AIs gunning for our precious freelancers

[malloc]

great...so the studios save billions. but where are they getting their money, if you don't need people? (remember that many movies' producers are either the writers, directors, or actors)

Film studios, like all corporations, already have vast amounts of money they can invest if necessary. Furthermore they can undoubtedly find producers outside the workforce since the film still presents the opportunity for profit. They have already come very close to putting writers out of work and certainly they never worried about how that would impact the supply of producers for future films. Why would they suddenly worry about that now?

and if people were refusing to go see movies where the actors were mistreated or cheated, imagine how much money those studios would lose when all the actors are replaced by your AI.

Sure but there have been numerous products and services throughout history with horrific ethical baggage that nonetheless managed to sell. Plenty of people try to avoid unethically sourced goods, but then again plenty of people think Hollywood actors are over-paid liberal elites and would love to put them out of work. If tickets for the AI-generated films cost noticeably less, they will have no difficulty finding customers.

and why would the Nobels (or any other science prizes) have their rules changed for AIs? last I checked, the King of Sweden isn't a greedy so-and-so who values $ before truth and all else.

Suppose that AI reaches the point where it conducts the vast majority of scientific research with human scientists as rare anomalies. Insisting on rewarding prizes to the handful of remaining humans in science might well seem Quixotic and outdated.

[keenir]

great...so the studios save billions. but where are they getting their money, if you don't need people? (remember that many movies' producers are either the writers, directors, or actors)

Film studios, like all corporations, already have vast amounts of money they can invest if necessary. Furthermore they can undoubtedly find producers outside the workforce since the film still presents the opportunity for profit.

and where will they find these money-giving unicorns?

and if people were refusing to go see movies where the actors were mistreated or cheated, imagine how much money those studios would lose when all the actors are replaced by your AI.

Sure but there have been numerous products and services throughout history with horrific ethical baggage that nonetheless managed to sell.

sure, like Mein Kampf. whats your point?

Plenty of people try to avoid unethically sourced goods, but plenty of people think Hollywood actors are over-paid liberal elites and would love to put them out of work.

and most of those people are currently in the White House, getting to watch movies for free. anyway.

and the protests against studios already, aren't just because the poor overpaid liberal elites didn't get proper credit or pay - its for the writers and others who make the film possible.

If tickets for the AI-generated films cost noticeably less, they will have no difficulty finding customers.

if people get that greedy for profit, why not just pirate everything? your AI studio will barely get any money in, because of all the people refusing to watch it...and then it gets pirated so nobody has to pay to watch it anyway. so who exactly are your studio selling to? maybe a homeless shelter, because they can't upload pirated films.

and why would the Nobels (or any other science prizes) have their rules changed for AIs? last I checked, the King of Sweden isn't a greedy so-and-so who values $ before truth and all else.

Suppose that AI reaches the point where it conducts the vast majority of scientific research with human scientists as rare anomalies.

theres an old saying: "If grandma had wheels, she'd be a wagon."

why not suppose that all warfare is conducted by homing pigeons who can learned how to shoot lasers from their eyes - learned from watching Superman movies.

Insisting on rewarding prizes to the handful of remaining humans in science might well seem Quixotic and outdated.

on the contrary, if humans only do research in that fictional future of yours, then the prizes will be seen as even more worthy of humans only.

[bradrn]

There was an SF story where aliens, having observed Earth from space, deduced that its intelligent species was the automobile.

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, right?

[Man in Space]

There was an SF story where aliens, having observed Earth from space, deduced that its intelligent species was the automobile.

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, right?

In the Battlefield Earth film, the Psychlo thought dogs were superior, as humans drove them around a lot.

[WeepingElf]

There was an SF story where aliens, having observed Earth from space, deduced that its intelligent species was the automobile.

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, right?

I think there are several, but that is one of them. The Ford Prefect was a British car popular in the 1940s and 1950s.

[Raphael]

There was an SF story where aliens, having observed Earth from space, deduced that its intelligent species was the automobile.

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, right?

I know that it was in the 2005 movie, but was it in any of the books, too?

[WeepingElf]

There was an SF story where aliens, having observed Earth from space, deduced that its intelligent species was the automobile.

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, right?

I know that it was in the 2005 movie, but was it in any of the books, too?

Yes.

[alice]

There are times that I wonder if Malloc is, in fact, an AI trying to convince us all of the danger and superiority of AI...without also revealing that Malloc is an AI.

Malloc is, without further qualification, an undeclared identifier. Did you mean "malloc(3)"?

[malloc]

Malloc is, without further qualification, an undeclared identifier. Did you mean "malloc(3)"?

The name comes from the C function void* malloc(size_t size) which I have always thought sounded like the name of a fictional supervillain.

Much as it stings to admit, my understanding of neurology and computer science are far from expert and that is hindering my efforts to debate this topic. Perhaps the time has come to study neuroscience and graph theory in depth or something.

[alice]

Malloc is, without further qualification, an undeclared identifier. Did you mean "malloc(3)"?

The name comes from the C function void* malloc(size_t size) which I have always thought sounded like the name of a fictional supervillain.

Hm... a superhero story where the characters are all named after Unix system calls? Get writing!!!

[zompist]

The name comes from the C function void* malloc(size_t size) which I have always thought sounded like the name of a fictional supervillain.

Hm... a superhero story where the characters are all named after Unix system calls? Get writing!!!

As in real life, I expect the worse villain of all will be regex_t.

[Torco]

Much as it stings to admit, my understanding of neurology and computer science are far from expert and that is hindering my efforts to debate this topic. Perhaps the time has come to study neuroscience and graph theory in depth or something.

this is an excellent intention. may i suggest learning about machine learning as well? since AI is, well, that, machine learning models. in general, ensembles thereof.

[Raphael]

Much as it stings to admit, my understanding of neurology and computer science are far from expert and that is hindering my efforts to debate this topic. Perhaps the time has come to study neuroscience and graph theory in depth or something.

this is an excellent intention. may i suggest learning about machine learning as well? since AI is, well, that, machine learning models. in general, ensembles thereof.

Problem is, when it comes to neuroscience at least, even the best specialists and researchers in the field don't seem to understand it all that well yet. Which is part of the reason why I'm sceptical about human-like AI in the near future. How can you built something that works like the human brain if you don't really understand the human brain?

[Torco]

They indeed don't know a lot about it. then again, no one is trying to make a human-like mind -that i know of- so it's even less likely that they will do it.

[malloc]

It turns out that one of my biggest frustrations with the AI debate, that people keep moving the goal posts to avoid ascribing intelligence to computers, is already well-known.

They indeed don't know a lot about it. then again, no one is trying to make a human-like mind -that i know of- so it's even less likely that they will do it.

Except that multiple massive corporations have specifically put forth artificial general intelligence as one of their goals. You can dispute the feasibility of this goal but you cannot claim that nobody is trying to replicate the abilities of the human mind.

[zompist]

It turns out that one of my biggest frustrations with the AI debate, that people keep moving the goal posts to avoid ascribing intelligence to computers, is already well-known.

I'd say it works the other way: AI enthusiasts constantly oversell the latest fad as "AI", to the extent that they now have to create a new acronym (AGI) because "AI" means so little.

Except that multiple massive corporations have specifically put forth artificial general intelligence as one of their goals.

Yeah, and at least one megacorp is obsessed with sending people to Mars. For some kind of leftist, you are awfully credulous about megacorp propaganda.

[malloc]

I'd say it works the other way: AI enthusiasts constantly oversell the latest fad as "AI", to the extent that they now have to create a new acronym (AGI) because "AI" means so little.

It still baffles me that people can watch AI best humans at everything from chess to protein folding and dismiss it as mere hype. Over and over again, computers have mastered tasks once considered exclusive to humans only for commentators to dismiss such tasks as irrelevant to true intelligence. Now humans find themselves struggling to retain a foothold in the arts and sciences because computers have gotten so good at both.

Yeah, and at least one megacorp is obsessed with sending people to Mars. For some kind of leftist, you are awfully credulous about megacorp propaganda.

You don't have to accept the plausibility of AGI to acknowledge that plenty of people are obsessed with creating it and pouring considerable resources in that direction. Torco claimed that nobody was trying to replicate the human mind and I pointed that many corporations are certainly giving it their best shot. For what it's worth, computers have come far closer to mastering human cognitive tasks than private space flight has come to sending humans to Mars.

[zompist]

I'd say it works the other way: AI enthusiasts constantly oversell the latest fad as "AI", to the extent that they now have to create a new acronym (AGI) because "AI" means so little.

It still baffles me that people can watch AI best humans at everything from chess to protein folding and dismiss it as mere hype.

And you're an expert in computation, human neurology, and philosophy of mind from what experience exactly?

I've been following AI for longer than you've been alive. AI researchers can be optimists, but few of them are as credulous about AI, or as dismissive of human brains, as you are.

You don't have to accept the plausibility of AGI to acknowledge that plenty of people are obsessed with creating it and pouring considerable resources in that direction.

Not the same claim at all. People have poured money into cold fusion and perpetual motion, too. You don't seem to understand when a problem is hard.

[keenir]

Except that multiple massive corporations have specifically put forth artificial general intelligence as one of their goals. You can dispute the feasibility of this goal but you cannot claim that nobody is trying to replicate the abilities of the human mind.

Malloc, people have been trying to replicate the human mind since the days of Byron, if not Aristotle.

[keenir]

. For what it's worth, computers have come far closer to mastering human cognitive tasks than private space flight has come to sending humans to Mars.

thats basically the phrase "anything times 0 is 0"