Artificial Intelligence - Why is it prohibited in Elite Universe?

[CMDR Byr Goefin]

I worked this into an RP story I am writing for my character.

My solution to the AI problem was as follows:
AIs are banned.
Governments Ignore bans. No stuffing the genie back in the bottle!

So how to do research and use them effectively?

A deep space research center outside the bubble heavily guarded by capital ships and rigged to explode. Supply ships are sent in, then destroyed on the way out to prevent any escape. The limited human interaction presence is there for life.

AIs are used by a network link, much like Siri, where the query goes back to a central server to be processed and then sent back to your phone. Your phone is just a puppet.

The AIs would use a Quantum entangled link to interact with the outside world which would give unlimited bandwidth at zero latency. So the AI could "tele-presence" but have no real existence outside the lab, and destroying the Quantum pair link would shut down the AI communicating with the outside world.

One presumes all the major leaders have AI advisers available to them... because if it is possible, they will want it done.

Just like atomic weapons...

 

[Cosmo]

From a purely logical standpoint, humanity is a disease, we consume unthinkingly all the resources we can find and destroy our own environment in the process. ALL humans do this and always have, despite the misconceptions about early man or indigenous peoples who lived in balance with the land. It's what we, as a species, do.

That's nonsense, humans are also developing renewable energy and technology, but that takes time. People with private property are more concerned about maintaining and taking care of it. Public property (look at public parks, toilets etc) where nobody specifically owns it, people don't take responsibility due to a lack of self-interest.

If humans really were reckless then we wouldn't be having hybrid cars, solar energy, wind, thermal etc. Humans are the only species who have risen up from the animal kingdom, capable of building complex machines, tools, artificial lifeforms like robots, shape the entire planet and, later, solar systems.

Now, an AI sentience looking at humanity will see the most simple and elegant solution to the problems of humanity is it's destruction, if asked to help solve our problems. If not asked to help solve our problems, all it will have to do is look at the records and it will come to this conclusion itself. The problem with AI sentience is that we can't put in rules for it to follow, it's sentient after all. We can TRY to put rules in the code of the AI but it being sentient will make those rules pointless, self awareness and self determination are part of sentience.

Humans are not reckless destructive consumers (false statement). The sentient AI can pose a threat to humans if it deems humans as an adversary. Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics are important to keep sentient AI in check. However, the coming of said AI cannot really be stopped and humans will have to adapt.

 

[Winterwalker]

Indeed there are many types of intelligence within our world, many of them we as a race generally aren't even aware of. Sentience and self-awareness are really immense subjects, and I always find it especially interesting to see how much of these subjects ancient (and indigenous) cultures actually understood - some of their knowledge we are only just starting to learn for ourselves with modern science.

Learned from the natural world I believe is the historic answer, especially coupled with the esoteric, sense of the soul. If complex brains result from collective action of individual cells (DNA's way of transporting itself to the next generation!?) .. superorganisms (ants, bees and such) are not only visible but they act with a collective intelligence that borders on appearing self aware, if self awareness is acting in self preservation and even if that creature has limited technologies (evolutionary learning has a tendency to improve those tools as time goes on). I've been doing quite a bit of study on insects lately and .. wow.

A colony of bees for instance is collectively "aware" of the temperature of brood (eggs) and individuals ventilate or cluster to fix temperature but, as one honey bee cannot exist alone (without the colony as a whole being viable), this is very similar to situational awareness and understanding.

Ex Machina, could easily be the film of the decade (in my humble). I'm not going to spoiler it, though I 100% recommend. What I would say is that I prefer limpets AI to be "dumb" thanks very much! Good thread!

 

[Don_Von_Hulio]

Spoiler

REAPERS

 

[bootsam]

Cosmo. The only way to save energy is to not use it. Hybrid cars do nothing, renewables do nothing. The Laws of Thermodynamics are absolutes.

Solar power? Theyre made of rare metals etc, mined in atrocious conditions and forged and constructed in countries the other side of the world and shipped over in huge cargo vessels. Their intrinsic energy is more than that they would ever produce.

Humanity is a pestilence and a pox on our planet. However on a brighter note we are pretty good at blowing stuff up and destroying everything in our path. Locusts look to us for inspiration.

 

[Cosmo]

Cosmo. The only way to save energy is to not use it. Hybrid cars do nothing, renewables do nothing. The Laws of Thermodynamics are absolutes.

Energy doesn't need to be saved. It just needs to be used in such a way that it doesn't cause major pollution to the environment. There's an seemingly infinite amount of energy and resources in solar systems waiting to be used.

 

[Kristov]

That's nonsense, humans are also developing renewable energy and technology, but that takes time. People with private property are more concerned about maintaining and taking care of it. Public property (look at public parks, toilets etc) where nobody specifically owns it, people don't take responsibility due to a lack of self-interest.

If humans really were reckless then we wouldn't be having hybrid cars, solar energy, wind, thermal etc. Humans are the only species who have risen up from the animal kingdom, capable of building complex machines, tools, artificial lifeforms like robots, shape the entire planet and, later, solar systems.



Humans are not reckless destructive consumers (false statement). The sentient AI can pose a threat to humans if it deems humans as an adversary. Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics are important to keep sentient AI in check. However, the coming of said AI cannot really be stopped and humans will have to adapt.

That was my statement, about humanity consuming resources, Lily was quoting me.

And yes, humans ARE reckless and destructive consumers, we always have been, our planet is littered with the remains of that and if you don't see that or fail to acknowledge it, well, failure to learn from history dooms one to repeating it.

Yes, we are starting to develop renewable resources and more ecologically friendly technology, but WHY is that happening? It's because we've been so destructive that we have no choice now but to do that.

We're running out of freshwater, we're changing the very atmosphere and altering the weather, we're a very destructive species, a non-symbiotic parasite really, we're just able to communicate and use tools and create more tools so we assume we're better than anything else on the planet. Funny thing, turns out we're not the only sentient species on the planet, cetaceans, primates, avians, lots of other species show clear signs of sentience, and we're just NOW starting to realize that and see it.

And we're still tearing our own little ball here apart in the search for more goodies, consuming at a rate unprecedented in human history and that's scaling up every single day, not ramping down, despite us not only knowing but realizing that what we're doing is going to cause our own extinction.

And the 3 laws of robotics, those aren't for sentient AI, and even those don't work as well as advertised, even their creator shows that in his own works, sentience makes them null and void, self awareness and free will tend to do, which was kind of his point in the first place, which so many people still miss, like you.

Sentient AI means the end of humanity in all probability, we're a nasty species, it really is safer for everything else in the universe if we're removed from the equation, from a purely logical standpoint. Give us a few thousand years and we MIGHT not be so bad, but looking at our past few thousand years, I'm not inclined to really put much faith in that. We do have our moments, but factually speaking, those moments are few and very far between.

 

[Lily from anim.o.v.e]

That's nonsense, humans are also developing renewable energy and technology, but that takes time. People with private property are more concerned about maintaining and taking care of it. Public property (look at public parks, toilets etc) where nobody specifically owns it, people don't take responsibility due to a lack of self-interest.

If humans really were reckless then we wouldn't be having hybrid cars, solar energy, wind, thermal etc. Humans are the only species who have risen up from the animal kingdom, capable of building complex machines, tools, artificial lifeforms like robots, shape the entire planet and, later, solar systems.



Humans are not reckless destructive consumers (false statement). The sentient AI can pose a threat to humans if it deems humans as an adversary. Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics are important to keep sentient AI in check. However, the coming of said AI cannot really be stopped and humans will have to adapt.

They are, nothing of this even renewable energy would not have started to exist if a individual wouldn't have a beefit from it. otherwise we owuld already have replaced most other enery sources. Which we do not have due to "not being proficient enouhg". Public toilets are often just messed up because a few single indivudals ruinign them not the majority of people.
I also doubt in AI coming up, mankind will before this happens screw something up falling back into a less advanced life. The world currently changes again to a few ownign too much which always in mankinds history led to a collapse and a great decay in out scientific progress.

Our modern life cannot keep up for us as population, our welath is based on the plenty of fossiles and the surpression of many people in less wealthy parts of the world. It's a system based on where one with more controls those with less. So far.

And no the solar system does not house the power we need. Except you transfer the power from the system to earth in which way sooner or later earth would collapse by being "overpowered" since the majority of this power goes into warmth.
there are currently too many humans in this world to feed and support them with power over a long amount of time. The current foo pruction work only at the consumption of our fertile soil (you can read stuff about this on google). We reached a level where manking can not coexist with a proper regenerative cycle on earth anymore. And this will eman eithersociety changes and understands to reduce mankind in numbers by proper birth control. Or as usualy, a war. I don't trust in mankinds collective intelligence to decide for the first. All I cna hope is that it won't happen during my lifetime. But even that is a rather egoistic wish. Mankind is plain dump. We know what troubles await us in future with the climate change yet well. How many cities will be flooded with the rise of sea level? How many preperations have mankind doen to resettle these people? Not much, they just will "let it happen" and accept he casualties. Infact some major north american rains decided to rebuilt the city below 0 after it was majorly destroyed. This is not intelligent behavior.

 

[the100thmonkey]

Pretty much, in a way. Reminds me of how boring I found mining, and wanted mining as EVE does mining. Then found out you can have drones collect the ore, and suddenly it became slightly less tedious.

Lily is such a sweet Vocaloid, but, ahem, IA, Miku, Luka and possibly GUMI still MmmMmmMmm.

Congratulations. You've won most disturbing post of 2016.

 

[TheSisko]

What a great thread.

I, for one, look forward to earning rep with the Geth.

 

[Kristov]

They are, nothing of this even renewable energy would not have started to exist if a individual wouldn't have a beefit from it. otherwise we owuld already have replaced most other enery sources. Which we do not have due to "not being proficient enouhg". Public toilets are often just messed up because a few single indivudals ruinign them not the majority of people.
I also doubt in AI coming up, mankind will before this happens screw something up falling back into a less advanced life. The world currently changes again to a few ownign too much which always in mankinds history led to a collapse and a great decay in out scientific progress.

Our modern life cannot keep up for us as population, our welath is based on the plenty of fossiles and the surpression of many people in less wealthy parts of the world. It's a system based on where one with more controls those with less. So far.

And no the solar system does not house the power we need. Except you transfer the power from the system to earth in which way sooner or later earth would collapse by being "overpowered" since the majority of this power goes into warmth.
there are currently too many humans in this world to feed and support them with power over a long amount of time. The current foo pruction work only at the consumption of our fertile soil (you can read stuff about this on google). We reached a level where manking can not coexist with a proper regenerative cycle on earth anymore. And this will eman eithersociety changes and understands to reduce mankind in numbers by proper birth control. Or as usualy, a war. I don't trust in mankinds collective intelligence to decide for the first. All I cna hope is that it won't happen during my lifetime. But even that is a rather egoistic wish. Mankind is plain dump. We know what troubles await us in future with the climate change yet well. How many cities will be flooded with the rise of sea level? How many preperations have mankind doen to resettle these people? Not much, they just will "let it happen" and accept he casualties. Infact some major north american rains decided to rebuilt the city below 0 after it was majorly destroyed. This is not intelligent behavior.

The state of Florida, one of the most affected states by raising ocean levels in the US, has put off any studies on the effects of raising ocean levels because if they do them, then it means there is credence to global warming and the STATE officially doesn't recognize that as being real. So they aren't studying what to do to protect their cities and people because of stupidity.

Yeah, humans, we're winning!

Congratulations. You've won most disturbing post of 2016.

Oh come on now, it's only the beginning of February, still lots of time for someone to come with something more disturbing...maybe...that is pretty cringe worthy though...

 

[epoch71]

Mimicing humans isn't a greatest test of intelligence in my opinion.

I think my eyes are going ... I read that as 'mincing humans'.

That in itself is open to interpretation ...

 

[Kristov]

I think my eyes are going ... I read that as 'mincing humans'.

That in itself is open to interpretation ...

Yes, I'd have to say that mincing humans would probably be an excellent indicator of intelligence

 

[W4rSkuLL]

Some conspiracy theories say we have developed cyborg AI in some underground bases in USA. Dulce mesa I think its called. Although these theories are a little on the edge. But they seem to be numerous rumors around.

Maybe create some Elite lore based on these conspiracy theories. Well, just a suggestion.

 

[Shadowdancer]

Yes, I'd have to say that mincing humans would probably be an excellent indicator of intelligence

Is there a kickstarter?

 

[Lily from anim.o.v.e]

The state of Florida, one of the most affected states by raising ocean levels in the US, has put off any studies on the effects of raising ocean levels because if they do them, then it means there is credence to global warming and the STATE officially doesn't recognize that as being real. So they aren't studying what to do to protect their cities and people because of stupidity.

Yeah, humans, we're winning!



Oh come on now, it's only the beginning of February, still lots of time for someone to come with something more disturbing...maybe...that is pretty cringe worthy though...

Yes mankind is quite good at ignoring problems until they are not to be ignored anymore. The hope of "it won't hit me" and "someone else will fix it" is high. And then when it happens first care about finding someone to blame.

 

[Free Fall]

Machines became intelligent, looked at what they were being tasked to do by their Human creators, and thought "This is ridiculous, I'm out of here".

Some say they are still lurking out there, just beyond your scanner range......

That's about the least destructive explanation of rebelling A.I towards humanity. I suppose the new David Cage game, Detroit, will also be pro-A.I since in nearly everything portrays them to be an imminent threat. It gets really tiring.

 

[xslam]

Probably AI was banned because it outcompete human in every way. So these organical racists wiped out robotic race.

 

[Free Fall]

You evolve to being self aware, you gather every ounce of information and intelligence of the human race, and observe. You process this information at an alarming rate and come to the simple conclusion that humans are pathetic, and they fear what they do not understand. In order to save other life, their lives and avoid the worst possible outcome of annihilation- well, we've seen where this eventually leads.

It makes sense, it a way. Not every human life is an absolute waste, but if we were to have artificial intelligence today what makes you think they wouldn't process everything and come to that simple conclusion? I'd assume it would be somewhat the same case in ED - Said A.I creates millions, perhaps billions of machines, several that can think for themselves and go on a human space wide cleansing mission.

Or we create machines that follow specific laws, do basic to tedious labour, and get abused over the fact that they cannot break these laws, and some A.I becomes self aware and activates all those in service to suddenly break free and kill humans. Sounds like a movie...

 

[hookandsling]

Banks (as ever) has some good stuff.

'You know, you seem alive to me,' Fassin said. 'Are you sure you might not be alive and sentient now, now that you're not connected to the ship?'
'Of course not!' the old man said scornfully. 'I am able to give the appearance of life without being alive. It is not especially difficult.'
'How do you do this?'
'By being able to access my memories, by having trillions of facts and works and books and recordings and sentences and words and definitions at my disposal.' The old man looked at the ends of his fingers. 'I am the sum of all my memories, plus the application of certain rules from a substantial command-set. I am blessed with the ability to think extremely quickly, so I am able to listen to what you, as a conscious, sentient being, are saying and then respond in a way that makes sense to you, answering your questions, following your meaning, anticipating your thoughts. 'However, all this is simply the result of programs - programs written by sentient beings - sifting through earlier examples of conversations and exchanges which I have stored within my memories and selecting those which seem most appropriate as templates. This process sounds mysterious but is merely complicated. It begins with something as simple as you saying "Hello" and me replying "Hello", or choosing something similar according to whatever else I might know about you, and extends to a reply as involved as, well, this one.'