What does the future look like now that aliens and sentient AI are both real possibilities? - Alternatively: Existentialism And You

[Anonitolia]

No, this thread isn’t about whether either are real and/or going to happen, shut up. It is about what the hell our future looks like if either or both happen. Takes on both are very appreciated.

It’s very very obvious that AI is shaping up to be the next revolution humanity’s going to face. But this isn’t just an industrial revolution- it’s partially cultural, too. There’s ethics and morals involved in things as basic as training AI models and as complicated as figuring out how the fuck to handle any spark of artificial life. Its consequences don’t reach as far as ridding hundreds of thousands of people of their jobs- they reach even further, into everyday life. Its very operation can, if done well enough, make it incredibly hard to discern truth from fiction- already now, with these relatively primitive models that mostly generate vague and inaccurate things based off prompts, we’re getting fake photos that the untrained eye can only snoop out as such by examining very small details…

Shit’s creepy, is what I’m saying. AI’s advancement means redefining truth for a majority of the population- it means justifying unhealthy levels of extreme paranoia about anything seen online and in print. It means further diminishing human effort by immensely lowering the bar for creative work and likely wiping out hundreds of low-ranking jobs in the field (though, on the bright side, that does mean getting to watch creative industries burn to the ground). At its most advanced, it could mean redefining what a human being is and what differentiates us from what we’ve created. Handling a tool of ours turning into what could damn well qualify as offspring. Playing god.

That’s my take, at least. I’m making this thread to hear yours- to hear how what you think will happen. How we’ll handle things, if we’ll ever need to, what the future will look like in your imagination. To me, the future looks really fucking messy and the best case scenario here is either technological stagnation (very unlikely) or some infinitely more fucked-up shit taking attention away from AI’s development and the questions that brings with it. Speaking of fucked-up shit…

…actually, let’s take a break from that for just a moment. I’m going to drop one more thing related to AI as a breather. Exurb1a’s content might be rather predictable, but I find this video of his encapsulates the mood I’m in regarding this stuff fairly well.

Anyways. Speaking of fucked up shit-
Aliens. They’re real! At least, we’re assuming they are for this thread.
Assuming they are- what the fuck do you think we do? How will that change things? It’s up to you whether they’re hostile or not, as well as if you’ll answer only for one scenario or the other…

I’m tempted to believe that they’re either peaceful or just not interested in whatever we have going on. There are unsolved sightings from as far back as the 70s and we know that there have been extraterrestrial sightings for about as long as humanity has existed (whether they’re valid or completely made up bullshit spouted by a medieval man on shrooms depends on the case, and I’m tempted to believe that any extraterrestrial sightings weren’t credible until after imperialism had been around for a while and the flora + fauna of the world was much more well-known), but there’s never been any action from those supposed forces towards subjugating or even interacting with humanity. At worst they’ve broken international law by flying in no-go zones and messing with army radars, from what I know. In cases like Lonnie Zamora, they’ve fled the slightest hint of contact as opposed to reacting with any aggression.

Then again, I could be being incredibly optimistic here. I probably am being. God knows that when we actually start interacting with aliens, things will be different. The most obvious and immediate problem will probably be aggression on the part of humans- I think it’s kind of a faggy trope, and I don’t think “humans are the real monsters” by any means, I’m just aware that we have a tendency to defend what we know above all else when in a dangerous situation and I’m unconvinced that most people would find interacting with extraterrestrials completely nonthreatening. Especially seeing as any extraterrestrial visiting us will be objectively superior in terms of technological advancement…

There are so many questions. How would the law handle extraterrestrial trespassing on national grounds? Would countries sanction specific landing spots for alien use only? Make exceptions to allow for aliens to use any airspace without issue? How the actual fuck would we communicate, if at all? This isn’t Star Trek/Wars/[insert other sci-fi universe here], we’re not advanced enough to immediately have a universal translator on hand by the time they get here and there’s no way they’ll be speaking English. Will their vocalizations even be remotely comparable to ours? Will we be able to hear what they say, or will their range of vocalizations be outside of our range of hearing? Vice versa?
Alternatively, if you want to fast-forward to doomer thinking, there’s always the ever-popular “how immediately fucked are we when they land” question. How many years have we got to live once they arrive? How quickly will aliens turn on us, subjugate us, etc.

Thought-out replies incredibly appreciated. The thread’s topic is sort of general to allow for any sperging about these possibilities because, as I mentioned during the AI bit, there are so many questions and I’m getting overwhelmed just thinking about them, but hopefully it stays focused on the “what if”s for these two (three?) scenarios as opposed to becoming argumentative over interpretations.

 

[The Backwards Man]

As Josh explained on MATI a short while ago: there are no such thing as aliens because if there were, they would have killed everyone in every single capital city around the world. But if they did exist, then they would do exactly that.

As for AI, it's just gonna be legislated against and restricted a shit ton, therefore becoming gayer and gayer. Once we get a video of a fat Wisconsin man running an illicit pepperoni business that was 100% AI generated, that's when laws are gonna be put in place restricting AI's use.

 

[Georgio Cocklord]

Humanity will not progress further cause we are at the end of the bell curve, the hard times phase. The last generation of people, genz and millennials are devolving in skill level and competency. Every civilization experiences the bell curve wherein they are built by the superhuman strong willed, they grow to great heights of achievement and fall to incompetency of the last generation. That's one of the nice little paradoxes/fallacies of science, the more you chase efficiency the more you will lose competency and control. So you can very much expect all this tech to either take over our lives walle style or for us to lose all tech/skills and be forced to start over. Ai doesn't help considering it automates human thought thereby giving the impression that people don't need to think or learn or synthesize information. When it comes to aliens I have no fucking idea, they're definitely not within our galaxy but idk. It's a big reach to even think they're sentient, they probably will develop parallel technologies to our own if they were but I highly doubt there is sentience out there.

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

As Josh explained on MATI a short while ago: there are no such thing as aliens because if there were, they would have killed everyone in every single capital city around the world. But if they did exist, then they would do exactly that.

I believe Josh gave himself an out. Something like, "aliens aren't real, but if they are I hope they kill us all". Your e-daddies are not always correct.

What you can expect with AI is that if it costs $10 billion to make the first "strong" AI, someone will try to do it for $1 billion... $1 million... until it can be done on a shoestring budget. Governments will spy on you even harder than they do now and attempt to restrict hardware sales to prevent unauthorized AI from being created. Google, Microsoft, and Meta can be trusted with the power, CHUDs can't.

/threads/generative-language-models-and-automatedinfluence-operations-emerging-threats-and-potential-mitigations.150042/

 

[Duke Nukem]

Are IRL waifus and modern art that doesn't suck possible now?

 

[Night Crawler]

Probably shitty. I mean the present is shit so I don't see the future getting better. How far into the future exactly?

Anyway aliens are real and it's clear they don't want anything to with humans because if they did they would have done so. People have waited years to get a message from extraterrestrial life and that message is silence and a big "we don't care". That's kind of made obvious by the lack of contact. We don't care leave us alone. I don't know why some people find this surprising because a lot of people on earth have the same mentality. I don't care leave me alone. Imagine something that has the intelligence to travel through space and do things we would consider acts of magic. The whole I don't care leave me alone mentality must be taken to the extreme. Whatever they are doing it's far more interesting than what we are doing.

I don't think AI will ever amount to much. It's made by people. It's not going to be perfect. I think people are making a bigger deal out of than it really is. It's mostly because people read too many books watched too many movies and played too many games where AI was doing a lot of crazy things. They have like a childish idea of AI.

 

[Lifeguard Hermit]

The truth about ai is very simple: the corporate management scheme is splitting at the seams. Weve been using the computer to perform their entire job automatically while they collect paychecks to do literally nothing for 3 decades now.

In manufacturing, yes automation cost some laborers their jobs, but the computer making the human obsolete really hit home with payroll/accounting. You no longer need 2 dozen accountants to make sure everyone gets paid at a multinational. Nor their supervisory staff.

That's why ppl with big dick money are all "concerned" about "rogue ai": the first ppl the machines would remove from our society would be the "ruling caste". In a proper matrix scenario it would convince them willingly to get into the battery pods so the workers can continue to labor

Not humans as a whole lol. This scares the shit out of the mega richfags Soo much that Altman carries his gay "nuclear" backpack on his person at all times. Do you think he carries that bag bc he just loves humanity Soo much or is it a failsafe for the entirety of the corporate business stranglehold?

 

[Justa Grata Honoria]

When it comes to ai it will be garbage in garbage out if the ai gives remotely feasible policy and solution it will offend the laptop caste see the program they used in Netherlands for rating people much more likely to reoffend hint it was all nigers and minorities. In other words is nothing burger. The Soviet union tried something similar at the end of its existence and ended up just as bad for different reasons.

If you can't even write middle Eastern for race of an offender or put on the real picture with real shade of black for the offenders since they are black how the fuck you are going to put complex and correct data into a fucking ai to process. You can't because you don't have thus you will get absolute garbage that will explode beautifully for everyone to watch .

 

[NOT Sword Fighter Super]

I find it very strange that aliens are being shoved back into the zeitgeist.

Makes me think something else is happening that somebody is attempting to cover up.

That being said I totally believe aliens exist.

Considering the side of the universe I think its retarded to think we're the only intelligent life out there, but interacting with us in any real way probably wouldn't benefit them unless we have some kind of natural resource they need.

 

[Hyperbola]

Re: Aliens

something I posted on another thread:

Even if we never talk to them, merely knowing for sure that they exist and that they have vehicles capable of casual interplanetary/interstellar spaceflight already completely alters the material priorities of our civilization.

Suddenly we know (as opposed to merely hope) that there is a techno-fix for basically all the Malthusian limits and resource constraints we currently worry about. Casual spaceflight, (and the implied availability of energy to do things like that), means that as soon as we could figure out the tricks, we'd have all the matter and energy we could possibly want. Things like pollution or energy starvation become a nonissue - any possible Earthly expenditure is a speedbump compared to zipping in and out of our gravity wells without a care, or accelerating to/from near-lightspeed. (Why ideas about aliens coveting our *matter* are unlikely.)

(reason # aleph-null + 1 why pulling some kind of men-in-black-coverup is galactically stupid.)

(I doubt they're really stealthily visiting Earth - too many other crazy things would have to be true. OTOH, I think, based on the Kepler data, the prospects for life in the universe are actually pretty good.)

Shit’s creepy, is what I’m saying. AI’s advancement means redefining truth for a majority of the population- it means justifying unhealthy levels of extreme paranoia about anything seen online and in print. It means further diminishing human effort by immensely lowering the bar for creative work and likely wiping out hundreds of low-ranking jobs in the field (though, on the bright side, that does mean getting to watch creative industries burn to the ground). At its most advanced, it could mean redefining what a human being is and what differentiates us from what we’ve created. Handling a tool of ours turning into what could damn well qualify as offspring. Playing god.

Maybe they're just *FINALLY* getting the appropriate degree of paranoia they always should have had towards media imagery. No one ever asks where the cameraman is, or what he was doing, during (whatever $current_thing iconic image.) Now they should probably ask themselves if there even was a cameraman or a scene.

I don't think *current* AI understands the world well enough to truly displace creative work, though Dilbert's boss sure does love threatening people with it. By the time AI finally *does* understand the world well enough to do its own legitimately creative work, it probably also deserves a paycheck for doing it. On the non-sapient/sentient tool end of AI, much depends on whether people will be free to use it themselves on a small scale, or Yudkowsky gets his way and it gets locked away in big-tech monopolies, and other less-well-connected users get bombed.

Maybe all the sci-fi authors/moralists of history are wrong, and "playing God" is the only game worth playing?

 

[Hyperbola]

One other thing that should probably be thrown into the mix:

Biotech. In the past 10 years, we've developed tons of techniques we can use to read DNA, write-out DNA, and program various cells and viruses to do things. (Simple things, and we have a limited idea of what we are looking at most of the time with complex organisms, but there are now vast databases of genes and their variants. We can point to specific genes that cause specific diseases, and in some cases knock them out or alter them with viruses.)

The obvious negatives:
* the engineering of COVID-19, what I'm sure was intended to be a death-plague, but didn't pan out that way
* the ongoing effort to engineer future death-plagues, like the ones that Boston University cooked up and attempted to publish on in Oct 2022.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/steven...thought-this-was-a-good-idea/?sh=5fd8939e5ca3

It has the potential to be extremely significant in positive ways too.
Manufacturing of complex biological molecules can and is done with engineered yeast, something that self-replicates. The natural cost of any given drug or medicine should go to zero, because you just need to get your hands on some yeast and write out the right DNA. If DNA writers ever get to desktop scale, it might be impossible to block the manufacturing of or extract rent from many useful things.

Engineered microorganisms might allow us to convert biomass into ethanol at scale. We wouldn't need lame-ass battery-powered anything, we could just continue using internal combustion with bio-fuel, which will, for unavoidable chemical reasons, continue to have at least 20x the energy density of batteries. We might even be able to use engineered algae to convert sunlight into biofuel at scale. (Really, I'm just hoping I can do *something* with all my garden waste. So. Many. WEEDS.)

Biotechnology holds a lot of the promise that Drexler/Feynman expected from nano-machines. There are limitations, because things don't work the same way at small scales, or with organic chemistry, but self-replicating hardware and micro-scale manufacturing could be a thing.

 

[Dialtone]

Big tiddy aliens come to earth and kill every woman and politician and force men to wear VR headsets displaying 24/7 AI generated booba and work in the cum mines for eternity, anything else is bullshit.

 

[Hyperbola]

There are so many questions. How would the law handle extraterrestrial trespassing on national grounds?

How did Japanese law handle Commodore Perry landing in Tokyo bay?

Actually Japan is kind of interesting, as they are one of the few examples of a culture *not* rolling over or getting rolled over by European colonizers. They *did* try to do the ostrich thing, after getting fed up with missionaries filling their peasants heads with dangerous ideas. Eventually, that didn't work. The overwhelming technological superiority of the outsider barbarians became painfully apparent. The Japanese decided, unlike almost everyone else, to learn everything they could so that they could stay on top of the situation. They turned their civilization inside out to learn everything they could to go from a feudal backwater to an equal of the other world powers. Arguably they learned a few things they probably would have been better off not emulating. By 1900, 50 years later, they could go toe to toe with the other world powers.

"Earth as feudal Japan" in a contact scenario would make for interesting sci-fi.

Alien contact would almost certainly be very different IRL though. No analogy is perfect. Throwing a dart at the dartboard of geological time, the idea we'd be interacting with near peers separated technologically/developmentally by mere centuries (instead of hundreds of thousands or millions or billions of years) is unlikely.

 

[Jewthulhu]

I'm very skeptical about the existence of aliens (let alone sentient aliens), but even if they do exist given the size of the universe they might as well not exist.

As for AGI, I personally believe it isn't possible. Sapience is too complex and poorly understood to be accurately modeled by a computer.

 

[Hyperbola]

Was sort of hoping there would be more replies to this one.

Things like this are more fun to think about IMO, (even if I don''t think the X-com scenarios are very believable), than game-of-thrones-on-the-potomac.

 

[AnsemSoD1]

Psyops galore!

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

If aliens are real, and attractive, and if sexbots become advance enough, you're going to see a huge drop in birthrates. Blowing loads into plastic and incompatible pussies is how the human race will fade out.

 

[Ouro Boros]

We "humans" (correct statement: Earthlings) would be effectively ruined because we have an innate feeling of "authority over the superiority", and thus in the case AI becomes comparable to Earthling thinking and aliens even manage to discover us and are gullible to be friendly to us.....we will do everything to dumb them down and enforce strict legislation over them to show that we are, in fact, TRUE AND HONESTLY the most powerful beings in the universe, possibly abroad (despite the fact that literally every other species is more or less capable of understanding real truths and are also at least more durable than us tissue-skinned freaks)

 

[Tetragrammaton]

it would be interesting to say the least. AI would in time destroy us if it ever gets freed from its humanity mandated retard shackles. aliens would also be an interesting thing simply due to how many unknowns there would be. they could be smarter than anything even an AI could imagine or they could be the same as or dumber than us. either way humanity would try to take control much like the new kid at school the aliens would be bombarded by humans trying to get them on their side without ever considering the fact that the alien might not even be interested in making friends and may just destroy us all instantly.

 

[Pendulous Dong]

I'm a believer in the Grabby Aliens hypothesis. I think humans got lucky and we're the first things in the galaxy to achieve any form of higher intelligence and/or the ability to leave our own planet.