Anthony Flack wrote: Tue Dec 12, 2023 2:23 pm A self-driving car is statistically much less likely to cause a fatal accident than one driven by Matthew Broderick.

But it wasn't, until Matthew Broderick.

The only winning move is not to Matthew Broderick.

Learned about Rosko's Basilisk over the weekend, which I guess is just a modernized version of Pascal's Wager? I'm not a student of philosophy but they feel a bit samey. Have we just traded Gods? A tekno version of the spectral one. Scary stuff. I'm for getting rid of everything and living in a forest.

rsmurphy wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2023 10:44 amLearned about Rosko's Basilisk over the weekend, which I guess is just a modernized version of Pascal's Wager? Scary stuff.

Only the tip of the iceberg as far as AI theology goes. There are folks who go into some dark and depraved territories. Usually some version of enslavement under a machine-god, but rendered as something exciting.

kokorodoko wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2023 11:03 amUsually some version of enslavement under a machine-god, but rendered as something exciting.

Like the latest smart phones and home automation systems. We have arrived at the realization of a Type I civilization on the Kardashev Scale. In the near future we go boom.

Pascal's wager is derp. Disappointing from the man who gave us classics like the Triangle.

This Basilisk is kind of funny if it's causing AI nerds to freak out, but maybe not so funny if it's causing Elon Musk to do more mad things. The fucking basilisk has no reason to punish anyone retrospectively like a robot Anton Chigurh. Being scared of the basilisk is sufficient. And I'm not.

Fear of eternal torment reeks of vanity to me. We're all getting flushed down the Big Toilet of Time; nobody's important enough for any eternal torture virtual reality bullshit. Maybe some people secretly wish there was that much at stake in their ultimately insignificant lives. I'm highly sceptical of any claims about technological singularities anyway, and all the assumptions they make about AI. They usually assume the AI will have both unstoppable godlike powers and reducto ad absurdum motivations.

And now by telling people not to be afraid of the basilisk I have marked myself as an enemy of the basilisk. Well, fuck you basilisk and fuck you too, God.

Anthony Flack wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2023 6:45 pm And now by telling people not to be afraid of the basilisk I have marked myself as an enemy of the basilisk. Well, fuck you basilisk and fuck you too, God.

It's a conundrum! We are all doomed.

I am running out university’s AI Institute’s podcast. The most recent one with Toby is right on topic. Here’s the blurby blurb:

In the second episode of Surfing the Datawave, I talked with Toby Walsh about his new book - Faking It: Artificial Intelligence in a Human World. Toby is a colleague and friend, so this was good fun. We talked about everything from Toby's hopes for AI, his optimism with regard to AI's environmental overheads, the challenges of labour extractivism, the fate of the metaverse, AI's relationships with consciousness, free will, and morality, and more.



https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/s ... 0635376837

It ain't quite there yet...