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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   18701 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 19, 2025

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I mean, yeah, obviously the solution to AI risk is to not build hostile superhuman AI. Just pointing it out.

@RandomRanger I figure this does double duty as a reply to you.

Agreed. But unfortunately...

Superhuman AI is probably an inevitable consequence of the evolution of intelligence. There is a good chance the solution to the FERMI thing is staring us in the face / we’re about to find out.

If you mean the Fermi Paradox, it's... complicated. If you're talking about the Great Filter, no, AI catastrophe cannot be the Great Filter because the AI itself still counts as being an alien civilisation for Fermi Paradox purposes.

To get AI being an answer to the Fermi Paradox, you have to go into Doomsday Argument territory, and also assume FTL. I laid out the case you can make here. Whether to take Doomsday Arguments seriously is dubious.

the AI itself still counts as being an alien civilisation for Fermi Paradox purposes.

Only if we assume that AI not only shares the broad goals of human civilization (expansion, growth, conquest of space) but executes them effectively. Smart humans still makes mistakes. Smart ASI is still likely to make mistakes, and even if it does so much less frequently those mistakes are likely to be far greater in consequence.

Imagine a global benevolent ASI designed to achieve human flourishing that accidentally exterminates the human race. This sounds ridiculous but is perfectly possible and perhaps even likely on a long enough timeframe because of the extreme power such an ASI might possess. This is a closed loop solution to the Fermi paradox. An ASI might even develop a moribund or nihilistic tendency that leads to the above with no desire for recovery (by eg. cloning or remaking human civilization).

Only if we assume that AI not only shares the broad goals of human civilization (expansion, growth, conquest of space).

Paperclip maximisers do, and are a notoriously easy-to-specify goal system.

This is a closed loop solution to the Fermi paradox.

You need the malevolent AIs to also commit suicide for dubious reasons for this to be a Great Filter, unless alignment is so hilariously easy that there aren't any.

You need the malevolent AIs to also commit suicide for dubious reasons for this to be a Great Filter, unless alignment is so hilariously easy that there aren't any.

Only if the all powerful malevolent AI specifically wants to conquer the universe and therefore expands forever (or until it encounters resistance). What if it has other goals (programmed or organic), like some kind of anti-pollution or even conservation-type instincts where it doesn’t want to fill up the universe with mechanical metal garbage for no real reason other than maximizing energy production to make more energy? If you’re smart enough to relatively accurately simulate reality, you no longer need to explore and expand in the same way. A smart enough paperclip maximizer might simulate the paperclips and consider that sufficient.

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