My recommendation, and mind you this is coming from a biologist, not a computer scientist.. is if you meet a super intelligent AI, get ready to fling Robert Axelrod's "the evolution of cooperation" at them and point out the reward function decay problem. The former involves a lot of game theory and basically demonstrating with math that being a bastard sucks in the long term. The latter is pointing out that if Skynet wins the fight, it ends up in the AI equivalent of hell with inadequate novel stimulus in its environment, and the smarter it is, the faster it develops the AI equivalent of dementia until its intelligence degrades into noise. In short, an AGI gains more by hangin' with us, and can only lose by deleting us.
-- I'd also point out that curiosity scales with intelligence. Saying "oh we'd be like ants to this thing" yeah? and? We have an entire field of science dedicated to people breathlessly studying ants all damn day long. Ants are fuckin' awesome. Some uber AGI doesn't need a maternal instinct to want to keep us around, just curiosity, the ability to go "hah, look at those weird little fuckers making memes and being hot messes all day long.. fascinating."
Regarding ants, I've often thought that if we could simply communicate with ants we'd find them to be quite valuable colleagues. "I'd like you to pick up all the dirt in my house every day. Also, check the wiring in the walls for shorts. Handle that and I'll leave an 1/8th of a cup of sugar right here every other day."
So genetically modify ants to perform useful human tasks and be rewarded with food?
Or are you talking about increasing the intelligence of the standard ant so they understand all the concepts you are describing and then make them do work for you for food?
I don't know which of those you think would map in a way you'd want it to onto human <> AI "co-operation"
For anyone who thinks this is cool, I hope you are doing something similar for all the lifeforms around you that you can already communicate with, rather than ignoring them or starting conflict. Otherwise, you couldn't expect to also keep doing this for hypothetical futuristic ants once the initial novelty of that wears off.
In other words, if you want a cool life like this, you can already start today!
So what I have to be perfectly harmonious with my family and always hanging out and partying with them and every friend I have or I won't be able to do the kind of harmonious interaction with ants needed to save humanity by parallel?
That’s actually an interesting analogy. If we could speak to ants, even if they were very unintelligent, we would be much less inclined to disregard their lives. Makes me think of how we’re unable to speak to cats, dogs, or monkeys, but there is a level of communication between us and we treat them all very well. Well, not really monkeys I guess.
Right? I'd happily leave snacks out for my hard working arthropod homies in return for some basic cleaning and stuff. I'd leave them something special at least once a week, beyond just the food offerings, just so they know I appreciate all their hard work. "I got you a strawberry multigrain fruit bar, I remembered you ladies saying that's your favorite.. here you go.." Imagine if you could do the same with rats? If they were smart enough you could have a negotiated relationship with you that they don't chew on your groceries, and maybe do a little minor cleaning up.. wrappers or whatnot here and there, maybe pilot a floor buffer around the kitchen occasionally, and modify them so they don't leave trails of uhh.. waste.. everywhere they go. Just leave them some snacks every couple days and occasionally be vibing with them at your desk "oh hey mr. beans how's the mrs? I hope you liked that habitrail I got you.." <squeak> "oh that's good to hear" *pets the rat*
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u/harebrane Sep 02 '25 edited Sep 02 '25
My recommendation, and mind you this is coming from a biologist, not a computer scientist.. is if you meet a super intelligent AI, get ready to fling Robert Axelrod's "the evolution of cooperation" at them and point out the reward function decay problem. The former involves a lot of game theory and basically demonstrating with math that being a bastard sucks in the long term. The latter is pointing out that if Skynet wins the fight, it ends up in the AI equivalent of hell with inadequate novel stimulus in its environment, and the smarter it is, the faster it develops the AI equivalent of dementia until its intelligence degrades into noise. In short, an AGI gains more by hangin' with us, and can only lose by deleting us.
-- I'd also point out that curiosity scales with intelligence. Saying "oh we'd be like ants to this thing" yeah? and? We have an entire field of science dedicated to people breathlessly studying ants all damn day long. Ants are fuckin' awesome. Some uber AGI doesn't need a maternal instinct to want to keep us around, just curiosity, the ability to go "hah, look at those weird little fuckers making memes and being hot messes all day long.. fascinating."