How to Survive an AI Apocalypse – Part 11: Conclusion

March 17, 2024 2 Comments

PREVIOUS: How to Survive an AI Apocalypse – Part 10: If You Can’t Beat ’em, Join ’em

Well, it has been a wild ride – writing and researching this blog series “How to Survive an AI Apocalypse.” Artificial Superintelligence, existential threats, job elimination, nanobot fog, historical bad predictions, Brain Computer Interfaces, interconnected minds, apocalypse lore, neural nets, specification gaming, predictions, enslavement, cultural demise, alignment practices and controlling the beast, UFOs, quantum mechanics, the true nature of reality, simulation theory and dynamic reality generation, transhumanism, digital immortality…

Where does it all leave us?

I shall attempt to summarize and synthesize the key concepts and drivers that may lead us to extinction, as well as those that may mitigate the specter of extinction and instead lead toward stabilization and perhaps even, an AI utopia. First, the dark side…

DRIVERS TOWARD EXTINCTION

  • Competition – If there were only one source of AI development in the world, it might be possible to evolve it so carefully that disastrous consequences could be avoided. However, as our world is fragmented by country and by company, there will always be competition driving the pace of AI evolution. In the language of the 1950’s, countries will be worried about avoiding or closing an “AI gap” with an enemy and companies will be worried about grabbing market share from other companies. This results in sacrificing caution for speed and results, which inevitably leads to dangerous short cuts.
  • Self-Hacking/Specification Gaming – All of the existential risk in AI is due to the unpredictability mechanisms described in Part 2, specifically the neural nets driving AI behavior, and the resultant possibilities of rewriting its own code. Therefore, as long as AI architecture is based on the highly complex neural net construct, we will not be able to avoid this apparent nondeterminism. More to the point, it is difficult to envision any kind of software construct that facilitates effective learning that is not a highly complex adaptive system.
  • The Orthogonality Thesis – Nick Bostrom’s concept asserts that intelligence and the final goals of an AI are completely independent of each other. This has the result that mere intelligence cannot be assumed to make decisions that minimize the existential risk to humanity. We can program in as many rules, goals, and values as we want, but can never be sure that we didn’t miss something (see clear examples in Part 7). Further, making the anthropomorphism mistake of thinking that an AI will think like us is our blind spot.
  • Weaponization / Rogue Entities – As with any advanced technology, weaponization is a real possibility. And the danger is not only the hands of so-called rogue entities, but also so-called “well meaning” entities (any country’s military complex) claiming that the best defense is having the best offense. As with the nuclear experience, all it takes is a breakdown in communication to unleash the weapon’s power.
  • Sandbox Testing Ineffective – The combined ability of an AI to learn and master social engineering, hide its intentions, and control physical and financial resources makes any kind of sandboxing a temporary stop-gap at best. Imagine, for example, an attempt to “air gap” an AGI to prevent it from taking over resources available on the internet. What lab assistant making $20/hour is going to resist an offer from the AGI to temporarily connect it to the outside network in return for $1 billion in crypto delivered to the lab assistant’s wallet?
  • Only Get 1 Chance – There isn’t a reset button on AI that gets out of control. So, even if you did the most optimal job at alignment and goal setting, there is ZERO room for error. Microsoft generates 30,000 bugs per month – what are the odds that everyone’s AGI will have zero?

And the mitigating factors…

DRIVERS TOWARD STABILIZATION

  • Anti-Rogue AI Agents – Much like computer viruses and the cybersecurity and anti-virus technology that we developed to fight them, which has been fairly effective, anti-rogue AI agents may be developed that are out there on the lookout for dangerous rogue AGIs, and perhaps programmed to defeat them, stunt them, or at least provide notification that they exist. I don’t see many people talking about this kind of technology yet, but I suspect it will become an important part of the effort to fight off an AI apocalypse. One thing that we have learned from cybersecurity is that the battle between the good guys and the bad guys is fairly lopsided. It is estimated that there are millions of blocked cyberattack attempts daily around the world, and yet we rarely hear of a significant security breach. Even considering possible underreporting of breaches, it is most likely the case that the amount of investment going into cyberdefense far exceeds that going into funding the hacks. If a similar imbalance occurs with AI (and there is ample evidence of significant alignment investment), anti-rogue AI agents may win the battle. And yet, unlike with cybersecurity, it might only take one nefarious hack to kick off the AI apocalypse.
  • Alignment Efforts – I detailed in Part 8 of this series the efforts that are going in to AI safety research, controls, value programming, and the general topic of addressing AI existential risk. And while these efforts my never be 100% foolproof, they are certainly better than nothing, and will most likely contribute to at least the delay of portentous ASI.
  • The Stabilization Effect – The arguments behind the Stabilization Effect presented in Part 9 may be difficult for some to swallow, although I submit that the more you think and investigate the topics therein, the easier it will become to accept. And frankly, this is probably our best chance at survival. Unfortunately, there isn’t anything anyone can do about it – either it’s a thing or it isn’t.

But if it is a thing, as I suspect, if ASI goes apocalyptic, the The Universal Consciousness System may reset our reality so that our consciousnesses continues to have a place to learn and evolve. And then, depending on whether or not our memories are erased, either:

It will be the ultimate Mandela effect.

Or, we will simply never know.

Filed under AI, Consciousness, Future Tech, Life, Philosophy, Robotics Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

Dolly, Jaws, and Braces – The Latest Mandela Effect

August 26, 2016 27 Comments

Well, the universe is at it again, messing with our minds. Last year, I wrote a blog about the Berenstein Bears, which at that time was the most recent example of a Mandela Effect. The Mandela Effect seems to be the de facto name for the idea that something that many people remember from the past is somehow changed, or rewritten. It was named for former president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, whom many people recall having died in a South African prison, which, history now tells us, is untrue. He died, according to all of the historical artifacts in our reality, of natural causes at the ripe old age of 95. I personally have a vague recollection of hearing some news about his demise in prison, but I can’t really place it.

That’s the thing about memories; they are completely fallible. When one remembers something, according to research, one is not remembering the original event, but rather the last time that you recalled that particular memory. As such, memories are subject to the “whisper down the lane” syndrome of changing slightly with every recollection. So, my vague Mandela recollection could easily have morphed from a confluence of news reports and “Mandela Effect” claims that I have heard over the years.

However, that does not at all explain why large numbers of people would have the same memory of something entirely fallacious. Which brings me back to the latest of this genre of anomalies: Did Dolly Have Braces?

The 1979 James Bond film Moonraker featured a character named Jaws, a huge henchman with metal teeth played by the late Richard Kiel. In one scene, Jaws’ Brazilian cable car crashes and he is helped out of the rubble by Dolly, a bespectacled young blonde woman played by the French actress Blanche Ravalec. There is one of those movie moments that any Bond aficionado will recall, when Jaws first looks at Dolly and grins, bearing his mouthful of metal. She looks at him and grins, showing her mouthful of metal braces, and therefore, as the music swells, they fall instantly in love and walk off hand in hand. At least that’s the way we all remember it, myself included. The only problem is that if you watch the scene today, Dolly has no braces!

jaws3  dollynobraces

Those 70s era Bond movies were full of campy moments like this one. It was done to make the audience chuckle – in this case: “ahhh, despite their drastically different looks, they fall in love with each other, because of the braces connection” – and everyone laughs. That was the entire point. But now, the scene simply doesn’t even make sense any more. This is actually a key difference from the Berenstein Bears (I refuse to spell it any other way) Mandela effect. In that one, there was no real corroborating evidence that it ever was “Berenstein” with the exception of all of our fallible memories. In contrast, the Dolly, Jaws, and Braces scenario does have separate corroborating evidence that it was once as we remember it – the very point of the scene itself. In addition, I dug out a 2014 BBC obituary of Richard Kiel that references the movie describing Dolly as “a small, pig-tailed blonde with braces.” I’m sure the BBC checks their facts fairly carefully and wouldn’t typically be subject to mass delusion. Also, someone on Reddit managed to find an image somewhere where Dolly still appears to have braces, but you have to look closely:

dollywithbraces

So, here, it seems, the universe (ATTI, all that there is) is really messing with us, and didn’t even bother to clean up all of the artifacts.

First, a quick comment on the word “universe” – the underlying “real” universe is what i call ATTI (all that there is) to distinguish it from the physical universe that we know and love, but which is actually virtual. This virtual world is all a subjective experience of our true consciousness, which sits somewhere as part of ATTI. Hence ATTI can modify our virtual world, as could another conscious entity within ATTI (who perhaps has an evolved level of access). I’m not sure which of these is messing with the historical artifacts, but either is very possible. It would be analogous to being a programmer of a multi-player virtual reality fantasy game, and deciding to go back into the game and replace all of the pine trees with palm trees. The players would certainly notice, but they would think that there was a patch applied to the game for some reason and wouldn’t really give it a second though because they realize the game is virtual. The only reason the Mandela effect freaks us out when we discover one, like Dolly’s braces, is because we don’t realize our reality is virtual.

As I post this, it feels like I am documenting something significant.  However, I realize that tomorrow, this post may be gone.  Or perhaps the references that I listed to Dolly with braces will have disappeared, and along with them, the original sources.  And closed-minded science snobs like Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson will say it always was that way.

Note: I sometimes make a few changes to these blog posts when I realize that I can be more clear about something.  So if you notice something different the second time you read it, it probably isn’t because of the Mandela effect (but it could be 🙂 ).  Also, for those who haven’t read my original blog on this effect, I will repeat the explanation for Dolly, courtesy of digital consciousness theory:

The flaw is in the assumption that “we” are all in the same reality. “We,” as has been discussed countless times in this blog and in my book, are experiencing a purely subjective experience. It is the high degree of consensus between each of us “conscious entities” that fools us into thinking that our reality is objective and deterministic. Physics experiments have proven beyond a reasonable doubt that it is not.

So what is going on?

My own theory, Digital Consciousness (fka “Programmed Reality”), has a much better, comprehensive, and perfectly consistent explanation (note: this has the same foundation as Tom Campbell’s theory, “My Big TOE”). See the figure below.

ATTI

“We” are each a segment of organized information in “all that there is” (ATTI). Hence, we feel individual, but are connected to the whole. (No time to dive into how perfectly this syncs with virtually every spiritual experience throughout history, but you probably get it.) The “Reality Learning Lab” (RLL) (Campbell) is a different set of organized information within ATTI. The RLL is what we experience every day while conscious. (While meditating, or in deep sleep, we are connected elsewhere) It is where all of the artifacts representing Jaws and Dolly exist. It is where various “simulation” timelines run. The information that represents our memories is in three places:

  1. The “brain” part of the simulation. Think of this as our cache.
  2. The temporary part of our soul’s record (or use the term “spirit”, “essence”, “consciousness”, “Being”, or whatever you prefer – words don’t matter), which we lose when we die. This is the stuff our “brain” has full access to, especially when our minds are quiet.
  3. The permanent part of our soul’s record; what we retain from life to life, what we are here to evolve and improve, what in turn contributes to the inexorable evolution of ATTI. Values and morality are here. Irrelevant details like whether or not Dolly had braces don’t belong.

For some reason, ATTI decided that it made sense to remove Dolly’s braces in all of the artifacts of our reality (DVDs, YouTube clips, etc.) But, for some reason, the consciousness data stores did not get rewritten when that happened, and so we still have long-term recollection of Dolly with braces.

Why? ATTI just messing with us? Random experiment? Glitch?

Maybe ATTI is giving us subtle hints that it exists, that “we” are permanent, so that we use the information to correct our path?

We can’t know. ATTI is way beyond our comprehension.

Filed under Consciousness, digital consciousness, paranormal, Philosophy, Programmed Reality Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Berenstein Bears – The Smoking Gun of The Matrix?

August 6, 2015 15 Comments

Hollywood has had a great deal of fun with the ideas of time loops, alternate universes, reality shifts, and parallel timelines – “glitch in the Matrix”, “Groundhog Day”, “Back to the Future”, to name a few that have entered our collective consciousness.

But that’s just entertainment.

In our reality, once in a while, something seems to be amiss in a similar manner. Years ago, there was some speculation about the “Mandela Effect”, the idea that many people seem to have remembered that Nelson Mandela died in prison, which, of course, he didn’t.

At least not in this universe.

It seems that this was sort of a “soft glitch”, because only some people remembered the event – one of those cases where you don’t quite remember where you heard the news, but it is in your memory. Perhaps it was just an urban legend that got passed around through word of mouth.

Then, yesterday, one of my friends posted this link on Facebook about the apparent glitch in reality where the Berenstein Bears became the Berenstain Bears:

I remember it being pronounced “Ber-en-steen” and spelled “Berenstein.” Do you? Turns out that not only do all of the friends and colleagues who I asked, but also most of the people who have weighed in on various blogs and articles about this topic throughout the Internet and Twitterverse. The originators of the book series only recall their names as “Berenstain” and seem perplexed by everyone else’s recollection. Is it a case of mass confusion, an example of a parallel universe in action, or a rare and extreme piece of evidence that our reality is purely subjective?

MWI (Many Worlds Interpretation) Quantum theorists would have one possible yet incomplete explanation. In this theory, reality bifurcates constantly every time a quantum mechanical decision needs to be made (which occurs at the subatomic particle level countless times per second, and may be influenced by the observer effect). The figure below demonstrates. At some point, one of the ancestors of Stan and Jan Berenstein, the creators of the Berenstein Bear book series, encountered a situation where his name could have been spelled one of two ways. Perhaps, it was at Ellis Island, where such mistakes were common. For whatever reason, the universe bifurcated into one where the ancestor in question retained his original name, Berenstein, and another where the ancestor received a new spelling of his name, Berenstain (or vice versa; it doesn’t matter). Down the Berenstein path travelled we and/or all of our ancestors. Our doppelgängers went down the Berenstain path.

berenstein

According to MWI, all of these realities exist in something called Hilbert Space and there is no ability to travel from one to another. This is where MWI fails, because we are all in the Berenstain path now, but seem to remember the Berenstein path. So, for some reason (reality just messing with us?) we all jumped from one point in Hilbert Space to another. If Hilbert Space allowed for this, then this idea might have some validity. But it doesn’t. Furthermore, not everyone experienced the shift. Just ask the Berenstains. MWI can’t explain this.

The flaw is in the assumption that “we” are entirely in one of these realities. “We,” as has been discussed countless times in this blog and in my book, are experiencing a purely subjective experience. It is the high degree of consensus between each of us “conscious entities” that fools us into thinking that our reality is objective and deterministic. Physics experiments have proven beyond a reasonable doubt that it is not.

So what is going on?

My own theory, Digital Consciousness (fka “Programmed Reality”), has a much better, comprehensive, and perfectly consistent explanation (note: this has the same foundation as Tom Campbell’s theory, “My Big TOE”). See the figure below.

ATTI

“We” are each a segment of organized information in “all that there is” (ATTI). Hence, we feel individual, but are connected to the whole. (No time to dive into how perfectly this syncs with virtually every spiritual experience throughout history, but you probably get it.) The “Reality Learning Lab” (RLL) (Campbell) is a different set of organized information within ATTI. The RLL is what we experience every day while conscious. (While meditating, or in deep sleep, we are connected elsewhere) It is where all of the artifacts representing Berenstein or Berenstain exist. It is where various “simulation” timelines run. The information that represents our memories is in three places:

  1. The “brain” part of the simulation. Think of this as our cache.
  2. The temporary part of our soul’s record (or use the term “spirit”, “essence”, “consciousness”, “Being”, or whatever you prefer – words don’t matter), which we lose when we die. This is the stuff our “brain” has full access to, especially when our minds are quiet.
  3. The permanent part of our soul’s record; what we retain from life to life, what we are here to evolve and improve, what in turn contributes to the inexorable evolution of ATTI. Values and morality are here. Irrelevant details like the spelling of Berenstein don’t belong.

For some reason, ATTI decided that it made sense to replace Berenstein with Berenstain in all of the artifacts of our reality (books, search engine records, etc.) But, for some reason, the consciousness data stores did not get rewritten when that happened, and so we still have long-term recollection of “Berenstein.”

Why? ATTI just messing with us? Random experiment? Glitch?

Maybe ATTI is giving us subtle hints that it exists, that “we” are permanent, so that we use the information to correct our path?

We can’t know. ATTI is way beyond our comprehension.

Filed under Consciousness, Philosophy, Programmed Reality, Quantum Mechanics Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,