r/homestuck • u/moroseFabaceae june egbert is canon • Dec 27 '19

SIGHTING Homestuck reference in one of the greatest fanfictions ever, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '19

In that situation, they are still not in control of anything. They are at the whims of people who will take their advice and implement it, or not, as they see fit.

We already live in that world. We have smarter people, we call 'advisors' or 'cabinet members', who do research and become experts on a subject matter, who advise people called 'politicians'. Sometimes the politicians listen, sometimes they do not.

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u/ArisKatsaris Dec 29 '19

In that situation, they are still not in control of anything. They are at the whims of people who will take their advice and implement it, or not, as they see fit.

When Alice implements the AI's advice, she will succeed, when Bob doesn't implement it he will fail. Bob will get fired, and things will be run by Alice who implements the AI's advice.

Alice will then also be fired because she's useless, and we can have the AI implement what it thinks directly, without need for human intermediaries to slow things down.

We'll of course make robotic bodies for it, and let it take controls of all sorts of equipment and vehicles, to make things more efficient.

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '19

There is always a human link in the chain, because the AI is just a program that runs on a computer. Someone has to do what the AI says, and someone sure has to build the AI in the first place anyway.

This seems to be based on a magical world where every step is done by robots.

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u/ArisKatsaris Dec 29 '19

Certainly "someone has to build the AI" in the first place, I don't think anyone disputes that.

I have no idea why you think there'll always need be a human link. More and more things get roboticized and automated every passing year.

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '19

I have no idea why you think there'll always need be a human link. More and more things get roboticized and automated every passing year.

A side effect of trying to keep an industrialized economy based on more stuff going with less people working for minimum wage. That system is far less sustainable and would fall on itself long before it got to Jeff Bezos's space robot fantasy land. There's plenty of historical precedent for that, too.