EdenicFaithful
Dark Wizard of Ravenclaw
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User ID: 78
EdenicFaithful
Dark Wizard of Ravenclaw
7hr ago
The problem is that the causality could go both ways. If you ask why someone doesn't want responsibility, the answer might be that some part of their mind is resentful towards the world.
It isn't necessarily a question of how cruel the world actually is. It might be a question of how much sway such tendencies hold over a person.
Personally, I think that "I didn't do X because life is evil" sounds an awful lot like saying the quiet part out loud, and stems from something deep and as yet poorly understood inside of the human mind.
EdenicFaithful
Dark Wizard of Ravenclaw
3d ago
So, what are you reading?
I'm still on Sayers' Whose Body? Also reading Abelson's The Seven Liberal Arts after rereading Sayers' essay The Lost Tools of Learning.
EdenicFaithful
Dark Wizard of Ravenclaw
4d ago
I agree, except that if you start with the assumption that one doesn't yet know what the capabilities of AI are, then one rationally ought to keep space for skepticism of doomsday scenarios.
But you're right, and I don't assume that trouble isn't coming; I just saw the obvious other explanation for the talk of vulnerability-finding AI and determined based on how people were behaving that hype was the more likely explanation, this time. And I think that fear is primarily driven by the materialism of our times.
After all, when people talk about artificial intelligence replacing humans, the unstated premise is that humans are really just computers or not much better. See how easily they can do what humans can do? Haven't they passed the Turing Test?
Obviously, this is an attempt at mind reading, but I think it is a better explanation than marketing. As a marketing strategy, intentionally making promises that will obviously be falsified and talked about widely when the product is released seems silly.
EdenicFaithful
Dark Wizard of Ravenclaw
4d ago
I thought all the talk about software vulnerabilities would peter out for now, but I don't think that marketing is the only explanation.
Materialists are making the logically consistent assumption that if humans are computers, then AI is guaranteed to surpass our capabilities in every respect. So they predict a future which may not be real if materialism isn't real, and are hallucinating that such a future has arrived out of a cycle of fear and a desire to get ahead of it.
Strictly speaking, just because one hyped-up thing failed to hit the mark, it doesn't mean that it isn't coming, especially given the pace of developments. But Charlie Kirk said it right: AI is destined to throw our assumptions into chaos one way or another, and I, for one, am curious to see exactly what gets discredited as our knowledge and actual experience is forced to increase. Though it would be nice if we had a better understanding of things before we're forced to learn it inadvertently.
Mostly unconscious questionable impulses, would be more accurate for the people you describe. I think we all have a part of us that is capable of this, but I don't yet have any systematic thoughts on how those impulses take over, nor in what situations they can clearly be described as evil.
If you read school shooter manifestos or journals, you'll see a lot of parallels. This is the main basis for why I suggest that you don't dismiss these claims so easily. Something about the claim that "life is not worth living" is a recurring feature that I've noticed, or think that I've noticed.
I suspect that there is an underlying philosophy of evil which some aspect of the mind is prone towards believing in, perhaps because of the specific way in which that part of the mind works (ie. it may be an accidental but high-probability outcome) and in certain (as yet unknown to me) situations it takes over.
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