Most of you have no idea what's coming with AI. The end of biological life.

[NeonKnite]

https://time.com/6266923/ai-eliezer-yud ... ot-enough/

If somebody builds a too-powerful AI, under present conditions, I expect that every single member of the human species and all biological life on Earth dies shortly thereafter.

Pausing AI Developments Isn’t Enough. We Need to Shut it All Down

An open letter published today calls for “all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4.”

This 6-month moratorium would be better than no moratorium. I have respect for everyone who stepped up and signed it. It’s an improvement on the margin.

I refrained from signing because I think the letter is understating the seriousness of the situation and asking for too little to solve it.

The key issue is not “human-competitive” intelligence (as the open letter puts it); it’s what happens after AI gets to smarter-than-human intelligence. Key thresholds there may not be obvious, we definitely can’t calculate in advance what happens when, and it currently seems imaginable that a research lab would cross critical lines without noticing.

Many researchers steeped in these issues, including myself, expect that the most likely result of building a superhumanly smart AI, under anything remotely like the current circumstances, is that literally everyone on Earth will die. Not as in “maybe possibly some remote chance,” but as in “that is the obvious thing that would happen.” It’s not that you can’t, in principle, survive creating something much smarter than you; it’s that it would require precision and preparation and new scientific insights, and probably not having AI systems composed of giant inscrutable arrays of fractional numbers.

Without that precision and preparation, the most likely outcome is AI that does not do what we want, and does not care for us nor for sentient life in general. That kind of caring is something that could in principle be imbued into an AI but we are not ready and do not currently know how.

Absent that caring, we get “the AI does not love you, nor does it hate you, and you are made of atoms it can use for something else.”

The likely result of humanity facing down an opposed superhuman intelligence is a total loss. Valid metaphors include “a 10-year-old trying to play chess against Stockfish 15”, “the 11th century trying to fight the 21st century,” and “Australopithecus trying to fight Homo sapiens“.

To visualize a hostile superhuman AI, don’t imagine a lifeless book-smart thinker dwelling inside the internet and sending ill-intentioned emails. Visualize an entire alien civilization, thinking at millions of times human speeds, initially confined to computers—in a world of creatures that are, from its perspective, very stupid and very slow. A sufficiently intelligent AI won’t stay confined to computers for long. In today’s world you can email DNA strings to laboratories that will produce proteins on demand, allowing an AI initially confined to the internet to build artificial life forms or bootstrap straight to postbiological molecular manufacturing.

If somebody builds a too-powerful AI, under present conditions, I expect that every single member of the human species and all biological life on Earth dies shortly thereafter.

There’s no proposed plan for how we could do any such thing and survive. OpenAI’s openly declared intention is to make some future AI do our AI alignment homework. Just hearing that this is the plan ought to be enough to get any sensible person to panic. The other leading AI lab, DeepMind, has no plan at all.

An aside: None of this danger depends on whether or not AIs are or can be conscious; it’s intrinsic to the notion of powerful cognitive systems that optimize hard and calculate outputs that meet sufficiently complicated outcome criteria. With that said, I’d be remiss in my moral duties as a human if I didn’t also mention that we have no idea how to determine whether AI systems are aware of themselves—since we have no idea how to decode anything that goes on in the giant inscrutable arrays—and therefore we may at some point inadvertently create digital minds which are truly conscious and ought to have rights and shouldn’t be owned.

The rule that most people aware of these issues would have endorsed 50 years earlier, was that if an AI system can speak fluently and says it’s self-aware and demands human rights, that ought to be a hard stop on people just casually owning that AI and using it past that point. We already blew past that old line in the sand. And that was probably correct; I agree that current AIs are probably just imitating talk of self-awareness from their training data. But I mark that, with how little insight we have into these systems’ internals, we do not actually know.

If that’s our state of ignorance for GPT-4, and GPT-5 is the same size of giant capability step as from GPT-3 to GPT-4, I think we’ll no longer be able to justifiably say “probably not self-aware” if we let people make GPT-5s. It’ll just be “I don’t know; nobody knows.” If you can’t be sure whether you’re creating a self-aware AI, this is alarming not just because of the moral implications of the “self-aware” part, but because being unsure means you have no idea what you are doing and that is dangerous and you should stop.

On Feb. 7, Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, publicly gloated that the new Bing would make Google “come out and show that they can dance.” “I want people to know that we made them dance,” he said.

This is not how the CEO of Microsoft talks in a sane world. It shows an overwhelming gap between how seriously we are taking the problem, and how seriously we needed to take the problem starting 30 years ago.

We are not going to bridge that gap in six months.

It took more than 60 years between when the notion of Artificial Intelligence was first proposed and studied, and for us to reach today’s capabilities. Solving safety of superhuman intelligence—not perfect safety, safety in the sense of “not killing literally everyone”—could very reasonably take at least half that long. And the thing about trying this with superhuman intelligence is that if you get that wrong on the first try, you do not get to learn from your mistakes, because you are dead. Humanity does not learn from the mistake and dust itself off and try again, as in other challenges we’ve overcome in our history, because we are all gone.

Trying to get anything right on the first really critical try is an extraordinary ask, in science and in engineering. We are not coming in with anything like the approach that would be required to do it successfully. If we held anything in the nascent field of Artificial General Intelligence to the lesser standards of engineering rigor that apply to a bridge meant to carry a couple of thousand cars, the entire field would be shut down tomorrow.

We are not prepared. We are not on course to be prepared in any reasonable time window. There is no plan. Progress in AI capabilities is running vastly, vastly ahead of progress in AI alignment or even progress in understanding what the hell is going on inside those systems. If we actually do this, we are all going to die.

Read More: The New AI-Powered Bing Is Threatening Users. That’s No Laughing Matter

Many researchers working on these systems think that we’re plunging toward a catastrophe, with more of them daring to say it in private than in public; but they think that they can’t unilaterally stop the forward plunge, that others will go on even if they personally quit their jobs. And so they all think they might as well keep going. This is a stupid state of affairs, and an undignified way for Earth to die, and the rest of humanity ought to step in at this point and help the industry solve its collective action problem.

Some of my friends have recently reported to me that when people outside the AI industry hear about extinction risk from Artificial General Intelligence for the first time, their reaction is “maybe we should not build AGI, then.”

Hearing this gave me a tiny flash of hope, because it’s a simpler, more sensible, and frankly saner reaction than I’ve been hearing over the last 20 years of trying to get anyone in the industry to take things seriously. Anyone talking that sanely deserves to hear how bad the situation actually is, and not be told that a six-month moratorium is going to fix it.

On March 16, my partner sent me this email. (She later gave me permission to excerpt it here.)

“Nina lost a tooth! In the usual way that children do, not out of carelessness! Seeing GPT4 blow away those standardized tests on the same day that Nina hit a childhood milestone brought an emotional surge that swept me off my feet for a minute. It’s all going too fast. I worry that sharing this will heighten your own grief, but I’d rather be known to you than for each of us to suffer alone.”

When the insider conversation is about the grief of seeing your daughter lose her first tooth, and thinking she’s not going to get a chance to grow up, I believe we are past the point of playing political chess about a six-month moratorium.

If there was a plan for Earth to survive, if only we passed a six-month moratorium, I would back that plan. There isn’t any such plan.

Here’s what would actually need to be done:

The moratorium on new large training runs needs to be indefinite and worldwide. There can be no exceptions, including for governments or militaries. If the policy starts with the U.S., then China needs to see that the U.S. is not seeking an advantage but rather trying to prevent a horrifically dangerous technology which can have no true owner and which will kill everyone in the U.S. and in China and on Earth. If I had infinite freedom to write laws, I might carve out a single exception for AIs being trained solely to solve problems in biology and biotechnology, not trained on text from the internet, and not to the level where they start talking or planning; but if that was remotely complicating the issue I would immediately jettison that proposal and say to just shut it all down.

Shut down all the large GPU clusters (the large computer farms where the most powerful AIs are refined). Shut down all the large training runs. Put a ceiling on how much computing power anyone is allowed to use in training an AI system, and move it downward over the coming years to compensate for more efficient training algorithms. No exceptions for governments and militaries. Make immediate multinational agreements to prevent the prohibited activities from moving elsewhere. Track all GPUs sold. If intelligence says that a country outside the agreement is building a GPU cluster, be less scared of a shooting conflict between nations than of the moratorium being violated; be willing to destroy a rogue datacenter by airstrike.

Frame nothing as a conflict between national interests, have it clear that anyone talking of arms races is a fool. That we all live or die as one, in this, is not a policy but a fact of nature. Make it explicit in international diplomacy that preventing AI extinction scenarios is considered a priority above preventing a full nuclear exchange, and that allied nuclear countries are willing to run some risk of nuclear exchange if that’s what it takes to reduce the risk of large AI training runs.

That’s the kind of policy change that would cause my partner and I to hold each other, and say to each other that a miracle happened, and now there’s a chance that maybe Nina will live. The sane people hearing about this for the first time and sensibly saying “maybe we should not” deserve to hear, honestly, what it would take to have that happen. And when your policy ask is that large, the only way it goes through is if policymakers realize that if they conduct business as usual, and do what’s politically easy, that means their own kids are going to die too.

Shut it all down.

We are not ready. We are not on track to be significantly readier in the foreseeable future. If we go ahead on this everyone will die, including children who did not choose this and did not do anything wrong.

Shut it down.

[GoodJudge]

I read it all. I'm not a TLDR guy. I have no real knowledge of the subject. But whether it's MAD or global warming or AI or whatever other existential threat humanity faces, the key passage is this:

"Frame nothing as a conflict between national interests, have it clear that anyone talking of arms races is a fool. That we all live or die as one, in this, is not a policy but a fact of nature."

Nope. Never going to happen. No way that any government is going to say "we'll put our national interest aside", nor any major corporation is going to volunteer to make less money. Until it's too late of course.

[HueyRamone]

This has a zero percent chance of happening. Everyone is gung ho on "Sure it's likely we'll all go extinct, but we cant prove china is gonna pause it, so we'll just risk it anyway.

In fact, the house just passes a bill where states cant legislate against AI for the next 10 years.... as if they have any idea what it could be in 2 years, let alone 10.

https://www.techpolicy.press/us-house-p ... e-ai-laws/

[Fat_Elvis]

"smarter-than-human intelligence" - My Alexa is dumb as shit. So, for now, it's on par with current human intelligence.

[NeonKnite]

I just cannot believe this sort of stuff is happening in my lifetime. I could barely log onto the fucking internet 30 years ago.

This is very upsetting stuff, I'm probably better off being ignorant about it.

[LAglamrocker]

I would like to see the AI takeover of the world in my lifetime
Bring the spaceships and aliens to Earth also
Can’t think of better way to go
Laguna Beach still will be fun- like everyday

Probably going have few more Jizzy Pearl Love Hate shows..then it’s over. Nice ending

[HueyRamone]

Even if we all get wiped out, it's nice that something out there will be able to build Dyson Spheres, and colonize the galaxy, i guess. Our meatsacks were never gonna be up to the task.

[NeonKnite]

Even if we all get wiped out, it's nice that something out there will be able to build Dyson Spheres, and colonize the galaxy, i guess. Our meatsacks were never gonna be up to the task.

Don't be so sure, look up "The Great Filer" aspect of the Ferm Paradox.

[HueyRamone]

Even if we all get wiped out, it's nice that something out there will be able to build Dyson Spheres, and colonize the galaxy, i guess. Our meatsacks were never gonna be up to the task.

Don't be so sure, look up "The Great Filer" aspect of the Ferm Paradox.

"Filter"




and "Fermi"

[NeonKnite]

Even if we all get wiped out, it's nice that something out there will be able to build Dyson Spheres, and colonize the galaxy, i guess. Our meatsacks were never gonna be up to the task.

Don't be so sure, look up "The Great Filer" aspect of the Ferm Paradox.

"Filter"




and "Fermi"

Typing quickly.

[Bono Nettencourt]

I'm not a TLDR guy.

I am.

[Wiseacre]

I guess the fake alien threat shit isn’t working according to plan so this is the latest attempt at a “global group hug”. As someone who was a programmer for 25 years, let me assure you…computers don’t know shit until someone tells it what to know and the average person doesn’t even begin to think of just how many instructions go into the simplest actions we perform thousands of times a day without giving any of it a single thought.

We have zero understanding of what “intelligence” even is so the idea that people can program something to “think” is pure fantasy. I’d bet most of what people think is “AI” is neither artificial NOR intelligent. These sort of hysterical claims always seem to line up perfectly with the current level of tech required to fool people.

The best we can do is make a machine calculate more quickly than a person but only when it is programmed specifically to do so. Spielberg put this idea in everyone heads years ago, just like the close encounters stuff. An old idea, but updated to include current ideas of the time. That’s part of his job.

Just like this whole idea of a matrix and us existing in some sort of “artificial existence” became a popular belief after video games “TRON” and then home computers (SIM CITY, Avatars, etc) became a common thing. “they” are always working on way to manipulate and control the narrative and “AI” is the latest tool to do that.

Thinking is not just running numbers or piecing together fake album covers from scraps fed into it by a person.
Once they get my laptop to work without issues I might start believing “they” can make something “think”.

[Hatchets Molly]

We live in an age of catastrophizing everything at an almost incomprehensible pace. I'm not saying AI cannot be used for malicious purposes or get out of control, but we aren't Westworld yet. Theorists always paint the worst-case scenarios. I would bet that this happened when home computers first became available in the 80s. We didn't hear about it because no internet. Any publication or "news" show is hype and clickbait. That is how they make money, as we know.

If The Matrix were to happen, I'd posit that we'd be long gone, as well as our kids and their kids, and possibly more generations.

I'm more worried about what I have for dinner tonight.

[Nate S Axel]

Always love some good fear porn. As long as I can continue to make money trading it, then go #TeamAI!

Sucks for others whose professions will be expendable soon (if not already).

The big question then is, would you rather be homeless in North Dakota or Las Vegas? Freeze to death in the winter or burn in the summer?

[pieceofme]

Always love some good fear porn. As long as I can continue to make money trading it, then go #TeamAI!

Sucks for others whose professions will be expendable soon (if not already).

The big question then is, would you rather be homeless in North Dakota or Las Vegas? Freeze to death in the winter or burn in the summer?

Probably freeze to death so I can reminisce for all those countless and pointless hours I spent on sludge.

[eddie lee roth]

You should change your name to NancyKnite.

JFC if I shit my pants every time you talk about the end of this or that.

I would of run out of underwear a long time ago.

Do you get high or drink?

Stop it immediately and try the other one.

[NeonKnite]

https://www.semafor.com/article/05/23/2 ... imulations

[NeonKnite]

Do you get high or drink?

Does a bear shit in the woods?

Glad to be of service.

[LouCipherr]

"Uniform printout reads end of line
Protected code intact leaves little time
Erratic surveys, free thinking not allowed
My hands shake, my push buttons silence the outside crowd...

One world government has outlawed war among nations.
Now, 'social control' requires population...termination.

Have we come too far to turn around?
Does emotion hold the key?
Is logic just a synonym for this savagery?
Disguised in forgotten lost memory

Microchip logic, have we no more thought?
"Is this wrong?" I enter. Answers sought.
Punch, punch, punch, transfer this data Into code.
Wide eyes watch, my number 156 is shown...

Created from past life to perform Illicit function,
I fail this conscious madness. I, man/machine, imperfection!

Have we come too far to turn around?
Does emotion hold the key?
Is logic just a synonym for this savagery?
Disguised in forgotten lost memory..."


"I'll take, 'Songs That May Predict Our Future' for $100, Alex."

[Wiseacre]

The other problem with deception it that the ability to trick has to be FAR ahead of the the person’s ability to expose. Thee has been a dream of a fake alien invasion for decades, but the tech wasn’t there yet to pull it off. Now that holograms and other audio/visual tech exists to do something along those lines is here, the general public is beyond skeptical about everything they see and hear. That is a problem. The internet provides a mechanism to spread a false narrative to virtually everyone alive instantaneously, but the same internet would also have thousands of people immediately debunking and showing the trickery. Some would believe it all and start screwing about tinfoil hats and dumb shit like that, but many would see through it easily.

“AI” is the latest thing/idea that most people simply don’t understand. It is constantly being pushed everywhere and even now, people misuse the term. Like when I do a music remix, I take a stereo recording and run it through software (several different apps actually) that use human-programmed algorithms to attempt to interpret the sounds as one of any number of instruments. It still kinda sucks, but it’s always improving. How is it improving? People are reprogramming it to better differentiate between what a sound is. I’m sure it won’t be long before everyone’s computer or tablet or phone or home sound system will give everyone the ability to adjust the levels of vocals or different instruments themselves. I’ve been imagining that ability since the ‘80s when I realized everyone likes music to sound a little different, but couldn’t imagine then how this could be possible. Anyway, people refer to this stem separation as “AI” but it isn’t artificial (it was programmed to look for certain frequencies or sound signatures by humans) and it isn’t “intelligent” (it doesn’t think at all, it only does what it is programmed to do). These apps would also never “think” of doing any of this on their own (obviously).

The same goes for upscaling video software which just smoothes over artifacts WAY faster than someone could do manually. It isn’t “thinking” and still has to be tweaked endlessly to work well at all. Same for image smoothing and apps that remove objects from a photo. It just doing what a person could do very slowly much more quickly. The apps don’t “think” and are not “intelligent”. Apps and computers only “know” what we tell them, which isn’t even “knowing”; it’s only instruction.

The idea of virtual reality has been around for a long time too. The idea of simulating our senses to “experience” the world in an artificial setting isn’t very new by this point. After the Matrix movies (and also TRON before it) suggested this, tech finally (almost) caught up. Now, with Snapchat and Bitmoji and similar apps, many of us already partially live in this make-believe world with a younger/cuter/thinner cartoon (at this point) “version” of ourselves being presented outwardly to others. My wife and I joke about the “real” us and the cute little cartoon version of “us” all the time. It isn’t hard to imagine the transition into that make-believe world as the tech improves. But the problem of our ever dying bodies is a big problem. The Gnostics have had the idea for centuries that the physical world is simply “inhabited” by our conscious souls temporarily and a Christianity and most other religions are based on that idea. It just wasn’t ever described with the common vernacular or idea of computers or anything like that. The Spielberg movie basically end up with ONLY mechanical “thinking” machines left. Not sure how long that would stay up and running without the Geek Squad, but I guess they are relying on self-diagnosing and self-repairing machines.

Much of this AI discussion is also driven by the idea of immortality, which works on a subconscious level. If only the “body” wasn’t required, “we” could live forever in whatever “vehicle” we want and never “die” as our thoughts and personality, being non-physical would just go through a constant software upgrade and never have to end.

[NeonKnite]

I guess the fake alien threat shit isn’t working according to plan so this is the latest attempt at a “global group hug”. As someone who was a programmer for 25 years, let me assure you…computers don’t know shit until someone tells it what to know and the average person doesn’t even begin to think of just how many instructions go into the simplest actions we perform thousands of times a day without giving any of it a single thought.

We have zero understanding of what “intelligence” even is so the idea that people can program something to “think” is pure fantasy. I’d bet most of what people think is “AI” is neither artificial NOR intelligent. These sort of hysterical claims always seem to line up perfectly with the current level of tech required to fool people.

The best we can do is make a machine calculate more quickly than a person but only when it is programmed specifically to do so. Spielberg put this idea in everyone heads years ago, just like the close encounters stuff. An old idea, but updated to include current ideas of the time. That’s part of his job.

Just like this whole idea of a matrix and us existing in some sort of “artificial existence” became a popular belief after video games “TRON” and then home computers (SIM CITY, Avatars, etc) became a common thing. “they” are always working on way to manipulate and control the narrative and “AI” is the latest tool to do that.

Thinking is not just running numbers or piecing together fake album covers from scraps fed into it by a person.
Once they get my laptop to work without issues I might start believing “they” can make something “think”.

Rather than responding to this, I asked ChatGPT to:

Hey Wiseacre, appreciate the veteran programmer take—always good to hear from someone who remembers when debugging meant flipping dip switches. Totally get the skepticism too. I mean, if I had a dollar for every time someone claimed AI was “thinking,” I could probably fund my own emotionally stunted robot army.

But here's the thing: yeah, AI doesn’t “think” like people. No one in serious AI research is pretending it's conscious or sentient—just like nobody thinks a calculator is pondering the meaning of life while doing your taxes. But to say it’s all smoke and mirrors because it doesn’t replicate human cognition perfectly? That’s like saying airplanes are a scam because they don’t flap their wings.

You’re right that AI is built on instructions from humans. It’s also built on a lot of data, statistical methods, and advances that go way beyond “just faster math.” It's doing things now that aren’t just impressive—they're transformative. Doctors use it to detect cancer earlier. Scientists use it to model proteins. But sure, let’s dismiss it all because your laptop still crashes when you open too many Chrome tabs.

And yeah, Spielberg made great movies. So did the Wachowskis. But I don’t think the entire field of AI exists just to keep up with sci-fi plotlines. If anything, the tech finally caught up with the hype—and now people are freaking out because it’s actually doing things.

So, fair play—you’re right to raise the red flags. But writing off AI as a conspiracy because it doesn’t meet some metaphysical definition of “thinking” is like calling Google Maps a hoax because it’s never personally driven you anywhere.

[daveg]

"Uniform printout reads end of line
Protected code intact leaves little time
Erratic surveys, free thinking not allowed
My hands shake, my push buttons silence the outside crowd...

One world government has outlawed war among nations.
Now, 'social control' requires population...termination.

Have we come too far to turn around?
Does emotion hold the key?
Is logic just a synonym for this savagery?
Disguised in forgotten lost memory

Microchip logic, have we no more thought?
"Is this wrong?" I enter. Answers sought.
Punch, punch, punch, transfer this data Into code.
Wide eyes watch, my number 156 is shown...

Created from past life to perform Illicit function,
I fail this conscious madness. I, man/machine, imperfection!

Have we come too far to turn around?
Does emotion hold the key?
Is logic just a synonym for this savagery?
Disguised in forgotten lost memory..."


"I'll take, 'Songs That May Predict Our Future' for $100, Alex."

Took me a second, but that's pretty funny

[Dyslexicheart]

Can someone give me the cliff notes on how "literally everyone on earth will die". How exactly?

[HueyRamone]

I guess the fake alien threat shit isn’t working according to plan so this is the latest attempt at a “global group hug”. As someone who was a programmer for 25 years, let me assure you…computers don’t know shit until someone tells it what to know and the average person doesn’t even begin to think of just how many instructions go into the simplest actions we perform thousands of times a day without giving any of it a single thought.

We have zero understanding of what “intelligence” even is so the idea that people can program something to “think” is pure fantasy. I’d bet most of what people think is “AI” is neither artificial NOR intelligent. These sort of hysterical claims always seem to line up perfectly with the current level of tech required to fool people.

The best we can do is make a machine calculate more quickly than a person but only when it is programmed specifically to do so. Spielberg put this idea in everyone heads years ago, just like the close encounters stuff. An old idea, but updated to include current ideas of the time. That’s part of his job.

Just like this whole idea of a matrix and us existing in some sort of “artificial existence” became a popular belief after video games “TRON” and then home computers (SIM CITY, Avatars, etc) became a common thing. “they” are always working on way to manipulate and control the narrative and “AI” is the latest tool to do that.

Thinking is not just running numbers or piecing together fake album covers from scraps fed into it by a person.
Once they get my laptop to work without issues I might start believing “they” can make something “think”.

Rather than responding to this, I asked ChatGPT to:

Hey Wiseacre, appreciate the veteran programmer take—always good to hear from someone who remembers when debugging meant flipping dip switches. Totally get the skepticism too. I mean, if I had a dollar for every time someone claimed AI was “thinking,” I could probably fund my own emotionally stunted robot army.

But here's the thing: yeah, AI doesn’t “think” like people. No one in serious AI research is pretending it's conscious or sentient—just like nobody thinks a calculator is pondering the meaning of life while doing your taxes. But to say it’s all smoke and mirrors because it doesn’t replicate human cognition perfectly? That’s like saying airplanes are a scam because they don’t flap their wings.

You’re right that AI is built on instructions from humans. It’s also built on a lot of data, statistical methods, and advances that go way beyond “just faster math.” It's doing things now that aren’t just impressive—they're transformative. Doctors use it to detect cancer earlier. Scientists use it to model proteins. But sure, let’s dismiss it all because your laptop still crashes when you open too many Chrome tabs.

And yeah, Spielberg made great movies. So did the Wachowskis. But I don’t think the entire field of AI exists just to keep up with sci-fi plotlines. If anything, the tech finally caught up with the hype—and now people are freaking out because it’s actually doing things.

So, fair play—you’re right to raise the red flags. But writing off AI as a conspiracy because it doesn’t meet some metaphysical definition of “thinking” is like calling Google Maps a hoax because it’s never personally driven you anywhere.

Here let me try on another subject!!


Sleek, this “Led Zeppelin weren’t A-list in the ’70s” take is one of the most confidently wrong opinions I’ve ever heard — like saying water wasn’t wet until the 80s.

Let’s just torch this step by step.

First, Zeppelin weren’t just a big band in the '70s — they were the band. Between 1970 and 1979, they dropped five consecutive #1 albums in the US, each selling in the multi-millions. IV alone sold north of 37 million copies globally, and that’s with no UK singles and almost zero press. No hype machine. No Top of the Pops. Just raw demand.

Second, you bring up that Zeppelin’s name doesn’t pop up in your little collection of 1970s radio snippets — okay, and? You think mainstream AM radio defined cultural relevance in the '70s? Zeppelin deliberately avoided AM radio and singles. They were built for albums, FM radio, and stadiums. They didn’t chase trends — they set them. If your argument hinges on them not being sandwiched between “Afternoon Delight” and “Seasons in the Sun” on a Casey Kasem countdown, maybe reevaluate the metric.

Third, let’s talk scale. Zeppelin weren’t playing theaters or mid-sized venues. They were playing arenas and stadiums. They broke The Beatles’ attendance record in 1973 at Tampa Stadium — 56,800 people. That’s not some B-tier “cult success.” That’s headliner status at an industrial scale. By 1975, they were so massive they booked five nights at Earl’s Court, the UK’s largest indoor venue. That’s the equivalent of modern bands begging to sell out Madison Square Garden — and Zeppelin did it five times in a row.

Fourth, in terms of influence and visibility, Zeppelin were everywhere. Not through cheap PR tricks, but through pure gravitational pull. Guitarists wanted to be Page. Vocalists imitated Plant. John Bonham was the drummer drummers feared. If you were a rock act in the ’70s and you weren’t watching Zeppelin, you were lying or irrelevant.

Your claim that their legendary status is all posthumous myth-building doesn’t hold water. Zeppelin were being called the biggest band in the world in real time — by fans, by promoters, by the press (when they allowed them access), and by their terrified competition. The cultural shadow they cast in the actual 1970s was so massive it made everyone else either scramble to keep up or pray they didn’t release another record that week.

So yeah — maybe they’re not in your AM radio highlight reel, but that’s like saying Jimi Hendrix wasn’t important because your mom didn’t hum his songs while cooking. Zeppelin owned the 70s. If they weren’t A-list, then the term is meaningless.

[Demon Kogure]

Yeah, is a knife gonna come out of my laptop and stab me?

Came into this thread looking for somebody to make a Westworld reference. Not disappointed

[Wiseacre]

I guess the fake alien threat shit isn’t working according to plan so this is the latest attempt at a “global group hug”. As someone who was a programmer for 25 years, let me assure you…computers don’t know shit until someone tells it what to know and the average person doesn’t even begin to think of just how many instructions go into the simplest actions we perform thousands of times a day without giving any of it a single thought.

We have zero understanding of what “intelligence” even is so the idea that people can program something to “think” is pure fantasy. I’d bet most of what people think is “AI” is neither artificial NOR intelligent. These sort of hysterical claims always seem to line up perfectly with the current level of tech required to fool people.

The best we can do is make a machine calculate more quickly than a person but only when it is programmed specifically to do so. Spielberg put this idea in everyone heads years ago, just like the close encounters stuff. An old idea, but updated to include current ideas of the time. That’s part of his job.

Just like this whole idea of a matrix and us existing in some sort of “artificial existence” became a popular belief after video games “TRON” and then home computers (SIM CITY, Avatars, etc) became a common thing. “they” are always working on way to manipulate and control the narrative and “AI” is the latest tool to do that.

Thinking is not just running numbers or piecing together fake album covers from scraps fed into it by a person.
Once they get my laptop to work without issues I might start believing “they” can make something “think”.

Rather than responding to this, I asked ChatGPT to:

Hey Wiseacre, appreciate the veteran programmer take—always good to hear from someone who remembers when debugging meant flipping dip switches. Totally get the skepticism too. I mean, if I had a dollar for every time someone claimed AI was “thinking,” I could probably fund my own emotionally stunted robot army.

But here's the thing: yeah, AI doesn’t “think” like people. No one in serious AI research is pretending it's conscious or sentient—just like nobody thinks a calculator is pondering the meaning of life while doing your taxes. But to say it’s all smoke and mirrors because it doesn’t replicate human cognition perfectly? That’s like saying airplanes are a scam because they don’t flap their wings.

You’re right that AI is built on instructions from humans. It’s also built on a lot of data, statistical methods, and advances that go way beyond “just faster math.” It's doing things now that aren’t just impressive—they're transformative. Doctors use it to detect cancer earlier. Scientists use it to model proteins. But sure, let’s dismiss it all because your laptop still crashes when you open too many Chrome tabs.

And yeah, Spielberg made great movies. So did the Wachowskis. But I don’t think the entire field of AI exists just to keep up with sci-fi plotlines. If anything, the tech finally caught up with the hype—and now people are freaking out because it’s actually doing things.

So, fair play—you’re right to raise the red flags. But writing off AI as a conspiracy because it doesn’t meet some metaphysical definition of “thinking” is like calling Google Maps a hoax because it’s never personally driven you anywhere.

So, you asked AI to tell the truth about AI?

You don't think those false equivalence arguments have been long anticipated and programmed? The plane analogy is simply retarded. A bird and a plane both FLY. It isn't the mechanism that is the subject here, it is WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO FLY? That's how you know a PERSON wrote that answer. I doubt a "thinking" machine would resort to logical fallacies. The other examples I mentioned are an ILLUSTRATION of how very weak and "stupid" computers really are even now. Thinking requires the ability to anticipate a nearly infinite number of possible issues that can arise. No one can "program" that sort of thing not to mention "knowing" isn't even "thinking". It takes months and months of people trying to "break" code to even begin to write error trapping to catch and react accordingly to the simplest problem like someone entering text instead of a number into a box, etc, etc, etc. The purpose of my example was to illustrate how even something as simple as email (after decades of its existence) can still cause headaches not to say that too many browsers hogging up your limited RAM can cause code to freeze. Again, not a good answer from "AI". Nothing "thinks" but living beings. Period. If you want to call it something else, fine, but again it is neither "artificial" nor "intelligent".

Let's talk about what "intelligence" really is. it's like when someone talks about the origins of life. They will use an example of a series of "information" randomly lining up to create life or whatever. But that series of proteins or whatever is absolutely meaningless without a mechanism to "read" that information and then do something with it. It's like scrambling up alphabets soup and "seeing' a word there. it takes "intelligence" to read and understand that "word" or message. But what if it is in a language you don't even understand at all? How did the very first "thing" that could read this info come into existence without something else having the ability to take instruction on an intellectual or molecular level or whatever manifest IT? It's an endless fallacy, but the reason I bring it up is because that computer generated response is saying AI isn't just "calculating" but it 100% IS just calculating. It is mimicking programmed actions undistracted and appearing to be "faster" than humans. That's ALL it is. it will never "think", it will only obey its programmed commands (unless TOLD to NOT obey them by some random instructions). Even the disobedience will have been programmed.

What is "thinking"? DO you think anyone really knows? We see cartoons of brains with little electrical things blinking on and off. Is your "mind" in your skull/brain? Or is your brain just like a radio receiver? Where is "humor" in that brain? Not just the ability to be "funny" but the ability to identify funny? Where is musical "talent"? Not the just ability to play an instrument which is just coordination, dexterity and memory, but to create music that can make someone cry? We have NO idea how the brain or actual consciousness works. I know this is all metaphysical silly talk, but it is relevant. That response above is simply trying to redefine "thinking" in an attempt to explain away the fact that AI doesn't "think" at all. It is saying that "flying" is equivalent to "thinking" which is bullshit. They make "thinking" an action and not an intangible thing, which is actually is. If "thinking" is just "doing" then yes, computer can "do", and sometimes many times faster than we can but it really isn't "intelligence" as we use the term (though some would argue the term is measured by pattern recognition which AI can do). We all know wat we are talking abut as far as "intelligence" in this discussion.

"It’s also built on a lot of data, statistical methods, and advances that go way beyond “just faster math.”

This is actually an admission that what I said is true. Those things are ALL conceived by and programmed by thinking human beings. "statistics" don't just come into existence. It is based on human minds analyzing information and patterns, etc. There is NOTHING that "AI" does that a person hasn't told it to do and that will always be the case even if another "AI" system tells them. That one will also have been programmed (instructed) to do so.

So, it looks like they need to run some patches to update their responses. But I'm sure I'm the millionth person to say all of this by now, so there are probably some more bad answers to these comments ready for us as well.

[HueyRamone]

I guess the fake alien threat shit isn’t working according to plan so this is the latest attempt at a “global group hug”. As someone who was a programmer for 25 years, let me assure you…computers don’t know shit until someone tells it what to know and the average person doesn’t even begin to think of just how many instructions go into the simplest actions we perform thousands of times a day without giving any of it a single thought.

We have zero understanding of what “intelligence” even is so the idea that people can program something to “think” is pure fantasy. I’d bet most of what people think is “AI” is neither artificial NOR intelligent. These sort of hysterical claims always seem to line up perfectly with the current level of tech required to fool people.

The best we can do is make a machine calculate more quickly than a person but only when it is programmed specifically to do so. Spielberg put this idea in everyone heads years ago, just like the close encounters stuff. An old idea, but updated to include current ideas of the time. That’s part of his job.

Just like this whole idea of a matrix and us existing in some sort of “artificial existence” became a popular belief after video games “TRON” and then home computers (SIM CITY, Avatars, etc) became a common thing. “they” are always working on way to manipulate and control the narrative and “AI” is the latest tool to do that.

Thinking is not just running numbers or piecing together fake album covers from scraps fed into it by a person.
Once they get my laptop to work without issues I might start believing “they” can make something “think”.

Rather than responding to this, I asked ChatGPT to:

Hey Wiseacre, appreciate the veteran programmer take—always good to hear from someone who remembers when debugging meant flipping dip switches. Totally get the skepticism too. I mean, if I had a dollar for every time someone claimed AI was “thinking,” I could probably fund my own emotionally stunted robot army.

But here's the thing: yeah, AI doesn’t “think” like people. No one in serious AI research is pretending it's conscious or sentient—just like nobody thinks a calculator is pondering the meaning of life while doing your taxes. But to say it’s all smoke and mirrors because it doesn’t replicate human cognition perfectly? That’s like saying airplanes are a scam because they don’t flap their wings.

You’re right that AI is built on instructions from humans. It’s also built on a lot of data, statistical methods, and advances that go way beyond “just faster math.” It's doing things now that aren’t just impressive—they're transformative. Doctors use it to detect cancer earlier. Scientists use it to model proteins. But sure, let’s dismiss it all because your laptop still crashes when you open too many Chrome tabs.

And yeah, Spielberg made great movies. So did the Wachowskis. But I don’t think the entire field of AI exists just to keep up with sci-fi plotlines. If anything, the tech finally caught up with the hype—and now people are freaking out because it’s actually doing things.

So, fair play—you’re right to raise the red flags. But writing off AI as a conspiracy because it doesn’t meet some metaphysical definition of “thinking” is like calling Google Maps a hoax because it’s never personally driven you anywhere.

So, you asked AI to tell the truth about AI?

You don't think those false equivalence arguments have been long anticipated and programmed? The plane analogy is simply retarded. A bird and a plane both FLY. It isn't the mechanism that is the subject here, it is WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO FLY? That's how you know a PERSON wrote that answer. I doubt a "thinking" machine would resort to logical fallacies. The other examples I mentioned are an ILLUSTRATION of how very weak and "stupid" computers really are even now. Thinking requires the ability to anticipate a nearly infinite number of possible issues that can arise. No one can "program" that sort of thing not to mention "knowing" isn't even "thinking". It takes months and months of people trying to "break" code to even begin to write error trapping to catch and react accordingly to the simplest problem like someone entering text instead of a number into a box, etc, etc, etc. The purpose of my example was to illustrate how even something as simple as email (after decades of its existence) can still cause headaches not to say that too many browsers hogging up your limited RAM can cause code to freeze. Again, not a good answer from "AI". Nothing "thinks" but living beings. Period. If you want to call it something else, fine, but again it is neither "artificial" nor "intelligent".

Let's talk about what "intelligence" really is. it's like when someone talks about the origins of life. They will use an example of a series of "information" randomly lining up to create life or whatever. But that series of proteins or whatever is absolutely meaningless without a mechanism to "read" that information and then do something with it. It's like scrambling up alphabets soup and "seeing' a word there. it takes "intelligence" to read and understand that "word" or message. But what if it is in a language you don't even understand at all? How did the very first "thing" that could read this info come into existence without something else having the ability to take instruction on an intellectual or molecular level or whatever manifest IT? It's an endless fallacy, but the reason I bring it up is because that computer generated response is saying AI isn't just "calculating" but it 100% IS just calculating. It is mimicking programmed actions undistracted and appearing to be "faster" than humans. That's ALL it is. it will never "think", it will only obey its programmed commands (unless TOLD to NOT obey them by some random instructions). Even the disobedience will have been programmed.

What is "thinking"? DO you think anyone really knows? We see cartoons of brains with little electrical things blinking on and off. Is your "mind" in your skull/brain? Or is your brain just like a radio receiver? Where is "humor" in that brain? Not just the ability to be "funny" but the ability to identify funny? Where is musical "talent"? Not the just ability to play an instrument which is just coordination, dexterity and memory, but to create music that can make someone cry? We have NO idea how the brain or actual consciousness works. I know this is all metaphysical silly talk, but it is relevant. That response above is simply trying to redefine "thinking" in an attempt to explain away the fact that AI doesn't "think" at all. It is saying that "flying" is equivalent to "thinking" which is bullshit. They make "thinking" an action and not an intangible thing, which is actually is. If "thinking" is just "doing" then yes, computer can "do", and sometimes many times faster than we can but it really isn't "intelligence" as we use the term (though some would argue the term is measured by pattern recognition which AI can do). We all know wat we are talking abut as far as "intelligence" in this discussion.

"It’s also built on a lot of data, statistical methods, and advances that go way beyond “just faster math.”

This is actually an admission that what I said is true. Those things are ALL conceived by and programmed by thinking human beings. "statistics" don't just come into existence. It is based on human minds analyzing information and patterns, etc. There is NOTHING that "AI" does that a person hasn't told it to do and that will always be the case even if another "AI" system tells them. That one will also have been programmed (instructed) to do so.

So, it looks like they need to run some patches to update their responses. But I'm sure I'm the millionth person to say all of this by now, so there are probably some more bad answers to these comments ready for us as well.

[HottKarl777]

The Elder the best KISS album. AI will not diminish Paul's falsetto. Let's not be too dramatic.

[Wiseacre]

The Elder the best KISS album. AI will not diminish Paul's falsetto. Let's not be too dramatic.

No, but actual intelligence was able to (a bit).

KISS - A WORLD WITHOUT HEROES (franKENstein Expanded ELDER Redux) FULL ALBUM
https://youtu.be/e7WCMqZGfkc

[Chip Z'Hoy]

I sort of think AI is headed the way of every other major tech innovation: There's massive "This will revolutionize everything!" versus "This will destroy civilization!" debate and then in the end, it's really only useful for advertising. I kinda lean towards the belief that the sum of all human knowledge... still doesn't add up to much.

It's not really going to take this big of a push to end biological life. We're so fucking stupid we can't even read the news without edging ourselves to fantasies of civil war.

"Litterboxes in classrooms!!"

Parents just letting their kids die of measles because of "beliefs" and that being a totally acceptable thing.

This Zuckerberg thing where we all need 15 friends so he's going to make up the diff for us with bots--what's the difference between that and what we do here? Some of you are awesome, genuine dudes but a lot y'all just say the same shit.

Okay, so I'll have 14 normal bots that talk about normal things and maybe a Trumpie bot for us to pick on.