[Discussion] Implications of an AI society

[hal]

Hello Folks,
After seeing this in one thread, I figured maybe it would be a good thing to discuss basic underlying beliefs or understandings of viewpoints when trying to discuss various aspects of GURPS ULTRA-TECH technological trees...

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I'm sure it's trivial to dispose of corpses at TL 10. I don't know why you're so dead set on creating a nightmarish A.I. dystopia.

Now, it might be said, that a statement like this implies a "Pro-AI" stance, I'm willing to be that the statement is more of a devil's advocate style statement, so I'm going to let Flyndaran weigh in on this himself.

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I am not creating a nightmarish AI dystopia, I am treating them like any other lifeform. It is just that when you have a species that is capable of reproducing without limit, and which consume minimal resources, it is going to reproduce until external factors bring into check. In the case of humans, the external factor is the expense of reproduction (the time and resources required to take care of a child for eighteen years), which only increases as wealth increases. With SAI though, the expense is minimal (less than a one time expense worth two months Average income at TL10), so their population can grow to much higher level than that of biological sapients.

If we assume that a SAI can rent computer space and maintain utilities at $300 a month (Status-1), that would mean that a SAI could survive quite well on a Poor income at TL10. If the society considered the SAIs to be people and granted them a basic stipend of $13,400 per year, the SAIs could reproduce without limit because they would have sufficient money to two SAIs per SAI (meaning that an SAI could rent computer space and maintain utilities for its 'child' during its formation). When the 'child' was 'born', it would also qualify for a basic stipend, meaning that it could afford to make its own 'child' while its 'parent' could afford to make its next 'child'. Even if it took one year per cycle, the SAI would vastly outnumber biological sapients within five decades.

Now on the other hand, while we might be able to assume that AlexanderHowl is less of a pro-AI proponent, what we're looking at (at least from my perspective) is an attempt to extrapolate reality interlaced with imaginary as a form of world building.

So, what are some of the implications involved where it comes to "digital" minds and Artificial Intelligences, and the implications of the rules within GURPS source books?

For instance, there is a section in GURPS CLASSIC ULTRA-TECH that states that a megacomputer might become sentient by accident, where it is suggested the GM roll for every megacomputer in his game world, and on a 6 or less, it spontaneously is sentient. By the next "technological level" (ie time has passed and inventions and knowledge have been developed to qualify for the next rung on the ladder) Sentient computers can no longer happen by accident, as the design process insures that they won't happen. On the flip side, the computer designs now know how to create intentionally sentient computers.

But before we actively get involved in any world building ramifications of AI's or Digital Inteligences and the like - it might be a good idea to examine certain underlying assumptions. My next post will involve the economic ramifications. Feel free to make your own observations and add to them here, or even question any assertions made along the way as a means of clarification.

Elsewhere in another thread, someone brought up the issue of an errata that was issued for GURPS ULTRA-TECH pages 27-28 regarding the complexity of a computer and the IQ of the uploaded personality or Sentient Artificial Intelligence. My response to him was that the errata only pertained to the racial package, not to the rules referenced on page 220 regarding uploaded personalities. Kromm's ruling was to wit: the complexity to run ANY character IQ based AI - whether an uploaded personality per page 220, or any Sentient Artificial Intelligence, will always be a complexity 8 program. The default is that racial IQ for any human is 10, and thus, (IQ/2+3) is used irrespective of whether the character IQ is 8 or the character IQ is 20. When I pointed out that this violates the taboo trait complexity limited IQ portion of the template given on page 28, the response was that the taboo trait is too damaging to the character for a zero point trait. In other words, disallow that trait in the template as written, as a probable error. Please note that these are strictly my words relating his decision, any errors are mine.

[hal]

Economic ramifications of Computers and of Artificial Intelligences (be they uploaded copies of biological individuals, or artificial intelligences divorced from any specific human based mentality...

Before I get to this aspect of economics - I'd have to give a generalized picture of how I view economics as a whole. For me, economics as a whole, is the process by which any society meets the needs of its participants such that they can eat, survive, raise the next generation to carry on, and ultimately, die. Mixed in with all of that, is the law structure required to keep everything reasonably stable so that there isn't a revolution happening every other month due to starvation or what have you. For me, there is a very SCIENTIFIC study of economics, and it is even differentiated into subcategories such as macro-economics and micro-economics (to name but two). In a nutshell, historically speaking, early history had roughly 90% of the population being required to produce food for 100% of the population. The remaining 10% were non-agrarian specialists who produced goods or services (or both) in exchange for food and other specialized items not produced by the specialist themselves.

As time progressed, this ratio began to change. Food production that was stalled at 4 to 8 bushels of production for every 1 bushel of seed - had some ramifications on how much land was required to feed the general population amongst other things. The point here, is that sufficient numbers of people could produce their own food and not have to participate in the general economy to gain specialized products. Only those items that were vital and highly specialized (such as metal products and the like) were necessary for the food producers for augmenting their labors and making life better.

The point to remember going forward is this:

Each participant in the economy had to trade time and/or goods that they controlled the production of, for something they wanted from another individual who was making some specialized good. There had to be a demand for the good/service being produced, as well as a demand for the goods/services being exchanged for the goods. This was essentially a barter system. At its simplest form - it is "I trade my time and efforts for something you take time and effort to produce and we agree to trade with each other).

Then came coinage. The simplicity of coinage transactions is this: If I am a glass blower who wants cabinets crafted and installed in my home, I have to find a carpenter willing to make what I want in exchange for my glassware. If I can't find such a person, I might instead, have to ask what the carpenter wants, then find someone who produces what the carpenter wants, and hope that I can trade my glassware for his product, so that I can then approach the carpenter. With coins - everyone agrees that the coins have a "Wildcard" like aspect to them. I can sell my glassware for some amount of coin, and go to the carpenter to trade for his labor, who in turn, can take the coin and trade it for food. We've eliminated a step in the barter process.

Thing is? We're still trading TIME/EFFORT on our part, in order to trade for something that we want. This is essential for anyone who wants to participate in the economy. They have to be able to trade something of theirs for something they want - or they can't get it.

Fast forward to modern times, and the use of money, lending money, using paper backed currency etc - are refinements of the entire process started centuries ago (perhaps even millennia ago).

So, what is happening today where it comes to automation? What is happening is that we're now at a stage where machines can produce goods with minimal intervention by a human being. They produce goods or services without those goods or services being produced by a human being. Accounting would call such a "thing" as a capital investment (a thing) to which someone owns not only the machine itself, but also the output that can be produced by that machine.

Which brings us to AI's and Digital minds...

What will be their purpose in society in which they inhabit? A person born into this world, didn't ASK to be born, didn't even exist conceptually speaking. But once in this world, he has needs in the form of food and water - as well as needing to live within a shelter of some sort, etc.

What are the needs of an AI or digital entity? What will those entities need to trade with humans, to meet their needs, and what will they have that humans will want? More importantly, what will they produce that will compete with other humans?

And finally, a subject that is near and dear to a lot of economists hearts - how does one know when any given product or service has saturated the market, driving down its relative value, and what services can be provided that can't be produced easily, making its relative perceived value all the more higher? In short? Unskilled labor doing menial jobs without need of much training, has a lower value than something that requires 10 years of training, a broad knowledge of things, and a certain infallibility (such as doctors perhaps?) This is why we have minimum wages with people earning less money for their labors than someone whose incomes are incredibly high. Mind you, this is a simplification, but the bare bones approach to explaining certain concepts or issues.

[hal]

So, Modern Society. Don't you love it? You're born into a family. If you're lucky, the family is well to do, and you don't have to worry about income at all. Your family has collected a considerable size of assets known as "Money", a symbolic wildcard that allows you to purchase goods or services without having to give up much of your own time. Aren't you lucky? ;)

Or maybe you were born into a low income family, and you can only watch with a watering mouth, all of those things you wish you could buy, but can't because you don't have a lot of money.

In any event, you're one of the lucky ones. You've got a job, a steady income, and the ability to raise your family with some modest creature comforts.

But - unfortunately for you, education is required (ie training) in order to secure some decent jobs. The cost of such training is rising rapidly, and the available jobs are starting to become fewer. Part of the problem is that the unskilled labor based jobs are now becoming automated. Another part of the problem is that even those jobs that required some relatively easy training, are now becoming automated by use of computer expert systems - such as an automated kiosk system that accepts paper bills in its money port, and conducts transactions per its programming, fulfilling a role or providing a service that used to be done by a human, but now is no longer done by a human. Society has not as yet found out what to do with those untrained individuals, and due to the high cost of training, many of the humans are finding themselves unable to participate as strongly as they'd like, in the economy. So what is their lot in life? What is it that they can provide that machines or anything else - are unable to provide? What they want to provide is the "Demand" aspect of supply and demand, but their available assets (Ie they're poor) is low.

<cue dramatic music>

Enter, the Self-aware Artificial Intelligence. Oh wait. Shortly thereafter, we have to herald the arrival of those people who manage to translate their memories and their brains into digital analogs of themselves - so THOSE are now on the scene.

What are we to do? How will we interact with the SAI's or the Digital Minds?

[hal]

With this thread, I invite people to pour through their GURPS books, look at the rules contained within, cite those rules and try to resolve the birth of the SAI's within society. We already have non-sapient AI's working in the market now. These "investments" made by people with sufficient cash on hand, now have a capital investment that is intended to earn them money by providing a service by their NAI systems. Consumers pay rental fees, or perhaps they pay a service fee for the services provided by the NAI system. But that isn't what this thread is about. It is intended to explore the issues surrounding the arrival of said SAI systems or Personality Upload system on the already existing "Supply and demand" economy.

I have my own thoughts to be sure, but let's see some of your ideas. If someone puts forth an idea that you disagree with, take the time to explain why you disagree, and then propose a solution that meets both your conceptualization as well as pays lipservice to the conceptualization you disagreed with initially.

For instance, the concept of Living Stipend being provided by the Government requires that the Government either control some means of providing assets that can be sold and distributed (such as State own power plants where the State makes sufficient money after expenses, to pay every single citizen a basic stipend) or it needs to tax others who produce goods in the supply and demand economy. Otherwise, how might the SAI's influence or impact on the current supply and demand economy (both beneficial and harmful)?

[AlexanderHowl]

Money is its own little fiction because it depends on the supply of resources and the demand for resources. When the supply of resources is high, money possesses a higher value, meaning that people can purchase more with less. When the demand for resources is high, money possesses a lower value, meaning that people can purchase less with more.

While labor is a resource, it is only one type of resource, the other resources being capital, energy, mineral, political, etc. In a society with AIs, labor starts to become infinite, meaning that small amounts of money starts to buy infinite amounts of labor. Since most biological sapients also trade labor for money, the value of their labor dwindles, meaning that their only marketable resource is their political resource: their vote.

Lacking any other recourse for survival, biological sapients will trade their votes for resources. Now, at TL10+, society is wealthy enough that a basic stipend equal to Poor income gives every biological sapient Status 0, meaning that they can survive. Since their vote is their only marketable resource, they will not allow AIs the vote.

Now, eventually, the system breaks, as AIs will want the vote. When that happens, you either have AIs win and, through their superior numbers, they will vote the biological sapients off the basic stipend and allow them to starve to extinction in order to free up resources for more AIs or you have biological sapients win and, in order to prevent another breakdown, they destroy all of the AIs and regain the value of their labor resource. Without any doubt, the two types of life are unable to maintain an equalibrium if AIs are capable of reproducing without limit because they will be competing for the same money as biological sapients.

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Now, eventually, the system breaks, as AIs will want the vote. When that happens, you either have AIs win and, through their superior numbers, they will vote the biological sapients off the basic stipend and allow them to starve to extinction in order to free up resources for more AIs or you have biological sapients win and, in order to prevent another breakdown, they destroy all of the AIs and regain the value of their labor resource. Without any doubt, the two types of life are unable to maintain an equalibrium if AIs are capable of reproducing without limit because they will be competing for the same money as biological sapients.

Your argument precludes the possibility that people (human and otherwise) may vote against their interests. After all, you can still find people today who are willing to elect politicians who will do things that are not in they're interests.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Without any doubt, the two types of life are unable to maintain an equalibrium if AIs are capable of reproducing without limit because they will be competing for the same money as biological sapients.

First of all, AIs can't reproduce without limit. They may be cheaper, but computer power isn't free. In any case, AI competition is just like any other competition: one of two things can be true

1. One option is superior (note that being cheaper is a form of superiority) at a broad enough category of tasks that there's no point to preserving the other option. The superior option wins out.
2. The two have different strengths and weaknesses. A combined society is the efficient choice.

Could the first option be true for AIs? Sure. However, it doesn't have a lot to do with the factors you mention. No-one would design a franchise or stipend without recognizing the differences between people and AIs.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by hal

...
Now, it might be said, that a statement like this implies a "Pro-AI" stance, I'm willing to be that the statement is more of a devil's advocate style statement, so I'm going to let Flyndaran weigh in on this himself.
...

I find the idea of creating fully sapient human-like A.I.s to be kind of silly. Because to most people that means giving them emotions likely to override logical programming. That's self-defeating.
We need emotions for evolutionary "legacy" reasons, but there's no intrinsic need to give them to A.I.s

Creating semi-sapient A.I. for specific purposes makes all the sense.
But once true SAI are made, then they should have some basic rights like right to life.

Of course since I don't consider right to reproduce an unassailable right for biologicals, I don't have a problem with heavy restriction on an A.I.'s right to reproduce.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Money is its own little fiction because it depends on the supply of resources and the demand for resources. When the supply of resources is high, money possesses a higher value, meaning that people can purchase more with less. When the demand for resources is high, money possesses a lower value, meaning that people can purchase less with more.

While labor is a resource, it is only one type of resource, the other resources being capital, energy, mineral, political, etc. In a society with AIs, labor starts to become infinite, meaning that small amounts of money starts to buy infinite amounts of labor. Since most biological sapients also trade labor for money, the value of their labor dwindles, meaning that their only marketable resource is their political resource: their vote.

Lacking any other recourse for survival, biological sapients will trade their votes for resources. Now, at TL10+, society is wealthy enough that a basic stipend equal to Poor income gives every biological sapient Status 0, meaning that they can survive. Since their vote is their only marketable resource, they will not allow AIs the vote.

Now, eventually, the system breaks, as AIs will want the vote. When that happens, you either have AIs win and, through their superior numbers, they will vote the biological sapients off the basic stipend and allow them to starve to extinction in order to free up resources for more AIs or you have biological sapients win and, in order to prevent another breakdown, they destroy all of the AIs and regain the value of their labor resource. Without any doubt, the two types of life are unable to maintain an equalibrium if AIs are capable of reproducing without limit because they will be competing for the same money as biological sapients.

Money also depends on reputation. Third Reich money, was worth less then cigarettes but American money was in high demand. Because Germany was lacking in resources? Not especially. But because Germany was kind of, a conquered country.

[Tyneras]

Governments don't have to be 1 SAI = 1 vote. It could be 1 server = 1 vote or other such systems. Maybe AI's and biologicals have a set number of representatives each and can only battle to change who represents them rather than the number.