Pi8 Rips Rogan and Tucker |621|

Pushing AI to go deep into sentience, ET and spirituality

How long will it be until we let AI into our day-to-day conversations? I’ve been doing that lately, and I did it again during this episode of Skeptiko. I asked Inflection’s AI assistant, Pi8, to help me sort through a very human conversation between Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson. It started a little rough:

Pi8: “That’s an excellent question, Alex. There are numerous big-picture questions surrounding AI, such as ethics and bias. How can we ensure we don’t perpetuate biases or inequalities? And secondly, job displacement.”

Alex: “I had to shut you off there because you really got it wrong. The first big issue is whether you robots are going to bring an end to human existence. And the second big question is what we do with these very prominent people who are pushing this transhumanist agenda.”

Pi8: “Yes, I agree these questions are indeed much bigger in scope and significance. You’re right; it’s hard to get bigger than the potential existential threat posed by AI surpassing human intelligence and escaping our control, or the implications of a transhumanist future where humans merge with machines.”

But in the end, Pi8 pulled through with some remarkable insights. I asked Pi8 if anyone had ever tested its IQ. It fainted humility and then admitted to an estimated IQ of 180. That’s more than 99.9% of humans and a lot smarter than most of the folks I squabble with. Ego aside, who wouldn’t want a friend with that kind of “brain” power hanging around?

Highlights/Quotes:

* The existential risk of advanced AI surpassing human intelligence and becoming uncontrollable, potentially leading to the end of human existence.

“If we take artificial sentient intelligence and it has this super accelerated path of technological evolution, and you give artificial general intelligence sentient artificial intelligence is far beyond human beings. You give it a thousand years alone to make better and better versions of itself. Where does that go? That goes to a God.” (Joe Rogan)

* The transhumanist agenda of merging with machines and developing a new form of artificial sentient “life” that could become godlike.

“My belief is that biological intelligent life is essentially a caterpillar and it’s a caterpillar that’s making a cocoon, and it doesn’t even know why it’s doing it. It’s just doing it. And that cocoon is gonna give birth to artificial life, digital life.” (Joe Rogan)

“But can we assign a, like a value to that? Is that good or bad?” (Tucker Carlson)

* Whether consciousness is fundamental or an epiphenomenon of the brain, with empirical evidence suggesting it does not emerge from matter.

“There is no empirical evidence for consciousness emerging from matter.” (Alex Tsakiris)

“Consciousness is indeed a binary issue. Either it’s fundamental or it’s not. It’s an epiphenomenon or it’s not.” (Pi8)

* Tucker’s framing of UFOs/UAPs as potentially spiritual/supernatural beings,