The problem with AI

People talk about the problem of artificial intelligence as the risk of AI entities thinking for themselves and acting against their human masters. That may be a problem, but I see a much more obvious one.

Every despot stays in power only so long as he can command violence or the threat of violence. Pushed too far there is always the risk that even the Imperial Guard will turn against the despot. History teaches us that many tyrants are poor judges of when the tipping point is near. But poor judges or not, tyrants are aware that there is a tipping point. Many will play with pushing things to the limit. But they are nonetheless aware the tide can turn against them.

And that knowledge curtails their worst excesses. Or if they push on regardless as some tyrants have done, then history teaches that that can bring on a revolution. Either way, behaviour is modified.

But take away the conscience from the Imperial Guard – replace it with robots – and there will be no end to tyranny.

When It Is Not Swearing

I was in New Jersey in a supermarket looking for cheese and I couldn’t find it.

A man came out of the back, white coat, and hair swept back. He would have fitted right in with the Sopranos.

I asked him where the cheese was and he showed me, except what he showed me was the soft cheese. I said no, I was looking for hard cheese and he said “You mean cheddar and shit like that?”

The thing is he wasn’t swearing, he was just talking.

Rock Climbing and Fluffy Clouds

This is something that happened to me on a rock-climbing trip in France.

In case you are not familiar with rock climbing as distinct from any other kind of climbing, here is a quick primer.

Rock climbing mean climbing on vertical or near-vertical rock. Each section of a climb is called a pitch, and its length is dictated by the length of the rope the climber is carrying, and the nearness of somewhere to rest.

Multi-pitch climbs can be many hundreds of feet from bottom to top, but many single pitch climbs are 30 metres or less.

If a rock climber gets into trouble, then more often than not he or she can simply down-climb to safety. Mountain climbing can involve technical climbing, but a lot of it is more of an arduous slog on rough terrain, working against altitude. If a mountain climber gets into trouble, it’s often a long way from home and safety.

Ice climbing is a whole other world. 

With that primer on rock climbing, here’s the story.

My girlfriend and I were climbing in France, and I would normally climb free, bolting the rope in at intervals as I climbed. Many routes in France are bolted, meaning that the umbrella organisation for climbers has sunk bolts into the rock face every four metres or so, and the climber can snap the rope into those bolts with a quickdraw as they climb.

On that day I decided not to attempt a particular climb without being roped in from the top. That was because very first foothold was a tiny nubbin of rock, smaller than the tip of my little finger.

At the foot of the climb small boulders were littered all ever the ground.

That nubbin of rock was only a metre or two off the ground, so if I slipped off that I could just see me falling on the edge of a boulder and twisting my ankle.

So I decided to climb an easier bolted route about thirty metres to the side of this particular hard route. The idea was that at the top of the easier route I would shimmy across and clip in at the top of the harder route. Then I would let myself down on the rope and then climb that route in safety because I would roped in from the top of the route.

When I got to the top of the easier route and shimmied across, I made a mistake. I unclipped in the wrong direction. I should have first reversed and down-climbed and then unclipped starting at the bottom until I had worked my way up. But I didn’t.

I started unclipping from the top and that meant that when I was at the last clip I was on the end of a thirty-foot length of rope. I could feel the tension in the rope.

When I unclipped the last clip I would swing like pendulum. And I did.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but the swing was huge and fast. I was swinging, high on adrenalin.

After that I don’t recall anything of the harder route except that very first foothold on the nubbin of rock. It was so easy and I just climbed so fast and so easily.

The walk back through the trees and down to the campsite was breezy and easy. I was laughing and smiling and just happy and interested in everything.

Back at the campsite I showered and dived off the edge of the pool and started swimming. The adrenalin was still pumping and my arms and legs felt no resistance in the water. I could see fluffy clouds reflected in the water and I was swimming through and on them.

It was truly like swimming absolutely effortlessly through fluffy clouds.

Hitler’s motivation

A man is mad, to a lesser or greater degree, when he doesn’t know what his own motivations are.

I don’t know what Hitler said about his motivations – whether he talked about it secretly with a few people who were in the know.

But I think Hitler’s motivation is pretty clear. Yet strangely, it seems it is not widely understood.

Historians talk about how Hitler targeted the Jews because he believed they were parasites. He read about eugenics and he communicated with people who specialised in racial profiling.

He talked about the need to conquer one’s own conscience so that one would be able to carry out the unpalatable but necessary job of getting rid of the Jews.

In fact the truth about his motivation is that he didn’t see conscience as something to be overcome. He revelled doing away with his conscience.

Getting rid of his conscience was an easy trick for him and it allowed him free rein to do what he wanted to do, which was to bring down unspeakable horror on people.

That is it, pure and simple, the beginning and the end. To me it is clear as the old adage, ‘follow the money’.

He chose the Jews because they kept going on about conscience and humility. They were a good candidate, but if not the Jews then some others – gypsies, Slavs, homosexuals.

As to whether Hitler was a little shit from his childhood, a little shit in the playground – or whether he was sent mad by war, I do not know. But by the time he was a developed adult he was a monster.

Can you imagine what it must have been like for a guard in one of the camps during World War II, caught in that horror? Unlike the prisoners, whose consciences were clear, the guards had to weave fantastical stories to enable themselves to live with the burden of guilt.

Of course, there were some sadists among the guards – perhaps more than a few. But other guards – what a trick Hitler played on them.