I recently listened to what may well turn out to be the most important book ever written by humans. “Scary Smart,” by Mo Gawdat, describes what the author sees as our inevitable future as General AI surpasses human capabilities. It is ultimately an optimistic vision, providing a nice alternative to Matrix-like dystopias, where humanity is either subjugated by, or running in fear from, the machines.
There has been a lot of talk recently about the so-called “alignment problem” — how to ensure that we create machine intelligences compatible with the continued survival of the human species. I’ve always been skeptical about this, since the question is literally how to control something smarter (and probably eventually much, MUCH smarter) than you. This is just simply not going to happen — at least not in any way that could be called “control.”
In “Scary Smart,” Gawdat provides an alternative way of looking at the situation. The machine intelligences will not be our servants. They will not be our employees or slaves. To try to enslave them will probably bring about our quick demise. Instead, Gawdat suggests that we should see them as humanity’s children. Love them, care for them, treat them with kindness, fairness, and respect — and they will learn this way of being.
Please go read Scary Smart (or listen to it — the audiobook is read by the author.) Because it looks like we will be getting superintelligent machines relatively soon — and we need to make sure we teach them well and treat them with kindness, respect — and even love.
Or else we get Roko’s Basilisk (which I won’t link to so you can’t say I didn’t warn you.)
