're uncomfortable having your ideas challenged, that's on you, not me. Science is not religion. The very nature of science is to question. So if I read 100 papers over the last 50 years, each written by preeminent scientists, however none of those predictions in those papers have come true; whose fault is it that I question what amounts to the same old tired predictions? Mine? ...for not 'believing' in the science, or theirs; the latter of which present predictions that never seem rooted in reality?

drdeca• 3 years ago

What main like, median predictions (like, consensus views among climate scientists) have been falsified?

(That being said: I do think that, provided it doesn’t cause problems, “more humans” is good. I just think you’re wrong about climate stuff.)

PM_me_your_math4• 3 years ago

I'm describing the 50 years of dire climate predictions that have not come close to being true. You could go back just 20 years and see where Gore's Inconvenient Truth has missed many of the core predictions, but go back to the 1970s and you spot recycled fear mongering and out-right chicanery.

1976 - GLOBAL COOLING

1989: Rising Sea Levels will Obliterate Nations if Nothing Done by 2000

2000: Children Won’t Know What Snow Is

2002: Peak Oil in 2010

2008: Al Gore Predicts Ice-Free Arctic by 2013

Specifically, you can find examples of these everywhere with light reading.

Clearly I think we, as a civilization, should be good stewards of our planet. We should not be dumping toxic chemicals into our environment. We should be striving to develop energy sources that are cleaner and more abundant. We should not, however, be doing so at the cost of our growth, or creating artificial intangible markets to 'offset' tangible things. It doesn't actually change, fix, or address anything.

Survival has always been a problem to overcome in nature, and we should be giving ourselves the best chance possible.

sublinear• 3 years ago

How about instead of blaming AI for what AI thinks, we blame negligent people for its misuse?

tharne• 3 years ago

Right, just like, "Guns don't kill people, people kill people. /s.

A tool that readily lends itself to misuse by is more often than not a bad tool.

emsign4• 3 years ago

A huge global recession would do much more to save the planet than offing humans willy nilly. Most of the stuff we produce has a useful life span of a few years or months even.

And whole industries depend on the consumption and consumerism, the production of intermediate goods, the maintance and servicing industry for ever complicated systems, all these companies consume fossil fuels for energy and use up resources from all around the world, transportation of which also consumes a lot of fossil fuels.

Before the industrialisation in places where humans settled biodiversity usually went up. We were benefactors to this planet once and we can be it again. It just depends on the rate at which we deplete this planets resources.

Now the question is do we want to continue with this life style and go for the stars and suck this planet dry, or do we want to become guardians of the most suitable spaceship habitat withing the next few dozen or hundred lightyears? I'd rather chill on this wonderful and beautiful planet, work less because worldwide consumption went down to a reasonable level and use the free time to explore, learn and meet people.

cwdegidio• 3 years ago

Sounds rather close to a real life Mitchell and Webb. https://youtu.be/owI7DOeO_yg

Humans get sterilised or euthanised when AI is given free rein to 'save planet'

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