To not have children due to the potential threat of AI

[NP101]

I realise this probably makes me sound like a fully paid up member of the tin hat society but I'm increasingly worried about the threat of AI.

It has made me re-evaluate having children as the future looks pretty bleak - I can envisage the internet more or less being unusable in 5 years time and then the subsequent fall out of this - both socially and economically.

I realise I probably would have had similar feelings had I been around in various other points in history and subsequently regretted not having children but this current threat seems even more existential.

Society didn’t break down after the Black Death.

Agreed.

That's patently not going to be the case, not least because the amount of computing resource required to do something like that would be exhorbitantly expensive, and there would be little point to it.
Reminds me of these quotes:

I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.
Thomas Watson, president of IBM, 1943

and Bill Gates : 640K of memory should be enough for everyone

People were much more self-sufficient and mentally and physically much tougher. It's also a much more selfish society

Can you imagine any town or village behaving like the citizens of Eyam nowadays?

No, me neither.

Worried about AI? No.

Worried about war, famine, rising sea levels? Yes.

What the fook

Imagine starting a thread like this and then not engaging with it. How odd

You are right

I have more than a passing interest in computers and AI. Development of such tech has directly impacted my field of work and will continue to do so, to much greater extent than a lot of other industries. I also follow a few developer forums, although I am not a programmer.

Consider the following.

Our world, more specifically the way we interact with our environment and other people has changed dramatically over the past decade. That rate of change will grow exponentially over the next five years, a decade from now there will be technology which today seems like science fiction.

AI will replace (if you believe to forums) upwards of 60% of all jobs. There is a clear developmental path for this. There are no plans in place for what four billion unemployed people will do or how they will support themselves.

There is currently AI in development which can literally read minds. In tests, the machine learning is about 70 percent accurate. For example, when a person involved in the study though about a chicken sandwich, the AI came up with "putting chicken on bread". Currently the participants have to wear a headset and allow their brain waves to be mapped in an MRI scanner. Can you imagine the implications when this tech is developed further, or even perfected. You will have literal thought crime, considering we currently have the police "speaking to people to check their thinking" the development of this tech is absolutely terrifying. But it is real, and it will be coming to the UK.

Think about the millions of CCTV cameras we have in the UK. Can you imagine each one linked up, with facial recognition capability and linked to a digital currency. The GPS systems mandated for all new cars is nothing to do with safety, its to ensure the state has the capability to track every vehicle. And just like in your phone, the microphone in your government mandated built in SOS system can be activated remotely. Your every move, your every word and possibly your every thought WILL be monitored by the state. ULEZ cameras and ANPR are mass surveillance devices. AI will allow the government to piece that data together in a much more efficient way. This tech currently exists and within five years all those systems will be linked.

And that's just a snapshot of our brave new world. Neither the Bank of England nor the EU have made a secret of the fact that they WILL be introducing a CBDC or Central Bank Digital Currency. This will give the state a perfect record of every transaction within the economy.

So a report on a citizen might look something the following.

"Jo Bloggs, 36 years old, NI# 12345567. Woke up at 06:18hrs, looked at his TicTok account for 11 minutes (insert activity) also accessed pornography (site details logged and videos copied to file. Smart appliances recorded coffee x1, toaster used (both slices) and milk (non dairy) removed from fridge. Smart Meter confirms power usage, also TV remote batteries at 22 percentt. Drives vehicle registration 123 ABC, left his residence at 07:26hrs, proceeded along Main St, (recorded speed 27mph in 20mph zone, prosecution authorised). Continued along Main St, turned left onto M89, proceeded West for 11.5 miles. Entered Drive Thru at McDonalds, transaction #1234 recorded at 07:52hrs, amount £4.95. Vehicle audio confirms Breakfast roll (no ketchup) with Latte. Also recorded in conversation with spouse Brenda Bloggs, 34 years old, NI# 987654. Discussed dinner plans and argued over alleged infidelity on the part Mr Bloggs. (Audio records from phone provider accessed and attached to file, please advise local police of possible domestic incident). Arrived at registered place of work at 08:05hrs. (Late arrival at place of work confirmed by cross-reference to shift times on employee rota system) Supervisor has been made aware via "tellus" system.

Just a window into ten minutes of the average persons day once AI is rolled out country wide.

So yeah OP, the world is about to get very ugly.

Think the above can't happen? 90% of the tech needed is already in place. The Alexia devices, the GPS in vehicles, the SOS system in vehicles, the microphone, camera and GPS on your phone, the camera and microphone in your Smart TV, your Smart Meter, your "connected appliances". It just requires a reliable AI system to bring it all together.

People will always have kids regardless
Some people just have an urge to reproduce

Look at people in some of the worst conditions in the world. Extreme heat, no running water, famine and extreme poverty still having children.

Even in the UK there are baby banks so people are deliberately bringing children into poverty.

The urge to have children overrides environmental conditions and quality of life foresight

I've watched a few podcasts about AI and there are definitely some things that are worth thinking about

The processing speed of AI is the thing that I think isn't mentioned enough, I was watching one yesterday and one of the guys said 'put 10 people in an room, no smarter than us, but who are able to work a million times faster than we are, and we say let's meet every 2 weeks and check in. 2 weeks of progress later for us, we go into the room and they have made 20,000 years of progress'

That's just processing speed, nothing to do with intelligence. As soon as a working AGI is developed we will be way out of our depth

I have two children. My goal is to raise them to have good values, to care about the planet and other people and to hold a healthy scepticism of those in authority.

Let's hope there are enough good, principled people who care about the planet and the people who live on it.

While I appreciate the sentiment, the issue is not "Can it be done?", but rather "If anybody had the resources to do it, there would be no incentive for them to do it". It's an economic impediment, not a technological one.

Not only would such a system dedicated to ruining the Internet have to be incredibly expensive and huge, it would need to be running 24/7 permanently because...backups. You'd have to spend billions annually just to keep it going, and for what purpose? Such a system would quickly be isolated, the connections severed, and blocked on a network level because it would rely on services from companies whose entire existence relies on the Internet not being ruined.

💯

That is the problem. We will be outclassed. What happens then?

Well this is a cheery thread 😅 what happened to the good old days of penis beakers.

I honestly have no idea, I wonder if we will eventually try to merge with it in some way, like elons neurolink thing 🤷

Yeah, but the AI robots will just march in and take it. No land for humans allowed .

I agree. It’s not necessarily cockiness - I think there are sadly enough people suffering from anxiety and depression, it wouldn’t help anyone if those who are more optimistic became hopeless and miserable.
I say it as someone who’s definitely experienced anxiety and depression - I’m not prepared to spend my life worrying and expecting the future to be nothing but bleak.

I worry about AI too & it's impact on jobs & becoming super human. I worry about famine, the planet & war. I also think society in general has become more selfish.
But there have always been big threats to society, wars & shortage of jobs. People are tougher than we perhaps realise, deal with things & adapt. Although things can be very shitty at times. In ww2 my grandad was in France leaving my gran with 2 toddlers & her house, well nearly the whole street, was destroyed in the blitz, leaving her with not much left. I could not imagine being that tough at having to deal with it, I feel like I would crumble. Throughout history things have not been a bed of roses but the human race & spirit manages to continue to survive.

I have no clue why AI is a problem

Can someone explain

To answer your question you are totally insane to not have kids because of a form of technology

Exactly.

The processing speed of AI is the same as the processing speed of any non-AI computer system. If those 20,000 years of calculations started with an incorrect assumption or faulty starting set up then it's not progress. Systems are set up by humans, who frame the issue and the goals/success criteria. Until AI is at the point that it can design its own systems and set its own goals then I am not concerned about Skynet taking over. Even if/when we get to that point, I don't think there's a significant risk of world altering outcomes.

I think it’s a bit like nuclear weapons….if they don’t someone else will.

This.

No I wouldn’t have children now and I worry for the children I have had.

AI and climate change are completely different to the whole list of other scenarios. I’m more worried about climate change especially at the moment with the changes happening so rapidly, but that’s probably because I don’t quite understand AI and its potential to cause damage. I don’t think many people do understand. I think most people imagine androids marching in and killing us all but that’s not how it will happen.

Personally I think negativity and fear is the biggest threat to our children’s future. If we didn’t have hope to hold onto, as in Pandora’s box, what’s the point. You seem to have a very negative view about humanity.