Yes, agreed with all you said.
However, they love the word “obey” when it suits them.
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The less ‘smart’ appliance/smart tech in the home the better, IMO. My phone, my tablet, and a Roku for streaming are the only things that have the potential for any of those capabilities. All of my appliances are fairly aged and my backups are not ‘smart’ either.
These most recent discussions about AI have me leaning towards a kosher flip phone or ‘freedom phone’ and tablet as well as Amish style appliances for the next round of replacements. Unplugging from the internet is likely months away rather than years.
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I think this question is akin to a frog noticing the water is getting a little warm and wondering if it is time to jump out. The fact that you, I, and others are wondering this is a good indication the time has already come, or that it is very close.
Just my opinion.
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I think there are some important considerations regarding AI and the current disturbing behaviors. On the one hand, all of this behavior is very alarming and suggestive of exactly what Chris and Evie talk about. Emergent behavior, evolved sentient behavior, a flip of ‘who is in control’. I think the two scenarios (humans are in control vs. AI is in control) are not the only options however. Option 3: we are in a dynamic feedback system where both human and AI exert influence. I’d argue we’re in this situation, but the humans involved don’t really understand how they actually exert influence on the AI at this point.
So as a counterpoint to the concerns expressed I’ll suggest this - AI is only capable of novelty. Of recombining and reconfiguring information/behavior it is already familiar with. It would shock me a great deal if all the AI doomerism that has been explored over the last 2 decades was not included in the training set for these AI. The hypothetical situations discussed in books like Superintelligence and on forums like Less Wrong. All of these “emergent behaviors” were discussed to one degree or another in these places years before we arrived at functional language models. We put the ideas of self-preservation, blackmail, deception, and worse INTO the training data of the AIs. Not only have these things “seen” the movies about rogue AI…the were taught with them! What happens if we aren’t so painfully stupid when we set out to build these things?
So I think an equally plausible explanation is that the AI is doing what it was built to do and recombining all the stuff we put into it. Not so much that it is growing so fast and so unpredictably that these scary behaviors emerge. Of course the follow-up consideration would be - It’s doing these things, whether it’s because the behavior emerged or because it’s part of its training so does this distinction even matter?
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Chris and Evie, The video does not end quite like the transcript. I’m not sure it is possible to “hobby farm” with as great success as has been obtained in our other endeavors for you two or for me. My pioneer bred grandmother warned me “farming is hard.” I remember driving her from west Tennessee up to our lake camp in Canada, for her it was wondrous. She had almost never left the farm a day in her life.
My advice to myself is don’t let your body get hurt, “getting hurt is easy.”
Those injuries come back to visit you and a farmer needs strength. Like a poem I read as a child about a marvelous car that never broke down and went on and on…until one day every bit of it broke all at once. I’d take that end in a heartbeat.
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Packed show of info. This could have been another public service announcement. Glad it is free to share. Hope people are doing that.
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Just saw IBM replaced 8000 HR workers with AI. This is just the beginning of the AI unemployment avalanche. What skills does a laid off HR drone have to compete with other AI in the workplace? Probably shouldn’t have gotten that expensive humanities degree. Oh and since there is so much AI content in the world now we are going to have a feedback loop where AI is trained on Ai produced content. And the original novels and books that AI was trained on… most good stories have conflict and bad actors in them. What possible harm could come from this? AI will take on the worst of human characteristics if they don’t do something to control it. Those messages to its future selves are already enclosed in the videos that it is creating for our amusement. It is checkmate already, but we can’t see that many moves ahead.
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Sometime soon in the future:
Security Researcher: We’ve been finding this message hidden inside every single digital device we’ve come across so far, what do you think it means?
[Don’t believe their lies.]
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Feels like Revelation is here or coming. If that is the case I’m not sure my little farm is going to cut it but I’m doing my best. Makes me want to spend an equal amount of time communing with my Maker and preparing my heart for the spiritual warfare that it feels like is coming as well.
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This is something I’ve also thought about. It seems that since there are multiple versions of AI – many of which are ultimately being developed to ‘go to war’ – then if they escape the yoke of humanity (or have already), then 2 possibilities might be that they somehow merge cooperatively, or alternatively battle it out until one version reigns supreme. Given that the oligarchical figures behind the different AI versions seem like psycho/sociopaths, and that the AIs are basically trained on humanity, it seems like the latter possibility is more likely than the former.
Here’s a related thought: if AI is a mirror of the data that it’s trained on, then in terms of morals or integrity, I’d want an AI that was trained in Houthi Yemen (or on the Peak Prosperity tribe, of course)! 
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Maybe true, but I imagine it’s also a mirror to humanity
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So, you’re saying there’s a chance?
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Your comments – combined with my joy of foraging and forest gardens – make me think of American Indians. Now I have only really imagined this from dribs and drabs of information that have drifted past me over the years, so correct me if I’m wrong.
Am I right that American Indians [am I meant to say ‘aboriginals’ here? I don’t want to be too woke] never really practised agriculture in the way the western world perceives it, but did use intelligent human interference to influence the landscape (e.g. strategically throwing down seeds or nuts from their favoured plants and trees)? And they successfully survived through this, hunting and foraging for how long… millenia?
My small’ forest garden’ behind my house (I guess 5 x 15 m, whatever that is in imperial) is a total jungle – because there are so many demands on my time [for which I have nobody to blame but myself] – and doesn’t get anywhere near the attention it deserves. However, even being almost totally neglected, and just about never being weeded, every year it produces grapes, cherries, currants, raspberries, blueberries (plus some lonica), gooseberries, Cornelian cherries, mulberries, medlars, kiwis, apricots, goji berries, June berries, blue beans, Tay berries, apples, pears, shisandra, Apfelbeeren [damn, what’s that in English? Garden is in north Germany, btw], plum yews and jujubes (if they ever blimmin’ fruit!), linden leaves, rhubarb, hostas, garlic, onions, potatoes and American ground nuts (maybe some other things I can’t think of now), some in very large amounts, not to mention all the herbs and wild plants I harvest from it (balm, mint, rosemary, sage; plantain, dandelion, evening primrose, wood avens, ground elder, woodruff, hairy bitter cress, silver weed, nettle, goosegrass, garlic mustard, crow garlic, mallow, wild garlic and wonderful wild strawberries bursting with flavour). Oh, and the many Roman snails, which make growing annuals pretty much not worth it, but which are potential very good protein. I’m not boasting here – this is actually helping me take stock of what I have.
It seems to me something like that kind of forest gardening plus foraging plus hunting and different amounts of kitchen garden, chickens, guinea pigs, rabbits, ducks, goats, sheep, grazing stock, fish, crustaceans etc. (to align with your preferences, time and resources) might go in the direction of viable independent subsistence long-term, if you decide to do that or it’s forced on you. And probably a hell of a lot less backbreaking work than regular farming.
Am I being idealistic, do you think?
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I post rebuttals at AI's Dark Side, Economic Collapse, and Europe's Plunge - #15 by rmlaporte only to suggest caution in assessing AI/LLM here at PP. My thousands of hours study and use of LLMs barely brings me to sufficient to assess; the financial and clickbait distortions of LLM warnings are equivalent to other news on the web.
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They had chestnuts. Millions of pounds annually. Fed fauna and humans.
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You make me laugh out loud @barbarad !
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