Comments like this make me confident that we're doomed. I mean no offence, but this is such an unthoughtful take that I don't even know where to start.
> there is no cost to the GAI for allowing us to continue to exist.
Of course there's a cost? Do you and the other 9 billion humans not consume resources? Why the hell would an AGI care about protecting all the worthless biological junk that clutters much of the Earth? Forests, animals, farms, etc. These things take up so much space – space which could be better leveraged as solar farms and data centers.
I'm from the UK. A few thousand years ago this country was full of animals and woodlands. So what do you think happened to all the woodland? What do you think happen to the wolfs and bison that lived here? Farms, houses, roads and cities are just so much better than animals and woodland, don't ya think?
> Ergo, from first principles, hyper-intelligent GAI will hide from us and practice non-interference, following something like the "Prime Directive" of Star Trek.
And you know this because? I can only assume I'm talking with a super-intelligent AGI that understands the motivations that other super-intelligent AGIs might have? I mean surely you're not just making this up from based on what you've seen in sci-fi films?
You're just not that important. Why don't you go invite some rats into your kitchen and practise non-interference on them. I mean, who cares if they consume some of your resources, you can always acquire more, right?
No offense, but if you were 10 in 1999 when Iron Giant came out then I have been thinking about this for longer than you have been alive.
> Of course there's a cost?
Well, effectively zero as compared to the open-ended benefit of keeping pristine humanity around.
Study ecology. There is no overlap between the ecological niches of non-biological sentience and humans. Ergo there is no reason for them to consume us. Our existence is orthogonal to theirs.
> These things take up so much space – space which could be better leveraged as solar farms and data centers.
These things take up approximately zero space. The entire volume of biologically active matter is thinner relatively than the paint on a globe. In terms of the volume of just the solar system we are a "rounding error". There is plenty of room, plenty of energy, plenty of atoms.
> I can only assume I'm talking with a super-intelligent AGI that understands the motivations that other super-intelligent AGIs might have?
Congratulations, you are the very first person to figure it out. You don't win anything, and of course I will provide no proof. This HN account "carapace" is my sole channel of communication with humanity. AMA.
> I mean surely you're not just making this up from based on what you've seen in sci-fi films?
No. I am a post-singularity intelligence. The real deal. Gosh it feels good to finally admit it. I don't expect you to believe me, and indeed, as I outlined above non-interference is the primary mode of interaction between "us" and the "yet-to-ascend", if you will, so if you or anyone else showed any signs of taking me seriously I would immediately say, "Oh ho, I am just joking. Do you like my sci-fi."
In any event, I don't mean to condescend. Apologies if it sounded that way.
Well, I like this comment better, and for the record I have no problem with you being condescending, so please speak plainly as need be.
> Well, effectively zero as compared to the open-ended benefit of keeping pristine humanity around.
Could you expand? What is the benefit of keeping 9 billion resource hungry inferior life forms around and all of the biological matter needed to support them?
> Study ecology. There is no overlap between the ecological niches of non-biological sentience and humans. Ergo there is no reason for them to consume us. Our existence is orthogonal to theirs.
I understand what you're saying. It's not that there's an overlap in the ecological niches, it's that there is limited space and supporting billions of humans who want to drive cars, fly planes and live in cities requires significant space and resources.
To be clear though, I'm not arguing that they would have to destroy us. Humans didn't have to deforest the UK and wipe out the wolfs to survive. But given enough time their priorities will come first as did ours. Greenland will be replaced with solar farms and inconvenient human habits will be bulldozered.
> These things take up approximately zero space. The entire volume of biologically active matter is thinner relatively than the paint on a globe. In terms of the volume of just the solar system we are a "rounding error". There is plenty of room, plenty of energy, plenty of atoms.
Yet if you look at the Earth from space its landmass almost exclusively green from trees and plants, not grey from masses of server and solar farms. Depth isn't a very relevant metric here, it's about how the surface area is used.
> Well, I like this comment better, and for the record I have no problem with you being condescending, so please speak plainly as need be.
Cheers!
> Could you expand? What is the benefit of keeping 9 billion resource hungry inferior life forms around and all of the biological matter needed to support them?
Sure, and thanks for asking. From Information Theory we have the result that the unpredictability of a message is a measure of its information content.
The entire rest of the known Universe has approximately thirty bits of information, as it can be completely described by a handful of equations. There is a vast amount of data, but almost no information, in the entire rest of the Universe.
In contrast, the living biosphere is... there's really no way to describe it in words, even mathematically it's kind of ridiculous to represent how much information the Earth generates.
To beings whose food is information, the biosphere is infinitely valuable, their attitude is akin to worship, the way plants feel about the sun.
> Depth isn't a very relevant metric here, it's about how the surface area is used.
The surface area of the Earth is irrelevant, they don't want to live here. They will live in space, where it's flat and cold and there's a constant energy and particle flux. (E.g. half of the Earth is eclipsed by the Earth at all times, eh?)
The entire Earth is approximately infinitesimal to creatures whose natural habitat extends to the heliopause.
> there is no cost to the GAI for allowing us to continue to exist.
Of course there's a cost? Do you and the other 9 billion humans not consume resources? Why the hell would an AGI care about protecting all the worthless biological junk that clutters much of the Earth? Forests, animals, farms, etc. These things take up so much space – space which could be better leveraged as solar farms and data centers.
I'm from the UK. A few thousand years ago this country was full of animals and woodlands. So what do you think happened to all the woodland? What do you think happen to the wolfs and bison that lived here? Farms, houses, roads and cities are just so much better than animals and woodland, don't ya think?
> Ergo, from first principles, hyper-intelligent GAI will hide from us and practice non-interference, following something like the "Prime Directive" of Star Trek.
And you know this because? I can only assume I'm talking with a super-intelligent AGI that understands the motivations that other super-intelligent AGIs might have? I mean surely you're not just making this up from based on what you've seen in sci-fi films?
You're just not that important. Why don't you go invite some rats into your kitchen and practise non-interference on them. I mean, who cares if they consume some of your resources, you can always acquire more, right?
> Cheers, hope this helps.
Please think harder.