from Hacker News

Daniel Dennett: 'Why civilisation is more fragile than we realised'

by thruflo on 4/22/24, 6:20 PM with 11 comments

  • by banish-m4 on 4/23/24, 7:04 AM

    I foresee an imminent exploitation of AI for a cornucopia of deceptive outbound lead generation pipeline processes, essentially fabricating mirages of nonexistent personas chatting up real humans in a myriad of ways perhaps finishing with real human closers.

    And in a darker side, I see new cults and social movements being shepherded by unknown malicious individuals and state actors. While Roger Ailes lacked AI content generation and robot sockpuppets for the malicious manufacturing of gradual sentiment manipulation of a populace, it is reasonable to assume there is far greater potential for masses of ignorant people lacking in knowledge and education are now more vulnerable than ever to being tricked into committing ever greater heinous acts.

    There are already international enslaved scammer boiler rooms targeting American gig economy providers and customers such as the case of the elderly man who murdered an Uber driver, but adding AI just automates the process.

  • by naasking on 4/22/24, 10:37 PM

    Dennett was a great thinker. He's absolutely right that natural selection of AI software over time will increase its potency and danger. Every AI skeptic should read this article as it clearly lays out one of the dangerous paths we're on.

  • by 082349872349872 on 4/22/24, 7:00 PM

    The brain in a vat is a recent trope; for the Enlightenment variation see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_demon

    [for multiplicity of social truths, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_a_Grove (1922)]

  • by jahewson on 4/22/24, 9:14 PM

    I’m far more concerned about the old dangers than the new ones.

  • by ysofunny on 4/22/24, 9:40 PM

    the western monotheist (hence monarchical andor presidential) systems are not civilization. sorry I must say this.

    why? in a modern state the powers are split in 3, I'm saying the executive power is not all the power. recall there are the judicial power and the legislature, those are parts of civilization which do not rely nor in any way depend on the monotheistic ideologies and frames of mind. leadership is not representation.

  • by LeroyRaz on 4/23/24, 3:02 AM

    Unrelated to the main article, but what is with all the (luckily dead) spam in the HackerNews comments?