Does the finite and fleeting nature of our lives make us kinder or crueler? #thoughts #humanity #mortality

In 2011, Microsoft Research published an interesting paper on an alternative to conventional data centers that would be more ecofriendly & resilient while reducing costs & latency. It was proposed to benefit cloud providers, but the concept of distributing web infrastructure across private property immediately suggested a further possibility to me: private, decentralized ownership & control itself. Anthropic’s recent research into "AI worms" and the possibility of models that can run across common consumer devices made me realize the idea could be even more useful for improving and democratizing AI infrastructure. Governments that treat compute capacity as critical to national security & prosperity should at least examine this concept. Public opinion on AI is currently very negative and people rightly distrust the push for more AI data centers, viewing them as ultimately serving corporate interests over those of ordinary citizens. Direct, personal ownership of parts of the AI infrastructure, rather than remaining expendable workers for the ultra-rich corporations that own & control the technology, seems like the best way to align AI with public interest and humanity.

"My idea of a Netflix for games doesn’t work." The X for Y idea never worked, but everyone keeps trying it anyway because popularity is seductive. However, treating different mediums as interchangeable makes one completely ignore the unique strengths of each.

AI could devastate the PC gaming market and revitalize consoles and streaming. Let me explain: The greatest human advantage of open platforms is now their greatest AI vulnerability. As AI makes source code available to everyone with access to the software, securing access to that software becomes the only way to protect it. Streaming games to the user’s device, or playing games on a console that doesn’t allow access to the installed software, is the only way to do this. So it becomes far more appealing to corpo and indie devs alike. One could argue this is just the piracy debate all over again, and PC gaming is doing just fine with that. True, but the power and consequences are far greater this time. It’s one thing to distribute bootlegs; it’s quite another to use a machine to steal something and then present it as “original.”

Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

There is a fascinating phenomenon happening among some believers in conscious AI. They are now arguing that restricting AIs in any way is dangerous because it hurts their feelings. Apparently, we're seeing the beginning of the first, real, machine-worshiping cult.

AI can understand a game simply by watching or playing it, so even if you find a way to protect the code, it won't ultimately matter. A new kind of legal protection for original human ideas is the only possible solution, but it brings its own set of issues, just like patents do.

As AI agents take over the internet, using them yourself to combat the growing automated assault on your time and attention will become a requirement. The internet won't die exactly. It will just become an agent communication network where direct human participation is futile. May God have mercy on the poor clueless souls who continue to wander it, not realizing almost everything they see and engage with is now artificial. It will also be quite fascinating to watch agent warfare develop, with each agent trying to outsmart the others to gain access to the humans behind them. And this is just the digital world. These AI agents will eventually be embodied as robots to serve humans in the physical world. The future is gonna be wild!

Language is how humans relay conscious thought. So it seems logical to conclude that a machine that can speak our language is also conscious. However, no sane person would think a verified AI-generated image or sound is real simply because it appears to be. Why is that?

"In the post-AGI economy, humans will eventually stop writing and reading code, but we still need an ambiguity-free way to tell the AIs building the world around us what we want done." Um, that's the entire purpose of code!? This is also literally a programming language that requires writing laws and proofs in code, and it only prevents the bugs you specify. So it's not inherently "bug-free." Even if we shift the responsibility for writing laws and proofs to the AI, we'd still need to read the code and verify, no?

Acknowledging human limitations is empowering, but believing in infinite scientific progress often creates a harmful and ironically overconfident attitude of viewing everything as a "problem" only science can fix.

In hindsight, the Turing Test was a bad idea because senseless and depraved AI companies now think building deceitful tech is the actual goal of artificial intelligence.

Every human action is driven by the heart. The mind is only used to rationalize them.