To humans, intelligence is that which helps us achieve our human goals. The machines will never be our overlords. But other humans will.
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What are our human goals? In our current society the highest aspiration is accumulating as much material wealth as possible. Once wealth is accumulated, the desire to enjoy it for as long as possible arises. The next goal is unending life. Don’t die.
Let’s take them one by one.
Getting rich means finding new ways of using resources as efficiently as possible to maximize profit. That’s why we’re automating the means of production by using machines instead of humans. We’re reducing biological life’s access to resources while increasing its output.
We dream of Dyson spheres as human habitats instead of planets. Of cosmic spam to trick other civilizations into using our technology so that we can colonize them. Of seeding the universe with simulated human life instead of actual humans.
Behind all this will be a few humans who enjoy unlimited life and wealth in a world designed by them and for them. Because they will be the new gods. Everything else—living or non-living—will be just rearranged matter.
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Thank you for reading,
—Claudia B.
I want to encourage you to develop these ideas further. I am not sure that I have quite caught the message that you intended. Or perhaps your meaning was clear, but I came into a completely different framework and am the locus of misunderstanding.
I agree that the machines will not rule us. But I am not sure that we connect on why this is so.