I think that a large group of people with shared interests, such as a nation, require at least some form of a governing body and in the real world, governments have done that job for centuries, and it has worked quite well.
But, in the more recent times, we have time and again gotten countless examples of a saying that goes, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
We all know first hand or through the experiences of someone else, that people in power often tend to be corrupt and at the highest level, that means that entire countries are not able to be run properly.
I don’t want to go too much into details, but I would just like to say that a lot of the governments of the world have proven themselves ineffective and inefficient to run a country, solve its problems and work for the welfare of the citizens.
Is AI The Answer?
If you keep up with the news, you must be well aware that AI has been progressing by leaps and bounds and the exponential growth in this field will mean a highly intelligent artificial intelligence system that can rival even human intelligence pretty soon enough.
This could mean that what the governments failed to do, the AI will accomplish very easily because it won’t have the human attributes of greed and ambition or any other emotion for that matter and it will take purely logical decisions that are highly efficient and guide the country and its citizens towards prosperity. From a strictly decision making view point, there couldn’t be anything better.
But, there are two major problems with this idea. The first is that AI might end up deciding that we humans are just not worth it and could ensure our extinction or enslavement by various means. This has been shown countless times in movies.
The second problem, and something that most people don’t consider, is that the AI system would still need to be programmed periodically or at least done regular maintenance on and the people doing that would essentially be the ones with all the power. This would be an even smaller group of people and it could lead to a disastrous, dictatorial form of ‘government’.
This is one of the problems I have with peoples dreams of AI running anything. Life is not about logical decisions. Sometimes the needs of the one or few, outweigh the needs of the many.
logical decisions
That is just two examples of logical decisions, with no emotion, no taking into account the needs of the one or the few, only the needs of the many.
How does one define prosperity? Prosperity is looked at currently as he/she is prosperous compared to me. They have more, they earn more, they live a better life than someone else.
...easily because it won’t have the human attributes of greed and ambition...If there is no ambition, how do we become prosperous?I think removing the one or the few from the equation leads nowhere other than the extermination of Humans as a species.
I think the AI could be programmed where these types of scenarios aren't made purely on a logical basis. I wonder if we will ever be able to give AI emotions (or something that resembles emotions). What do you think?
I think that would be a more dangerous road than the pure logic scenario. It is hard to detect people with emotional/mental instabilities. I would hate to think of an AI having thoughts like Jeffrey Dahmer or any of the other serial killers. What if an AI had the emotional appeal toward people that Hitler had? Cold and impersonal AI would be an easier thing to deal with a thinking feeling AI.
Of course that is just my opinion. I see the bad side of AI more than the good side. AI could also be an altruistic AI, and care about the welfare of people. But like I said I see the bad side much more than the good.
I think the diversity of humanity makes the idea of any central government scheme flawed from the start.
This is so true!!