the first big abstraction was the automation of switching. instead of standing at a switchboard and diddling around with levers, you could stick a punch card into a device, and the card would tell the machine how to flip its own switches.

this was still very laborious, since you'd have to develop a different set of cards for each switching pattern.

after this, switching itself was miniaturized and handled through transistors. instead of punch cards, you could now write instructions in the form of machine code/binary/assembly code and the machine would handle those instructions as a kind of virtual punch card. the original act of hand-switching became increasingly distant.

afterwards, code became abstracted into 'languages' which could be 'compiled.' no more dealing directly with numbers or individual memory addresses or the other constraints of machine-level code.

the abstraction of coding languages into general natural language IS, to a large degree, 'AI.' that's what it does. it's the next logical step which began with the automation of vacuum tube switching via punch cards.

and it has to happen. whether it is productive or destructive, let's find out. there's no actual other choice due to the nature of unilateral disarmament in a competitive environment.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5862547&forum_id=2...#49857635)

Just seems like an argument for fatalism bc the universe is inherently deterministic

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5862547&forum_id=2...#49857648)

for example, brutalism in architecture was elective. it was a specific æsthetic choice which could have been rejected in favor of something else.

however, the more generalized act of building large 'modern' structures with glass and steel and concrete to handle functions of commerce and government was inevitable, because it was a natural outgrowth of the much longer process of civil architecture which began with huts and so forth.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5862547&forum_id=2...#49857652)

You can say that the decline of the white race is and has been an inevitable development due to the circumstances of history, so it only makes sense to be detached and fatalistic about it. But somehow I don't think you'll agree that is a good attitude and approach

We're literally always dealing with 'the inevitable.' Everything that happens is inevitable. We live in a 100% deterministic block universe. That doesn't somehow make it irrational or pointless to act in accordance to one's interests and preferences

Your line of reasoning in the OP is a dangerous and insidious one that many of our enemies frequently employ. Including some other people on this very message board. Be careful with it!

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5862547&forum_id=2...#49857681)

wrong, take the presentism pill. things that live in block universes are platonic objects, things that live in presentist universes are alive. also even general relativity allows nondeterminism via the gödel universe.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5862547&forum_id=2...#49857691)

That doesn't mean that I don't recognize that the block universe is objectively how the universe actually is constructed. It just stays out of sight, out of mind. There is no useful reason for humans to act as if the block universe is real and true; in fact, it would be insane and self-destructive to do so (as it would be to approach individual threads of history as OP suggests above)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5862547&forum_id=2...#49857726)

frontiers of nature persist, life and mind are among them, and the lines of inquiry that are rewarded in academic physics may not ultimately be the ones with the most to say about how reality is constructed.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5862547&forum_id=2...#49857800)

Regardless - no human being acts as if the block universe is true. Because there's no utility in doing so. It is only ever invoked indirectly, such as in OP's line of reasoning above (which can be boiled down to pointing out that the block universe exists, even if it doesn't initially appear that way)

I'm going out of my way to reply to this thread because I think that this line of reasoning is very dangerous and insidious. All of the world's problems today can be described as "inevitable" consequences of history, with chains of mechanisms that can be traced back very very far, even indefinitely to the beginning of the universe, life on earth, etc. And for AI in particular, this line of reasoning is particularly insidious, and will become the most prominent "argument" that is presented to the public for acceptance of and acquiescence to AI

We always have a choice. Once you stop believing that, you might as well just kill yourself

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5862547&forum_id=2...#49857826)

not being an academic physicist, I prefer to construct theories of cognitive systems instead and if something shakes out of it that somehow sheds light on the measurement problem or whatever, great. otherwise I have nothing to go on except philosophical intuitions. and everyone’s strongest intuition is that the future has yet to be written and the point of being alive is to write yourself into it—yourself or something larger than yourself.

I think that AI may be moving towards a point where decisive action (either on the part of elites or the masses) presents itself as the only rational choice, but current tech isn’t apocalyptic yet or at least hasn’t proven itself to be. and acceptance in OP’s prosaic terms is the first step to an understanding of what the enlightened course of action will be. I wouldn’t frame this as fatalism though.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5862547&forum_id=2...#49857950)

If "we" do nothing, I agree that technocapital's inexorable march to completely wipe out the human species is inevitable

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5862547&forum_id=2...#49857995)

but part of the reason that something like 'AI' is a structural inevitability is because it cannot seemingly be dropped/abandoned/shunned without inflicting a severe strategic disadvantage upon the abandoning party. if the US banned AI, china would almost certainly not, etc.

meanwhile, something like mass-immigration is not shared by the US and china (whereas 'modern buildings,' AI, etc. are), and is much more questionable as an inevitable outgrowth of history.

there is also a distinction between processes which are determined fatalistically in a global sense and ones which acquire local or temporal fatalistic intensity due to what are ultimately volitional factors, such as suicide cults. a suicide cult resulting in the deaths of its members is deterministic once the cult gains genuine adherents, but its existence in the first place is not necessarily inevitable.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5862547&forum_id=2...#49857699)

It's not clear exactly when and how the naysayers will be proven right that THIS time it really is different, but it seems pretty clear that human behavior has not developed nearly as rapidly as human technology

If we don't make everything and everyone redundant and irrelevant at some point, AI will grow capable enough to do it itself. We're already obsolete and most don't know it, while many of those who do just want to get rich and "powerful" through it, even if only temporarily

They're beyond thrilled to bet the lives of you and your loved ones and every living thing on this planet on that proposition

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5862547&forum_id=2...#49857688)

FTGE.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5862547&forum_id=2...#49857730)