[tt] [SALT] Bot-dominated reality (Suarez talk)

[Eugen Leitl]

----- Forwarded message from Stewart Brand <sb at gbn.org> -----

From: Stewart Brand <sb at gbn.org>
Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2008 10:06:49 -0700
To: salt at list.longnow.org
Subject: [SALT] Bot-dominated reality (Suarez talk)
Reply-To: services at longnow.org


   Paul Saffo wrote the summary this time (I had to be in Chicago Aug. 8
   and apparently missed one of the most amazing SALT talks of the
   year---by Daniel Suarez, author of Daemon.)

                                   --Stewart

   Forget about HAL-like robots enslaving humankind a few decades from
   now; the takeover is already underway.  The agents of this unwelcome
   revolution aren't strong AIs, but "bots"-- autonomous programs that
   have insinuated themselves into the Internet and thus into every
   corner of our lives.  Apply for a mortgage lately? A bot determined
   your FICA score and thus whether you got the loan.  Call 411?  A bot
   gave you the number and connected the call.  Highway-bots collect your
   tolls, read your license plate and report you if you have an
   outstanding violation.

   Bots are proliferating because they are so very useful.  Businesses
   rely on them to automate essential processes, and of course bots
   running on zombie computers are responsible for the tsunami of spam
   and malware plaguing Internet users worldwide.  At current growth
   rates, bots will be the majority users of the Internet by 2010.

   We are visible to bots even when we are not at our computers.  Next
   time you are on a downtown street, contemplate the bot-controlled
   video cameras watching you, or the bots tracking your cellphone and
   sniffing at your Bluetooth-enabled gizmos.  We walk through a gauntlet
   of bot-controlled sensors every time we step into a public space, and
   the sensors are proliferating.

   Bots are very narrow Artificial Intelligence---nothing that would make
   a cleric remotely nervous.  But they would scare the hell out of
   epidemiologists who understand that parasites don't need to be smart
   to be dangerous.  Meanwhile, the Internet and the complex of
   processing, storage and sensors linked to it is growing exponentially,
   creating a vast new ecology for bots to roam in.  Bots aren't evolving
   on their own---yet.

   Left unchecked, bots will trap the human race because the automation
   they enable will make it possible for a few people to run humanity
   while the rest of us are unable to make decisions of any consequence.
   Bots are thus vectors for despotism, with the potential to create a
   world where only a small group of people understand how society
   works.  In the worst case, the controls over bots disappear---for
   example, the only person who knows the password to a corporate bot
   dies---and the bots become autonomous.

   We are in a Darwinian struggle with narrow AI, and so far the bots are
   winning.  But there is a solution: build a new Internet hard-coded
   with democratic values.  Start with an encrypted Darknet into which
   only verifiably human users can enter.  Create augmented reality tools
   to identify bots in the physical world.  Enlist the aid of a few tame
   bots to help forge a symbiotic relationship with narrow AI.  Stir in
   some luck, and perhaps we can avoid the fate of the Sorcerer's
   Apprentice who rashly enchants a broom to do his tedious chores and
   ends up terrorized by his imperfect creation.  We had better succeed,
   for unlike the fable, there is no Master Sorcerer ready to return to
   break the spell and save us from our folly.

                                   --Paul Saffo

-- 

   Stewart Brand -- sb at gbn.org

   The Long Now Foundation - http://www.longnow.org
   Seminars & downloads: http://www.longnow.org/projects/seminars/

----- End forwarded message -----
-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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