Marc Andreessen: Why AI Will Save the World

So we are OK, good to hear it ....    Great piece,  read it.

Why AI Will Save the World     by Marc Andreessen

AI, machine & deep learning  Generative AI

Fortunately, I am here to bring the good news: AI will not destroy the world, and in fact may save it.

First, a short description of what AI is: The application of mathematics and software code to teach computers how to understand, synthesize, and generate knowledge in ways similar to how people do it. AI is a computer program like any other – it runs, takes input, processes, and generates output. AI’s output is useful across a wide range of fields, ranging from coding to medicine to law to the creative arts. It is owned by people and controlled by people, like any other technology.

A shorter description of what AI isn’t: Killer software and robots that will spring to life and decide to murder the human race or otherwise ruin everything, like you see in the movies.

An even shorter description of what AI could be: A way to make everything we care about better.

Why AI Can Make Everything We Care About Better

The most validated core conclusion of social science across many decades and thousands of studies is that human intelligence makes a very broad range of life outcomes better. Smarter people have better outcomes in almost every domain of activity: academic achievement, job performance, occupational status, income, creativity, physical health, longevity, learning new skills, managing complex tasks, leadership, entrepreneurial success, conflict resolution, reading comprehension, financial decision making, understanding others’ perspectives, creative arts, parenting outcomes, and life satisfaction.

Further, human intelligence is the lever that we have used for millennia to create the world we live in today: science, technology, math, physics, chemistry, medicine, energy, construction, transportation, communication, art, music, culture, philosophy, ethics, morality. Without the application of intelligence on all these domains, we would all still be living in mud huts, scratching out a meager existence of subsistence farming. Instead we have used our intelligence to raise our standard of living on the order of 10,000X over the last 4,000 years.

What AI offers us is the opportunity to profoundly augment human intelligence to make all of these outcomes of intelligence – and many others, from the creation of new medicines to ways to solve climate change to technologies to reach the stars – much, much better from here.

AI augmentation of human intelligence has already started – AI is already around us in the form of computer control systems of many kinds, is now rapidly escalating with AI Large Language Models like ChatGPT, and will accelerate very quickly from here – if we let it.

In our new era of AI:

Every child will have an AI tutor that is infinitely patient, infinitely compassionate, infinitely knowledgeable, infinitely helpful. The AI tutor will be by each child’s side every step of their development, helping them maximize their potential with the machine version of infinite love.

Every person will have an AI assistant/coach/mentor/trainer/advisor/therapist that is infinitely patient, infinitely compassionate, infinitely knowledgeable, and infinitely helpful. The AI assistant will be present through all of life’s opportunities and challenges, maximizing every person’s outcomes.

Every scientist will have an AI assistant/collaborator/partner that will greatly expand their scope of scientific research and achievement. Every artist, every engineer, every businessperson, every doctor, every caregiver will have the same in their worlds.

Every leader of people – CEO, government official, nonprofit president, athletic coach, teacher – will have the same. The magnification effects of better decisions by leaders across the people they lead are enormous, so this intelligence augmentation may be the most important of all.

Productivity growth throughout the economy will accelerate dramatically, driving economic growth, creation of new industries, creation of new jobs, and wage growth, and resulting in a new era of heightened material prosperity across the planet.

Scientific breakthroughs and new technologies and medicines will dramatically expand, as AI helps us further decode the laws of nature and harvest them for our benefit.

The creative arts will enter a golden age, as AI-augmented artists, musicians, writers, and filmmakers gain the ability to realize their visions far faster and at greater scale than ever before.

I even think AI is going to improve warfare, when it has to happen, by reducing wartime death rates dramatically. Every war is characterized by terrible decisions made under intense pressure and with sharply limited information by very limited human leaders. Now, military commanders and political leaders will have AI advisors that will help them make much better strategic and tactical decisions, minimizing risk, error, and unnecessary bloodshed.

In short, anything that people do with their natural intelligence today can be done much better with AI, and we will be able to take on new challenges that have been impossible to tackle without AI, from curing all diseases to achieving interstellar travel.

And this isn’t just about intelligence! Perhaps the most underestimated quality of AI is how humanizing it can be. AI art gives people who otherwise lack technical skills the freedom to create and share their artistic ideas. Talking to an empathetic AI friend really does improve their ability to handle adversity. And AI medical chatbots are already more empathetic than their human counterparts. Rather than making the world harsher and more mechanistic, infinitely patient and sympathetic AI will make the world warmer and nicer. ...  (much more follows, with other input)  .... ' 

And further:

https://youtu.be/0wIUK0nsyUg

AI Risks, Debunked: The Conversation

Marc Andreessen and Martin Casado

From tireless collaborators for advancing scientific discovery, art, and government to powerful tools for solving problems like disease and climate change, AI has the capacity to dramatically improve our lives. We should embrace it... '  ... 

AI Unlikely to Gain human-like Cognition, unless Connected to real World through Robots

Don't agree completely 

AI Unlikely to gain human-like cognition, unless connected to real world through robots, says study

by University of Sheffield

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Connecting artificial intelligence systems to the real world through robots and designing them using principles from evolution is the most likely way AI will gain human-like cognition, according to research from the University of Sheffield.

In a paper published in Science Robotics, Professor Tony Prescott and Dr. Stuart Wilson from the University's Department of Computer Science, say that AI systems are unlikely to resemble real brain processing no matter how large their neural networks or the datasets used to train them might become, if they remain disembodied.

Current AI systems, such as ChatGPT, use large neural networks to solve difficult problems, such as generating intelligible written text. These networks teach AI to process data in a way that is inspired by the human brain and also learn from their mistakes in order to improve and become more accurate.

Although these models have similarities to the human brain, the Sheffield researchers say there are also important differences, which are preventing them from gaining biological-like intelligence.

Firstly, real brains are embodied in a physical system—the human body—that directly senses and acts in the world. Being embodied makes brain processes meaningful in a way that is not possible for disembodied AIs, which can learn to recognize and generate complex patterns in data but lack a direct connection to the physical world. Therefore such AIs have no understanding or awareness of the world around them.

Secondly, human brains are made up of multiple subsystems, which are organized in a specific configuration—known as architecture—that is similar in all vertebrate animals from fish to humans, but not in AI.

The Sheffield study suggests that biological intelligence—like in the human brain—has developed because of this specific architecture and how it has used its connections to the real world to overcome challenges, learn and improve throughout evolution. This interaction between evolution and development is rarely factored into the design of AI, according to the study.  ... ' 

Earth's Poles Flipping?

The linked article below claims that NASA has detected an increase in the wandering of the earth's magnetic poles.  Ultimately this can produce what is called a 'Laschamp Event' or flipping of the poles.  This actually happened last about 41,000 year ago, as measured by physical effects in lava flows.  It appears to occur about every 250K years, with considerable variance.  The potential considerable negative effects are outlined in the piece below.  This would seem to be much more difficult to stop, since it is based on the earth's magnetic field and content,  than redirecting an asteroid.    Based on what I know a reasonable article.  Further examining  - FAD

Article in Youtube:    https://youtu.be/8M1givE6Gh8

Earths Poles Flipping?

NASA Announced That They Are Monitoring a Huge Escalating Anomaly In Earth's Magnetic Field

74,176 views  Dec 11, 2022

Many people have come to depend on the Earth's magnetic field even without realizing it! Your phone is able to perform some basic functions, like directing you while driving to your destination. However, a catastrophic event is threatening to render life-saving tasks like this impossible: the flipping of the Earth's poles! Why are the Earth's poles flipping? What are the consequences, and how can you cope with it? In this video, we dive into the Earth's poles flipping, which has many people worried as it is happening! There are many things that shape your daily life, even without you realizing it. Thanks   to   science   and   technology,   we   have   come   to   rely   on   many   natural phenomena that are not apparent to the naked eye! The Earth's magnetic poles are an example, and this has a lot to do with the Earth's magnetic field! But what is the Earth's magnetic field, and where did it come from?

How AI Could Accidentally Extinguish Humankind

How AI Could Accidentally Extinguish Humankind (?)

By The Washington Post, September 6, 2022  Opinion

The conventional expectation is that ever-growing computing power will be a boon for humanity. But what if those expectations are wrong? Could artificial superintelligence instead cause us great harm? Our extinction?

It is unclear if humanity will ever be prepared for superintelligence, but we are certainly not ready now. Research on artificial intelligence must slow down or even pause. And if researchers will not make this decision, governments should make it for them.

From The Washington Post

"If we’re all wiped out by an artificial superintelligence, it will almost certainly be on accident." -Émile P. Torres  ... ' 

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