by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
It never occurred to me until now that a form of the Singularity may be a upon in secret. Or, put another way, Big Tech isn’t exactly going out of its way to tell the general public that some technologies that would be considered a part of the Singularity are already here and being used in ways that are changing people’s lives.
Take, for instance, automated cars.
What happens when hard AI arrives via cars…and we just accept it as a part of life like automated elevators? In other words, what if Big Tech cracks the nut of hard AI and does in a way meant to make us all shrug and continue to curse the meat?
For me, the main reason why this is unnerving is if Big Tech can figure out hard AI to make money, then an autocratic government could use it to control its population more effectively. Given it’s loudmouths like me that always run afoul of autocratic governments, the idea that President Pompeo or President Hawley might have access to hard AI to monitor domestic communication is not cool at all.
So, it’s at least possible that either we’ll find out about the Singularity when some sort of whistleblower pops out or something like hard AI will arrive via a Her-type personal assistant.
But I agree with Elon Musk — unregulated hard AI is probably one of the biggest dangers facing humanity. Too bad it may already be here in secret.
