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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   40081 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023

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China

Since I probably won't get a better chance to bring this up: there's something I don't understand about the China fearmongering.

The basic argument for why AI is a good thing is that it will lead to the singularity. Post-scarcity future, incredible scientific development, transhumanism and the realization of human potential, and so on and so forth. Implicit in this argument seems to be the premise that, if we get a good outcome with a benevolent aligned AI, then the singularity will be a good thing for all humans. I've never seen it suggested that any individual or group in particular has anything to fear. It's implied that the benefits of the singularity will be relatively evenly distributed.

If that's the case, and AI is going to lead us to a utopia... why does it matter if China gets there first? The benevolent robot god is still going to lead humanity to the land of milk and honey either way, regardless of whether it happens to be built in the US or China, so why does it matter if China eclipses the US in AI development?

Or is the singularity not actually going to be evenly distributed? If China builds ASI first, are they just going to genocide the rest of the world outside of China, and then have fun until the heat death of the universe with the robot god? Why restrict ourselves to just analyzing things at the country level? Shouldn't we be equally worried about Sam Altman genociding everyone he doesn't like if OpenAI are the first ones to get to ASI? I don't know what the sequence of events is supposed to look like here.

The constant refrains of "we can't fall behind China" make AI sound a lot closer to a conventional weapon of war, rather than the pure unadulterated good that AI advocates want to present it as, which is all the more reason that it should be tightly regulated, in a proper international framework.

China implementing the land of milk and honey is fine. China implementing the Torment Nexus is bad. Both of these are true for any country.

A selection effect for the less careful or less altruistic raises the chance of getting a bad outcome.

If we get one of the intermediate outcomes, a powerful but narrow Tool AI with no take off, I want it to be ours and not theirs. Especially if its narrow expertise is military.

I also find the "WHAT IF CHINA/RUSSIA/ETC. GET THERE FIRST?" arguments extremely silly.

With a the exception of a tiny number of particularly unhinged sadistic psychopaths (the number is probably roughly epsilon), the vast vast majority of people are going to press the "create paradise" button not something so parochial as the "make my country hegemonic forever" or the "kill all the ethnic group I don't like" button. Even people who are, right now, merciless hardnosed Machiavellians would press the paradise button since they could do so without any trade-off for themselves or their in-group.

No, I'm pretty sure that if Putin didn't make Russia into anything more than a shithole for his cronies to feed on during a whole generation of his uninterrupted power, he also won't create a paradise with an AGI button. This is a genuine value difference. Some people don't value goodness, except for themselves and their loved ones.

And I think most machiavellians of Putin's caliber are not much better.

particularly unhinged sadistic psychopaths (the number is probably roughly epsilon)

«About 1.2% of U.S. adult men and 0.3% to 0.7% of U.S. adult women are considered to have clinically significant levels of psychopathic traits».

he also won't create a paradise with an AGI button.

You sure? It's not like he'd have anything to lose. Creating a paradise for everyone wouldn't detract from the slice of paradise available to Putin and his buddies. Would he really decline out of sheer spite?

«About 1.2% of U.S. adult men and 0.3% to 0.7% of U.S. adult women are considered to have clinically significant levels of psychopathic traits».

But it has to be a special kind of psychopath. Psychopathy only implies a lack of empathy and an antisocial personality. Such a person might deny paradise for others for personal gain, but they would have no reason to do so out of sheer spite, unless they were also particularly sadistic psychopaths.

Yes I'm sure. Technically it would incur some opportunity cost (that most would say a singleton should ignore, although I'd argue that an ambitious singleton may still find the cost intolerable). More importantly he doesn't seem to be able to contemplate such relationships. He's not just a Machiavellian psychopath but, first and foremost, a rat, suspicious and hateful of others. It's not only spite, it's a hard prior: sharing with people not in your family (or mafia) is expensive and gives them dangerous capabilities to harm you.

Real people are not rational economic agents – not only in the positive sense (having morals) or neutral sense (having cognitive biases and weird beliefs), but negatively too (willing to do net-negative things for no personal gain). He would not reason «hurr durr I'm evil I will crush those peasants even though it provides me no benefit» – he'd a priori distrust and reject the analysis that says that sharing paradise with peasants is cost-free. They could always revolt or something, and they'll be eating his resources, resources he could put to better use… It's just unpleasant. And this is a not so rare an attitude. Imagine the most stiff-necked, work-obsessed American Puritan from this forum, looking at junkies at the streets of SF. This is the merest shade of the contempt one can feel for non-productive people.

This is not purely hypothetical. Just one example: Russia (pop. 147m including Crimea) has 17 million square kilometers of territory. Much of that, even livable parts, is very sparsely used or effectively uninhabited. Once, there was an initiative to stimulate economic activity and improve the real estate situation etc. with granting people large plots of land. By the time it was approved, it was downscaled to no more than 1 hectare (0.01 sq. km) per applicant on the Far East (area ≈7 million, pop. ≈8 million and falling), located at least 10 km away from towns over 50k and 20 km away from towns of 300+k, so effectively in wild boreal forest, in groups no more than 10 people (so, you are capped at 0.1 km^2 for your project), and with certain onerous rules of use (to begin with, you have to prove you're developing it over the first 5 years, lest it be taken away, and making it your actual property is not straightforward). Russian Far East… isn't very paradisiacal. It was not just affordable but very lucrative for them to offer Russians better terms. Still they didn't, so basically nobody bothered with the program. Lose-lose. (Hilariously, they've dedicated over 1.4m kilometers in the first round of the project – a hectare per Russian).

(At the same time, entire swathes of the region are leased for pittance to China.)

Speaking of paradise, Krylov:

…But Russia had no overseas colonies and did not even dream of them. Moreover, when enterprising Russians (usually against the wishes of the Russian government) tried to settle somewhere across the sea, the Russian government firmly suppressed their impulse. Alaska was sold to the Americans for a pittance. Specifically, for $7.2 million, the equivalent of $104 million today. That is, Alaska was sold for less than five dollars per square kilometer. The price of the transaction included all the movable and immovable property located in Alaska. The payment was not made in gold, but in non-cash dollars. Whether this money was received by the Russian government is not known - [it seems not] (http://www.opoccuu.com/alyaska.htm). And, of course, the board of the Russian-American Company knew nothing of the government's preparations to sell Alaska: the deal was being prepared in secret.

Again: five dollars per square kilometer is the red price of "territorial integrity."

It is clear that Russian settlements in California were, as they say now, " wrapped up", and the Russian-American Company - the same one which sponsored the Krusenstern - was liquidated.

However, one could at least say that Russia was desperately afraid of the mighty America, and that Alaska was "so empty and cold". But when the naive Miklukho-Maklai suggested to Alexander III that he create a "free Russian colony" (as opposed to Germany) in New Guinea, he was kicked out of the Czar's office with such force that he landed in Australia. In Sydney he settled more than fine, but returned to Russia and again came out with the same proposal at the highest level - with the same result.

This has always been the case. All proposals of Russian enthusiasts on the topic of development of any lands far removed from the motherland were met with an absolutely rigid "no". Russia, represented by its highest leadership, shoved away any overseas possessions. On the other hand, enormous efforts and funds were poured into Poland, Finland, and Georgia. These «extraordinarily valuable» acquisitions cost Russia very dearly, and in all senses. So much effort, life and resources were put into fiddling with the Poles and Chukonka people that it would have been enough for a full-fledged colonial expansion.

There can only be one reason for such a decisive rejection of the Paradise Islands. Fear. A conscious and clear fear of the Russian government that the paradise islands will have to be populated by Russians. Which may subsequently sever ties with the empire and create at least a small, but their own state. Which could, in turn, serve as an "embarrassing example" for the rest.

Do you think this psychology allows for your do-gooder decisionmaking?

I also recommend watching Expelled from Paradise on a similar topic.

This comment has made me think a bit harder about my assumptions. Perhaps such a spiteful disposition is more common than I had previously believed.

Where the hell does this distrust of breakaways come from? Has it really always been this way with Russians, or is this more an occasional tendency that sometimes flares up to imperial degrees?

Once, there was an initiative to stimulate economic activity and improve the real estate situation etc. with granting people large plots of land. By the time it was approved, it was downscaled to no more than 1 hectare (0.01 sq. km) per applicant on the Far East (area ≈7 million, pop. ≈8 million and falling), located at least 10 km away from towns over 50k and 20 km away from towns of 300+k, so effectively in wild boreal forest, in groups no more than 10 people (so, you are capped at 0.1 km^2 for your project), and with certain onerous rules of use (to begin with, you have to prove you're developing it over the first 5 years, lest it be taken away, and making it your actual property is not straightforward).

In comparison, Canada gave out 160 acres (65 ha) of land per household via its Dominion Lands Act, out of which you had to cultivate a quarter and build a permanent dwelling on it in three years. That's sixteen times more land if you use a replacement-level family of four as your benchmark. And you could double your homestead after you improved your original plot enough, giving you 320 acres (130 ha). They also had an exclusion zone around railways, but realized it made the program much less attractive and got rid of it.

4401,2 thousand ha of farmland lay fallow in Russia in 2020. That's 27 507 Canadian-style plots they could have given away, about half of them in praire-like conditions of Siberia. What's worse, there was 36256,3 ha of farmland that was technically not fallow but wasn't worked by its owners. I could buy 3200 ha of farmland in Hakassija for the price of a gaming PC if I wanted, why would I ever be interested in a single hectare in the middle of nowhere?

I could buy 3200 ha of farmland in Hakassija for the price of a gaming PC if I wanted

What's the catch ? Climate's not good for farming there ?

It's not that bad, kinda like Winnipeg in Canada. But it's not the best place for farming: it's remote, so you'll spend a lot of transportation costs. Given that you'll have to buy or lease a lot of farming machinery either way, buying farmland in a warmer and more central place might be better in the long run. Except a lot of farming is now mostly done by longitudinally integrated farming companies, it's hard to compete with their efficiency.

OK so they press the 'create paradise' button but they'd still keep the master key to themselves. Then, if there are any disputes or troubles in paradise...

Even with vast resources, there will still be questions of allocation. Posthumans will probably reproduce very quickly or have very high material aspirations or both.

I think the problems of such a future age would be so divorced from those of the present day that it would be difficult to predict from their present-day positions and motives and histories whether Sam Altman or Xi Jingping or anyone else would be particularly likely abuse the keys to the kingdom.

Indeed, I don't trust anyone to control the lamp with the genie in it. We should not be creating powerful entities with alien mindsets, certainly not letting anyone have monopoly access to them.

Okay, but my only point is that I don't think it makes a real difference for better or worse whether China creates AGI or whether the US does, whereas a lot of people think it does make a real difference.

Who says there are two buttons?

The risk with a geopolitical rival isn’t that they’re mustache twirling psychos. It’s if there’s only one button, and it does boring normal international stuff, except better. Stuff like bombings or economic pressure. If the AI is just going to give someone an advantage, I want that someone to be me.

Well, I guess there’s also the risk that it has zero buttons, and just starts killing. Then it doesn’t really matter who made it. Unless you think some countries are more likely to be careful than others.

Lesser AI systems, yes. But superintelligence, if both the doomers and optimists are to be believed, will have such a power that it will be capable of creating a paradise, in which case it doesn't matter who gets it, because that's what every human on earth would ask it to do with the exception of a few lunatics who are vastly unlikely to be the ones in the position to make the decision. Or it will kill everyone because we couldn't figure out how to get it to follow instructions, in which case it doesn't matter who gets it.

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