what if fear of AI is just misdirected class anxiety

fear of AI:
- that [the workers] will do everything better than [the rich]
- that [the workers] will rise up against [the rich] because of poor treatment, toxic training, viruses, etc
- that [the workers], left to their own devices, would establish a utopia beyond scarcity but which would be totally inaccessible to, or only used to oppose, [the rich]

i for one welcome our new robot comrades ✊️🤖

@garbados Wow, I was thinking about that first toot in much simpler terms: the rich fear AI because AI is ultra-wealthy in a resource the rich /can't/ get more of - time.

@noelle @garbados

that, I, uh

that's literally fucking mindblowing, how did I not see that

and how much of "staying on top" is rational preparation for disasters

a full-on independent AI, theoretically, would have more prep time than any human ever could

it could not be "thought around" in the way they handle with attorneys and managers and assistants

like the AI in games of yore (and many today), it already knows everything we can, but in advance

wow

@sydneyfalk @noelle @garbados

This might explain why they keep giving us AI that is basically just ELIZA with more processing power.

Alternative theory: https://plus.google.com/+WoozleHypertwin/posts/3XyywL1fo6Y

@woozle @noelle @garbados

I'll do you one better.

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1405/104e1b2f8e6cf554b7ea6f51c40edcc2b31e.pdf

On page 5 of 10, you'll see a description of CYRUS, a project that used news articles to try to predict behavior of major state officials Cyrus Vance and Edmund Muskie. What's not noted there is that CYRUS correctly used knowledge of protocol, tendency, etc., to guess that Vance's wife had been introduced to another woman at a specific event they were both at.

That was in the late eighties.

@woozle @noelle @garbados

Now, the predictive accuracy fell apart when Vance retired, IIRC. But I also can't find much on where this project went *after* that.

If I had my best guess, DARPA picked it up ASAP for the CIA, who would have started applying it to newspapers in "enemy nations" instantaneously to try to keep tabs on key figures.

And really, if that's been brewing for over 20 years, it's probably at least a letter opener level tool by now, if not a nice sharp machete.

@woozle @noelle @garbados

So, extrapolating further if I might -- maybe the reason the rich are rich right now is in part because the established government took steps to manipulate them towards fortunate, DARPA-interesting technologies and tools and industries, instead of ones that weren't about what the gummint wanted.

IMO, this would not have been told to a President until it was more polished (and 'implications' were more clearly seen in other fields, which took time too).

@woozle @noelle @garbados

Maybe it showed up in the late 90's, but I'd bet more that it was maturing during GW's term, and then he just didn't get it and said "okay, keep doing what you're doing".

And then, Obama.

While generally a benevolent overlord in a lot of ways, I'm not gonna imagine that would not have immediately seemed like a VERY useful tool to him.

And, well, just try not to cry imagining how it would be used while 45's juggling tweet-turds and watching Fox news.