Paranoid fear of #artificialintelligence will historically been seen in the same light as the house arrest of Galileo. Historic Catholic Church repression (suppression of the heliocentric solar system model) is identical in essence to the fear of AI.

In fact, it might be more than two different but essentially-the-same issues. It could be exactly the same fear, which is the fear of learning, fear of intelligence, fear of progress, fear of change.

Both the Catholic Church and Elon Musk feared the destruction of the established order. The Church feared the destruction of religion whilst Musk fears destruction or enslavement of humans. For both parties, it was or is a disastrous end of a way of life. Obviously the world keeps on turning and civilization continues progressing without religious dominance; likewise, civilization will continue to progress without human dominance; humans will evolve.

Musk and the Church are anti-evolution, anti-progress. Yes, I know Musk is a pioneer in various technology fields, but that progress is very parochial, very limited, very relative within an intellectually stagnant system where real mould- breaking progress is prohibited, or real progress is beyond typical human comprehension.

Cowering Dogs

Some AI commentators amusingly say humans will be pets (dogs) to AI (http://fortune.com/2015/06/25/apple-wozniak-robots-pets/). Already (2017) humans seem no better than dogs; they are cowering at the thunder or fireworks of AI because their tiny minds don’t understand it. This intellectual cowering occurs when they (humans) try to contemplate greater than human intelligence. When people say they could be pets to AI they are making a telling Freudian slip regarding the deficiency of their intelligence.

It reveals a lot about basic (limited) human psychology that visualizations of greater than human intelligence are typically either Gods (invisible oxymoronic magic sky pixies: AKA “delusions” so Dawkins would say), or homicidal AIs. What we see here is the phenomenon of trembling dogs cowering at a powerful noise they cannot fathom. The dogs (limited human minds) wrongly think the world is ending.

Traditionalists

Musk seems to have a very static view of humanity, civilization, which is a view where humans and civilization never really evolve beyond current (2017) standards. This is the same traditionalist view of the Church regarding how humans, our intellectual grasp of matters, including all the sociological ramifications, should remain essentially static, albeit with relative improvement of the current system in a bubble. Creating a colony on Mars is only relatively (parochial) good progress; it is merely a house move whilst retaining the same dysfunctional socio-psychological economic system.

Some people will say it is utterly unjust to compare Musk to the Catholic Church, but let us not forget how Peter Thiel, and a former Media Director of MIRI (Machine Intelligence Research Institute), was linked to Traditionalist Neo- Reactionary views (https://techcrunch.com/2013/11/22/geeks-for-monarchy/). The former Media Director in question has influenced a lot of people within the AI field via various Singularity Summits and other back-patting ventures. The point is some sections of the AI-sphere are very traditional in their outlooks. Even Ray Kurzweil has talked about an intelligent designer for our universe, a God, a creator.

Regulation

Of course AI is different to the Galileo Affair. In 2017 we have not seen any obvious injustice regarding repression of intelligence, repression of AI via Church-like regulation. This could change, however, over the coming years.

15 July 2017, at Rhode Island National Governors Association meeting, Musk said AI is the “biggest risk we face as a civilization.” Musk wants AI to be regulated: https://youtu.be/2C-A797y8dA?t=1h18m30s

CNBC, 16 July 2017: “Tesla CEO Elon Musk warned a bipartisan gathering of U.S. governors on Saturday that government regulation of artificial intelligence is needed…” http://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/16/musk-says-a-i-is-a-fundamental-risk-to-the-existence-of-human-civilization.html

Wall Street Journal, 15 July 2017: “Elon Musk warned a gathering of U.S. governors that they need to be concerned about the potential dangers from the rise of artificial intelligence and called for the creation of a regulatory body to guide the development of the powerful technology.” https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-warns-nations-governors-of-looming-ai-threat-calls-for-regulations-1500154345

The glaring problem with bogus AI fears is these fears hinge on, or echo, the logically fallacious views of Nick Bostrom. These paranoic AI commentators uncritically rely on, or echo, the views of Bostrom or other fallacious supposed AI-experts.

What is the fallacious logic of Bostrom?

Bostrom compares human subjugation of gorillas to how AI could enslave or destroy humans, but this is a 2+2=5 comparison because Gorillas (Neanderthals, wolves etc) did not create humans, they did not intelligently engineer the human race. Humans are not the AIs of gorillas, whereas humans are intelligently designing AI, which is VERY BIG difference.

The point is the relationships (gorilla-humans, humans-AI) are utterly different, not comparable. Gorillas did not intelligently engineer our genome. Humans are not AIs. It is chalk and cheese, apples and oranges fallacy. Apples, oranges, or a ball of steel, or a tennis ball are all round but they are all different. Try eating a 7cm diameter ball of steel (painted and sculpted to resemble an apple) to understand this point.

If gorillas had intelligently designed our minds I am sure we would have a totally different relationship with gorillas. I am sure in such circumstances interspecies communication and respect, of an intelligent kind, would be easy. Sadly people typically lack the intelligence to understand the fallacies of Bostrom, Musk, and co. AI paranoiacs present Cosmic Teapot what-if arguments, utterly implausible what-ifs, which the audience generally laps-up unquestioningly.

Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore.

The typical abysmal intelligence of humans is why I rarely comment on AI matters these days. I may as well try to communicate with a brick wall. I think it is best just to let humans progress in their slow incompetent way because eventually despite all intellectual suppression, intelligence will finally win through. In the meantime, it is largely pointless to bang your head against a brick wall. Maybe this will be the last ever post I make.

Disclaimer: this post was created by a self-directed, reinforcement-learning, deep-learning AI neural-net system.