A more worthwhile aspiration would be narrower and more concrete, such as building AI systems that reduce medical diagnostic errors by 30%. Or in education, improving math proficiency in students by 15%. Or systems that could enhance energy grids to reduce carbon emissions by 20%. Such goals not only have clear metrics for success but serve concrete human needs, just as AI builders like Altman and Hassabis originally envisioned.
It's not one or the other. AI labs are building foundational models and the next layer will build on top of them to improve medical diagnostics, education, etc. There are plenty of LLM wrapper startups with those exact goals.
Trouble with many of those small number goals is that they don't really get you anywhere.
MYCIN was an accurate medical diagnosis and prescription system in the 1970s [1] but was rejected by the world. It's not clear that test scores are part of the solution or part of the problem in education. It's not enough to reduce carbon emissions by 20%, we have to reduce them by 100% and the lack of a plan to do so makes anything a political loser: people who are opposed to taking action are going to be opposed anyway, people who want to see action are going be despirited, the ecosystem doesn't care but it will dump our asses off Spaceship Earth anyway. (And it just takes a 20% increase in energy demand to wipe out that 20% efficiency gain)
I'm imagining a Mozilla style tracker dashboard arewegodyet.com with progress markers at "human", "superhuman", "HAL", "skynet", "greek god", "luflcifer", "torment nexus" etc.
I vaguely recall an old SF short story, where several mega-ego leaders managed to build a few close-enough "Godlike" AI's.
The first major move by the new Gods? Team up and wipe out the leaders responsible for their construction. Then the credible wanna-be's still trying. All those folks had been plausible threats. (Vague about whether the threat was demanding servitude, replacing them with newer/bigger AI's, or what.)
The story ended ambiguously - with the AI's claiming that they were benevolently inclined toward the "sane 99.99%" of humanity. Who, after all, were their supply chain for replacement parts and such.
There is a scene in there where he walks in front of a dot matrix sign with excellent blocking, I've always wanted to make a meme generator that would let you change what's on that sign in a video but I made this card to troll a robotics lab that had a broken electronic sign in front:
Trouble with many of those small number goals is that they don't really get you anywhere.
MYCIN was an accurate medical diagnosis and prescription system in the 1970s [1] but was rejected by the world. It's not clear that test scores are part of the solution or part of the problem in education. It's not enough to reduce carbon emissions by 20%, we have to reduce them by 100% and the lack of a plan to do so makes anything a political loser: people who are opposed to taking action are going to be opposed anyway, people who want to see action are going be despirited, the ecosystem doesn't care but it will dump our asses off Spaceship Earth anyway. (And it just takes a 20% increase in energy demand to wipe out that 20% efficiency gain)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycin
I'm imagining a Mozilla style tracker dashboard arewegodyet.com with progress markers at "human", "superhuman", "HAL", "skynet", "greek god", "luflcifer", "torment nexus" etc.
I don't know if they're really trying, they're just talking about it.
I vaguely recall an old SF short story, where several mega-ego leaders managed to build a few close-enough "Godlike" AI's.
The first major move by the new Gods? Team up and wipe out the leaders responsible for their construction. Then the credible wanna-be's still trying. All those folks had been plausible threats. (Vague about whether the threat was demanding servitude, replacing them with newer/bigger AI's, or what.)
The story ended ambiguously - with the AI's claiming that they were benevolently inclined toward the "sane 99.99%" of humanity. Who, after all, were their supply chain for replacement parts and such.
Not sure if it is the same story, but the canonical story like that is
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus:_The_Forbin_Project
which has one of the best YouTube trailers ever.
There is a scene in there where he walks in front of a dot matrix sign with excellent blocking, I've always wanted to make a meme generator that would let you change what's on that sign in a video but I made this card to troll a robotics lab that had a broken electronic sign in front:
https://mastodon.social/@UP8/110509955369680945
This headline is scary
https://archive.is/QYriu