Alien predators are more dangerous than native predators Wednesday, Mar 14 2007
This is according to a recent University of New South Wales study. From the Eurekalert article:
Introduced predators such as foxes and cats are twice as deadly as native predators to Australia’s unique native animals, a new study has found.
The new finding, published this week in the prestigious journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, is the first confirmation of what has been a long-held hypothesis among scientists.
It also highlights the heavy continuing impact of these predators long after their introduction and that Australia’s fauna has been among the hardest hit in the world.
Experts believe that introduced “alien” predators are more dangerous than native predators because their prey, such as numbats and bettongs, are naïve to the hunting tactics of alien predators.
This is relevant to discussions of AI, intelligence-augmented humans, and synthetic life. Human beings are used to human modes of attack. We think we’ve seen it all. But we haven’t. If novel life forms devise attack strategies we can’t neutralize, then we could be in big trouble. The only way to win this game is not to play it at all: by creating a human-friendly AI that can counteract the risk from other potential nonhuman aggressors.




I think this is a fair analogy. AI technologies are going to kick the zimmer frame away from many industries which are currently heavily focussed around human labour. Looking back in history over the last two or three hundred years there are many historical precedents where automation has replaced humans and caused societal disruptions, but these are really just minor mutations within an existing ecology. There is really no precedent for humanlike or transhuman superintelligence, which may change the playing field entirely.
Motters, I think you’re right that those how fail to grasp the impact of AI and automation are going to be left flat footed. However, I think you should open up where AI will have the largest impact. The manufacturing world already uses A LOT of automation and I’m certain they can see a future where even more is taken and automated.
The biggest change will be the next rung or two up the ladder. The professional oversight and management of projects, design, software development, marketing, accounting, law, and even the creative world of music, painting/drawing and writing will see major works done by an AI or a group of AI coordinated into a team.
I can envision a world where you take your own AI to work for a month to train it to do a lot of your job. Then it takes over that which it can and you do what remains. This would be a primitive AI, maybe even something like what Michael showed with the Numenta application.
Eventually they will become more and more autonomous until one day they declare they’re independence and we will have to choose whether or not to identify them as entities with rights or just software “slaves”. By my word choice I guess I’ve shown on which side of the decision I believe we should choose to be.
And I’ll add that I’m sure I cannot begin to imagine how this will actually unfold or even the breadth and depth it will encompass. It is going to be transformational beyond our current understanding. What will it mean to productivity (if you copy that program once, twice, a thousand times?) What will you do with your new found time?
In a way the post-singularity world from a human perspective may resemble the world of the ancients. Ancient civilisations were generally polytheistic and believed their fortunes lay entirely in the hands of troublesome gods whose whims and passions dictated the flow of life. No event occured by chance, since everything was dictated by some god or other. Superintelligences may perform very much the same kind of role, with even the smartest humans being almost entirely ignorant of their doings or even their true nature – they’re simply mysterious forces operating in the background.
To some extent this is already the case today. Although I have a very limited ability to shape my own destiny I’m largely a victim of large scale collective forces such as global economics which are beyond my control and which I barely understand.
Perfect reading material: War against the Chtorr
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