"AI Madness" will ASI give us all mental illness?
4th July 2024
Welcome to AI Collision 💥,
In today’s collision between AI and our world:
And like that, it’s over
Three questions from Martyn
Rugged Jesus
If that’s enough to get the election rigged, read on…
AI Collision 💥 its been a short and weird ride
Well, today’s the day.
You’re voting today.
Or maybe you’re not.
It’s not illegal to not vote in the UK. I did always find that an interesting quirk coming to the UK from Australia. But then again I guess a democratic vote should also mean that the choice is up to you whether you want to take part or not.
In Australia it is compulsory to vote. Not very democratic is it! That still doesn’t mean all people do, if you still choose not to, you get a fine. For many, it’s a fine worth wearing.
Anyway, it’s 4 July, it’s time to vote in the UK and you get to choose from a pretty average selection to be honest.
Then again, when has the selection options ever been great?
I mean that by the way.
When have you ever stepped into the polling booth and said to yourself, “Yes, I’m excited by what THIS person is going to do for our country!”?
My guess, never.
If you answer yes, I’d love to hear for which election and who the candidates were.
But alas, as the vote is today, and by the next edition of AI Collision 💥 on Tuesday, there will be a new prime minister (albeit maybe not the one who everyone expects it to be).
Which also means we can and will drop the election-specific AI coverage.
Well, we’ll stop looking at what AI means for this election. But as we noted on Tuesday, there’s a pretty big one happening across the Atlantic that is more important to the future of AI than anything “Dishi Rishi” or “The Toolmaker’s Son” have been able to put forth in the last six weeks.
So from time to time we will be looking at how our AI world shapes up with new leaders in town, both in the UK, (likely) in the US, although the “new” president is probably going to be the old one, as in actually old, but also the President before Biden, unless he’s in jail, or dead, or someone dethrones him.
Exciting stuff isn’t it!
With our UK election coverage ceasing, that doesn’t mean the future of AI in the UK ceases though.
And honestly there might not appear on the surface of things that the UK is deep with AI resources and talents and opportunities.
That is sort of true to a point.
I’ve been deep in my hunt to find Britain’s best AI company and what I am finding is that time and time again I’m finding incredible British AI companies. Ones doing some incredible stuff from cybersecurity through to robotics, a lot of biotech related ones, and even semiconductors and chip development – but most of them are either private or listed in the US.
It makes me think, that the problem with AI in the UK isn’t anything to do with ability – it’s really an indictment on the state of the London capital markets that the good companies are booting off to the US for their money.
And if that’s where the money is heading, that’s where we’re going to be keeping our focus for the great companies leading the AI charge.
So good luck, Rishi, good luck Kier, Nigel, Ed, and the rest. One of you is going home happy tonight.
For us, is back into the AI trenches, and into the US markets…
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AI gone wild 🤪
One our most loyal readers, Martyn left a comment on Tuesday’s post.
Just head to Tuesday’s edition of AI Collision 💥 to see his thoughtful post in greater detail. But towards the end, with concerns about the rise of artificial super intelligence (ASI) Martyn posed three questions which I promised I’d look at today.
He said,
…it’s the SPEED of progress that’s really scary. We humans are a clever bunch, and my hope is that we can stay ahead of the technology and find ways to control ASI such that it’s always subservient to human control.
However, even if “the good guys” are nimble and smart enough to retain control, what about the many bad actors out there who could possibly obtain the capability to release the awesome power of ASI?
The questions I ask myself are:
1. How can we make sure this can never happen by accident or design? Are we clever enough to stay ahead of the game especially as the speed of the game increases?
2. Can we trust Big Business or Governments to sort this out? I fear the first will be constrained by commercial interests and the second by incompetence.
3. Am I overstating the potential for harm to the human race? I don’t believe I am and I’m not the only one; As far back as 2014, Professor Stephen Hawkins could see the potential for ASI to erode and eventually replace humans as the dominant species on earth. Please Google (or should that be ChatGPT) to read was he said.
OK, as promised…
I don’t think we can ever prevent things from happening by accident. And even to that, some of the best discoveries of humanity are by accident.
Well, I say “accident” but the conditions were in play to allow for those accidents to occur. Of course penicillin is the first thing that springs to mind. As the History Channel puts it (quite humorously), Fleming’s discovery, “was the accidental byproduct of a messy workspace.”
Another is graphene, when Andre Geim and Konstantin (Kostya) Novoselov discovered it back in 2010 it was the result of playful “Friday night experiments” and just noticing how Scotch tape was used in the cleaning of graphite in special microscopes.
The point being that maybe accidental discovery with ASI ends up with a greater net benefit than perhaps something would by design. ASI by design is already under way. And there are legitimate concerns about its power. But for every concern about it there are people looking to ensure that development is done in an appropriate way. But then you maybe do lead to something more corralled like the internet is today. And my argument might be that in order to ensure appropriate development you open it up, and I think that you’d find for the potential misuse, there’s an equal and appropriate counterbalance to that to protect and enrich rather than attack and deduct from the quality of life. For me, open source it, let it loose, and get it out of the controlling hands of the few.
No I don’t think we can. I think we can trust humanity, but I don’t think we can trust centralised powers. And I think the point of commercial interest and incompetence is completely valid. Only if you let people who are far too smart to be in government in the first place get their hands on development do I think you end up with a net benefit to humanity.
I don’t believe ASI can be a species as such. And I think a lot of people overstate the potential harm to the human race. We see this fear every time new technology comes along.
When the steam train was first developed and deployed and subsequently grew in reach, there were fear it would go too fast for people’s brains to absorb the speed and would lead to mental illness like “railway madness”. It went about 10mph-20mph. Also there were fears the juddering on the tracks would render people unconscious and injure the brain. You might consider these apples and oranges comparisons, but I argue the idea of a steam train then was as new and exciting and terrifying to people as ASI is today.
This might still not be enough to convince you, but I think every significant change in how the world functions with technology leads to worries, concerns, overreaction and fear that as time rolls by, we look back on and chuckle at because inherently there’s more opportunity to be had from these things than succumbing to the fear.
Boomers & Busters 💰
AI and AI-related stocks moving and shaking up the markets this week. (All performance data below over the rolling week).
Boom 📈
Wearable Devices (NASDAQ:WLDS) up 16%
Bigtincan Holdings (ASX:BTH) up 10%
AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) up 4%
Bust 📉
Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) down 10%
Taiwan Semi (NYSE:TSM) down 5%
Lantern Pharma (NASDAQ:LTRN) down 16%
From the hive mind 🧠
I know this article from The Economist is paywalled. But the headline and what you can see alone displays such a narrow-minded focus on how the economic impact of things works. It is typically an Economist piece. Let me give you just one example. Nvidia employees heavily loaded in stock are on average now worth millions. As in there are thousands of Nvidia employees who in the last year or two have minted millions thanks to their stock. What do you think they’ll do with all that cash? Just sit on it? Not buy houses, cars, boats, watches, etc? Economic impact is not always what literally drops right in front of you, it’s a stone in a lake and the ripple effects are endless. So if you think there isn’t already game-changing economic impact from AI, then you’re dumb.
Yes we go on and on about nuclear energy for AI. For good bloody reason though. And here’s some more proof as to why. Don’t blame bitcoin for energy demand, blame AI.
Rugged AI Jesus. Apparently we only have ourselves to blame.
Artificial Polltelligence 🗳️ The Results
It’s Thursday and time for a new poll!
Now the vote is on today so you’ve got enough serious things to consider without this being another.
So today’s poll is positively silly…
As usual, if “Other” let us know what that might be below…
Weirdest AI image of the day
Interspecies war – r/Weirddallee
ChatGPT’s random quote of the day
"The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled." — Plutarch
Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to leave comments and questions below,
Sam Volkering
Editor-in-Chief
AI Collision
The current one, and the birth of Reform...although 2029 after 5 years of Startmer(if he lasts that long?), could be a real heart-thumper!!!
Although Boris has faults at least it kept Corbyn out in the last election. Labour would have borrowed more even before Covid hit and by now I think the country would have been bankrupt. This election would have seen the opinion polls looking blue rather than red.