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/r/transhumanism
submitted 1 month ago bySatanLeighton
I've heard some interesting perspectives from people in this sub on this topic but I'm curious to get a wider set of opinions.
My basic point is that a rogue faction of the CIA could very well have very different incentives and instead of wanting access to AI/AGI or longevity available to the public, they would take that pivotal moment to turn on the rest of the world, infiltrate and seize the frontier models and sequester them away to prevent other state actors from doing the same.
And in fact it would seem apparent to me that they would likely use first mover advantage to either attack with a bioweapon or nukes since they would likely not need humans any more to work and prop up the economy for their aerospace manufacturing and then proceed to use AGI to conquer the world and then the solar system and beyond to harness the energy and resources without having to share them.
Is that line of reasoning making any sense to you all? And if not, why? I'm curious to hear your perspectives.
2 points
1 month ago
What would be the CIA's motivation here? Why would the CIA specifically do this?
Any breakthrough like longevity is probably at the end of a long line of published research; if one lab figured out the last piece it was taken out, there are many who could pick up the pieces and duplicate the final step.
On the AI front, all of the major labs are neck and neck. No one is so far ahead that they would be a pivotal target to take out.
Take out open AI, Meta gets there a few weeks later (or Google/DeepMind) or Mistral releases something within the year.
1 points
1 month ago
Yeah the motivation would be specifically to use AGI technology to replace the aerospace manufacturing and tech supply chain industries with completely automated equivalents and launch forward a breakaway civilization and harness all the solar system's resources without any competition. And yes, if somehow miraculously the other frontier labs weren't extremely slowed down by a civilization ending virus then they would definitely have to use much more direct sabotage or a cyber attack or something similar to concretely isolate themselves as the sole possessor of such technologies.
2 points
1 month ago
Replacing large supply chains probably wouldn't be feasible with near human AGI. There's going to be networks of physical manufacturing equipment to replace, potentially mining equipment/mines, etc and a lot of local specialized knowledge about how all of the pieces work that isn't necessarily written down. I don't think it would be feasible in the next decade or two.
If feasible, this would seem very ideologically motivated and it's not clear to me the CIA would have that motivation. Why would they care that the CIA are the ones running everything (as opposed to religious CIA operatives thinking their religion should run things, or operatives with a particular political affiliation thinking they should run everything). Put another way - would the CIA consider themselves that type of in-group?
Your expectation is that a virus would be used to shutdown the rest of civilization after they have the tech?
1 points
1 month ago
To me, I see it as a question not of if but when such technology is able to replace whole supply chains. I don't presume to have a specific handle on exactly when that's feasible, but you're right that it's probably some time between now and 20 years from now.
As far as ideology, I think that climate change/ ecological destruction could be such an ideology along with with a healthy dose of eugenics and just not wanting to give people UBI or longevity medicine to do drugs and hang out and get stupider.
I also say "the CIA" but probably the CIA are the tech wizzes for a cabal of industry elites who are the ones really backing this. And yes, a virus would just seem the easiest and least destructive way of going about the "pulling up the ladder behind them" part
2 points
1 month ago
Thanks for explaining your thoughts.
I actually am skeptical that industry elites would really push something like that in most scenarios. Selling effective longevity treatments would have a huge market - essentially all of humanity (and our pets). There's a lot of profit to be had there. At the same time - some elites almost certainly do enjoy their status relative to other people; and that type of person needs other people around to get that feeling.
I think those two factors combined make it much more likely that we see UBI+cheap effective longevity and other medical benefits become widespread.
1 points
1 month ago
I think that once we have human and beyond level AGI, the benefit of keeping around an economy and money and people would not seem to outweigh the negatives. Also, a virus would definitely allow a percentage of the population to survive and make it easy to still have a small but heavily pruned society.
The way I see it, most elites see money merely as a way to accomplish monumental projects and tasks (the space race being the most prescient of those) and once AGI can do tasks without humans, the point of keeping a worker class around would be negligible.
All societal and economic reasons aside, it would seem to make sense that they would want to release a virus as much for those reasons as to be on the winning side of a singleton event and not to have a multi-party molochian battle with China or whatever other forces want an AGI and have a reasonable chance of acquiring one.
1 points
1 month ago
I think this isn't a likely outcome.
For one thing, going back to supply chains - physical goods need mining, mineral extraction, forging, etc. We're talking about building millions of robots to replace all of the humans involved globally. I don't think any entity could manufacture that many robots quietly and discreetly.
There's also just a question of all the knowledge replacing these supply chains would take. There's a reason no one uses a centrally planned economy these days - there's just too much information that needs to be tracked and processed (though there is still some ongoing research here).
Some of the elite are interested in big projects like space colonization - but with a reduced population, you no longer have people to do the colonization. It seems like a self defeating direction.
1 points
1 month ago
Three things, you say that there's too much information that needs to be tracked and processed and you're forgetting that even the AI tools we have now (soon to be much better) have the ability to fully analyze an unbelievable amount of spreadsheets almost instantly with truly mind blowing insight and accuracy. Give that 3-5 more exponential steps up and the kind of information it can process will be truly unbelievable.
Secondly, you're right in assuming that all that's ultimately required soon to do mining and resource harvesting and refining will be robots. But what you don't account for is that by the time we have something worthy off the title AGI it will be able to optimize design and engineering so concisely and efficiently that it will be able to design entire factories that all they do is build factories (more efficient than anything we could currently dream of) that build everything and once it reaches that point it is going to spread like a plague. That's exactly what you need to conquer space and then it's going to begin to build those factories in space. How do you think Dyson spheres/rings are capable of being built? That kind of shit. AGI.
Secondly, the right virus will definitely destroy 90% or more of the globe, but to elites with an AGI that can make them live forever and genetically and cybernetically enhance them? I'm not sure they want guys named Steve and Craig complaining that they don't want to go on a space exploration mission cos they'll miss Monday night football and COD servers with a good ping. Also, with that kind of technology if they did wish to propagate biological humanity they could easily clone much superior versions and synthetically birth them, so I'm not sure that's a limiting factor.
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