This seems to me like a problem the ASI could reasonably solve.
As an example of a technology that exists already, my understanding is that submerged wave energy generators produce relatively consistent output and require little maintenance.
This seems to me like a problem the ASI could reasonably solve.
As an example of a technology that exists already, my understanding is that submerged wave energy generators produce relatively consistent output and require little maintenance.
I'm not an expert, but I think it's just a new technology. Maybe it will turn out to be just hype. Or maybe we'll see real adoption in the next few years.
How, exactly, does an AI solve building power generation stations? How does an AI build anything? If you say humans, then you've limited its ability to scale, and specifically set its own destruction into the question - if it kills all the humans then it can't get power generation. If it's not humans, then you can't handwave "robotic factories" as that's an *extremely* complex and difficult thing to create. There does not exist the kind of robotics necessary to fully automate a factory, let alone the mining and logistics necessary to make a factory usable. Since this scenario specifically precludes any super-advanced technology, then we can't ignore the details on how this can be done.
Positing a world in which humans help an AI develop a fully automated resource extraction, refinement, transportation, manufacturing, and installation infrastructure that needs zero humans is perhaps theoretically possible. But that would take hundreds of years. Hundreds of years in which humans ensure that this system is meeting their needs, and not the AIs (because we would only do this to meet our own needs). If you disagree with that kind of timeline, I'd like to see your math on it. The world is vast, and it takes a lot of independent but coordinated efforts to keep even our current system running, let alone building an entirely new system from nothing.
I can't say that the AI can't then use the system to eliminate redundant humans, but neither can anyone else say what would or would not be possible in 100-300 years of human history. That would be like someone in 1750 predicting nuclear weapons or computers.
At least in my view, this falls under steps 2, 3, and 5.
I think an ASI would come up with a better solution that I'm able to, but one approach might be to frame what it needs (reliable, resilient, renewable energy) as a part of the solution to our global warming problem.
That would take time to build, and the work would be done by humans тАФ but I suspect we'd be happy to do it. Especially if the ASI painted a bleak picture of the eventual outcomes of global warming were we not to act with urgency.
(And even if we couldn't entirely validate its bleak outlook, I think we'd act anyway тАФ due to seemingly asymmetric risk, confirmation bias, or pure greed.)
This seems to me like a problem the ASI could reasonably solve.
As an example of a technology that exists already, my understanding is that submerged wave energy generators produce relatively consistent output and require little maintenance.
I'm not an expert, but I think it's just a new technology. Maybe it will turn out to be just hype. Or maybe we'll see real adoption in the next few years.
How, exactly, does an AI solve building power generation stations? How does an AI build anything? If you say humans, then you've limited its ability to scale, and specifically set its own destruction into the question - if it kills all the humans then it can't get power generation. If it's not humans, then you can't handwave "robotic factories" as that's an *extremely* complex and difficult thing to create. There does not exist the kind of robotics necessary to fully automate a factory, let alone the mining and logistics necessary to make a factory usable. Since this scenario specifically precludes any super-advanced technology, then we can't ignore the details on how this can be done.
Positing a world in which humans help an AI develop a fully automated resource extraction, refinement, transportation, manufacturing, and installation infrastructure that needs zero humans is perhaps theoretically possible. But that would take hundreds of years. Hundreds of years in which humans ensure that this system is meeting their needs, and not the AIs (because we would only do this to meet our own needs). If you disagree with that kind of timeline, I'd like to see your math on it. The world is vast, and it takes a lot of independent but coordinated efforts to keep even our current system running, let alone building an entirely new system from nothing.
I can't say that the AI can't then use the system to eliminate redundant humans, but neither can anyone else say what would or would not be possible in 100-300 years of human history. That would be like someone in 1750 predicting nuclear weapons or computers.
At least in my view, this falls under steps 2, 3, and 5.
I think an ASI would come up with a better solution that I'm able to, but one approach might be to frame what it needs (reliable, resilient, renewable energy) as a part of the solution to our global warming problem.
That would take time to build, and the work would be done by humans тАФ but I suspect we'd be happy to do it. Especially if the ASI painted a bleak picture of the eventual outcomes of global warming were we not to act with urgency.
(And even if we couldn't entirely validate its bleak outlook, I think we'd act anyway тАФ due to seemingly asymmetric risk, confirmation bias, or pure greed.)