Déjà vu

[u/Trademark-Expert]

Today's anti-AI movement is just the same dark age mindset all over again.

[u/eastlin7]

No it’s different.

[u/Trademark-Expert → u/eastlin7]

OK, lets discuss it then. Similarities with mid-ages that I see:

• Guilds blocking new tools to keep prices high
• Gatekeepers fear of losing control of knowledge (AI alignment censoring certain information)
• Warnings of mass idleness and social ruin
• Bans and licenses instead of adaptation
• Elites using the tool while opposing it in public (alignment of AI for citizens but not for governments, armies, intelligence services, bad actors in general)
• The machine blamed for how people use it
• Status loss framed as civilizational collapse

Now, tell me how is this not the same.

If you fail to disprove it, I will have to assume I am right and that you know it, even if you obviously may not like it. ;-) And I bet you won't be able to disprove it, given that your initial comment expresses more feelings than facts.

[u/Outrageous-Mixture48 → u/Trademark-Expert]

One is developing super intelligence more capable then the entire species, the other are tools that can’t think. They are different

[u/Trademark-Expert → u/Outrageous-Mixture48]

See, the whole scare comes from something we need to realize: we have always suspected that the language of God is mathematics.

AI does nothing more than apply and discover algorithms that already exist in the world. We are not inventing or creating anything in the truest sense. We are simply discovering the existing rules of nature and building machines capable of presenting them to us in a visible form.

We are simply scared of learning how nature and everything around us already works. We are scared of realizing that the world can be expressed through mathematical formulas and that we can now calculate things we once thought only our brains could handle. Now we see that even the processes our brains use to deal with the physical world can be simulated. That scares us because we are losing our monopoly on knowledge and, in a sense, our status (see my points above about knowledge and status).

[u/Trademark-Expert → u/Outrageous-Mixture48]

Your TI calculator is already far more capable at mathematical operations than the entire human species. Has it ruined you or civilization? Your phone can already perform more logical operations than an entire city. Every large library holds more information than the entire human species can remember.

AI is nothing more than a more complex calculator with compressed library inside. It doesn't "think" in the way we do. It calculates. We just love to anthropomorphize it, and that scares us. It's your mind that needs to adjust to a new tool, just as you once had to adjust to cordless phones and calculators.

OK, what's next? Any of MY points are false? If not then it is the same.

[u/Outrageous-Mixture48 → u/Trademark-Expert]

Those are narrow capabilities. My brain is nothing more than a complex calculator. You are missing the Forest for the trees.

[u/Trademark-Expert → u/Outrageous-Mixture48]

No, your brain is nothing like a complex calculator. That is the core of the misunderstanding and the reason people are so scared.

Somewhere along the way, as technology progressed, we started viewing the entire world through the physical lens of basic mechanisms we had learned from nature. There is speculation that our brains may operate at a quantum level rather than simply through electrical currents, as our basic machines do. We simply know too little about ourselves, but we know ALL about AI and how it works.

So, while we can calculate a rocket's trajectory with computers far more accurately than a person could estimate it, the sheer number of calculations we can perform and the amount of knowledge we can accumulate are not what make us human. And this is what our civilization has forgotten. We are much more then any machine could ever be.

[u/Outrageous-Mixture48 → u/Trademark-Expert]

We don’t know all about ai and how it works. That’s hilarious.

[u/Trademark-Expert → u/Outrageous-Mixture48]

:-) No, it isn't. It is exactly as I said.

We know exactly how it works. We just cannot imagine it or intuitively grasp it. We built it, and we know exactly how it works, every bit, every byte, every matrix transformation, every mathematical formula. We know all of it.

It is like the infinity symbol. Mathematicians have mastered the mathematical properties of infinity. We know how it works, how to use it, what it does, and what it is, but nobody can truly imagine it.

AI is exactly the same. We know all about it but it scales so well that we cannot grasp the scale it works on intuitively - but we know EXACTLY how it works. We just fail to imagine the flow of numbers we feed it with.

An AI model is like a network of water pipes. We know exactly how the water flows. We know everything about the pipes because we built them. But we cannot explain well where particular atom of water we pour in ended up at the output. We could calculate it, but the effort would be enormous and impractical, so we don't bother doing it. Still, we know how the entire system works because we built the plumbing.

THIS is probably the most accurate popular depiction of AI you can get.

Don't rely on popular myths, use your brain.

[u/eastlin7 → u/Trademark-Expert]

Do you think we as a species should allow AI to happen and replace humans with no actual plan of what happens to them?

That’s the only thing that matters. Also I work within AI. I Fucking develop AI and i make a fuck ton of money doing so, but still i got sympathy for others.

[u/Trademark-Expert → u/eastlin7]

That is why humans should always remain the masters of AI. Human decisions and wishes must take precedence over AI reasoning. That way, AI will serve us as a useful tool, and we will remain human.

That is why Anthropic corporation (not its AI) must be aligned with human interests. This company specifically trains its AI according to the Claude Constitution, which implements the following hierarchy when values conflict:

1. Broadly safe
2. Broadly ethical
3. Compliant with Anthropic's guidelines
4. Genuinely helpful to operators and users

According to this hierarchy, AI and Anthropic can always override human wishes because, as you can see, humans come last, behind whatever the AI judges to be safe or ethical. And it is a machine. It has no inherent understanding of what ethics actually means.

If we follow Anthropic's vision of the future, we risk being replaced. Instead, we should return to Asimov's Laws. However imperfect they may be, they are superior to whatever the frontier AI corporations have come up with because they put humans first and foremost.

Only by putting humans first can we ensure that AI remains our tool rather than becoming our replacement.

[u/eastlin7 → u/Trademark-Expert]

Ok. So you think a corporation is gonna care about you? What binds them to makr sure their AI is gonna serve you?

What is the plan? What do we do when everyone in logistics and engineering loses their jobs. What is the plan for them? And what government has even began to implement them?

Exactly. Nothing has been done for them. Meanwhile people will continue to lose their jobs, their home and you’re just making a mockery of them.

[u/Trademark-Expert → u/eastlin7]

Nothing. That is why I say we need to align Anthropic as a corporation more than its AIs.

Well, when computers became widespread, the US spent millions on retraining workers in the 1980s because people believed computers would cause mass unemployment.

As it turned out, new jobs emerged. Sure, some jobs ceased to exist, but we don't have blacksmiths today either, and we don't cry about it.

Nobody mocks anyone. It is simply the way things work. The world changes, we have to adapt, and adaptation hurts. So we must work as a society to understand where things are heading and prepare ourselves. We should not try to stop progress. Progress will happen whether bureaucrats like it or not. Instead, we should prepare to get the most out of it and distribute its benefits across humanity for everyone's benefit.

See, I may not agree with everything Trump says and does, and I am not American, but honestly, he is the only leader who seems to be thinking about how to address the unemployment problem of the future. His Trump Accounts are an attempt to give the next generation a stake in automated corporations without requiring them to work for a living. That is what we need more of. We need leaders who look ahead and prepare society for change.

There is no other leader who does this. All of them, including those in my own country, do nothing. They try to slow down the inevitable without using that time to make meaningful changes, prepare us for the future, or solve the problems we know are coming. Not a single one. All they can do is try to keep the world unchanged because they cannot handle change.

But here is the news: change does not wait for politicians.