Yuval Harari's Warning About New Alien Intelligences

Some ‘experts’ are predicting that AI will soon take over the world's bureaucracy -- governments, banks, universities etc, and that we will have no idea what is really going on. I don't think that's a plausible development.

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#science #sciencenews #AI #technology #tech

[ChristopheHartwig]

I really liked the parallel between AI "blackbox" and the classic comitee/government blackbox... Makes a lot of sense! Thanks for that

[Decton]

People calling ANY algorithms AI is really triggering, by that term basic math would be "AI"

[eloyball]

I work in the field of Computer Science, and trust me, my peers have a reputation for making bad decisions or failing to predict outcomes... Tech bros have their heads up their artificial asses, and often get lost with delusions 🤦‍♂️

[radvermin]

I read a news article that HR was using AI to scan the resumes of potential employees.
It turned out they were all rejected because the guys in HR put in a parameter for experience with an outdated software.
Finding out nobody was being hired made upper management looked into this, found out what happened, and fired the entire HR team.

[odenetheus]

Sabine, it's worth mentionint that automated decision making (including AI, including for credit scores), is prohibited in the EU. If there is a national law allowing it, the decision must still be appealable to a human, and one must always be allowed an explanation for any decision (including the parameters taken into account).

The most recent, and most impactful, case would be C-634/21, Schufa Holding.

[OMCPoker]

As a retired banker, who worked in the industry for 42 years, I remember the first scoring systems used to make loans. Data was put onto a "score sheet" - actual paper - if the score was at or over the minimum the loan was made. The "loan officer" was responsible for entering the data. To me this was the first exposure to AI in its simplest form.

[Dexter]

"As soon as we started thinking for you it really became our civilization."
- Agent Smith

[joechip]

It’s rare that I disagree with Sabine—mainly because I don’t fully understand the fields she’s discussing, though I find them fascinating. However, as a computer scientist and senior full-stack developer with decades of experience, this time, I know my subject well. So, I must say: even if, as Sabine claims, what AI is doing and will be used for is "nothing new, " the speed, scale, and impact it will have are unprecedented. Sometimes, sheer speed and scale alone are enough to make a significant difference. AI itself is a prime example: the principles behind it have been around for a long time, but only recently has the hardware existed to run it effectively. Ultimately, though, what AI brings—whether good or bad—will still depend largely on the human decisions shaping its trajectory. And on that point, Harari is more than qualified to speak.

[FernandoSantagata]

Sabine, as a joke you asked why the EU is pushing for hydrogen.
1) The Sun cannot be made a scarce resource.
2) The ones who manage the oil pipelines are the same who will manage the hydrogen pipelines and they push for a technological model that links oil to hydrogen.

[jrhoadley]

I wouldn't be surprised if it was AI talking nonsense about AI now.

[rich]

One has to understand the appeal of an AI to those who wish to use it. It promises to be faster and cheaper than a human being, but perhaps even more appealing is that nobody can be blamed for the result the AI spits out. "It wasn't me, it was the AI". A newer response than "I was only following orders", and also newer than "I just did what the management consultant suggested in the report".

[monkerud]

We will never be sure why people decide what they decide either.

[TheMrFlipp]

A long time ago, this channel was about physics . Now it is about money. Probably, an AI proposed to Sabine, how to grow the channel with everyday buzzword topics…

[RimfireAddicted]

I jus t came across her channel the other day randomly but I have to say I find her break down of the topic of each video I've watched so far very compelling. She has the perfect amount of dry humor mixed with common sense and a bit of brutal honesty. This is turning out to be my best channel find of 2024!

[sslaia]

In this era of generative AI, I actually agree more with Harari. He gave some examples in his latest book Nexus. The generative AI is quite different from previous algorithm (as we have seen in the examples of hallucinating ChatGPT). The previous algorithm was programmed using predefined answers. In contrary the generative AI choses next probable answer from thousands of possible answers. Harari's argument is that people would trust such technology more and more (the generative AI), although we don't know anymore how the generative AI came to a decision. And as they become more sophisticated with billions of tokens, even the engineers, who programme them, don't know anymore how they chose certain answer.

[carlbrenninkmeijer]

Chaos theory is perhaps a nice start, it will keep AI occupied for ever.

[Thomas-gk]

Well, I read Harari´s first book "A Brief History of Humankind" some years ago an figured it quite gripping to read, because it´s written nicely and his theses are refreshing original and give a surprisingly divergent perspective from the established view, though there was nothing fundamentally new in it and sometimes it was simply wrong (for me at least).
I´m happy to see, that Dr. Sabine´s influence is growing obviously, since she´s heard on "BigBosses"-conferences and on a committee of the british parlament recently. Would be nice to have the link to these events.

[michaeldebellis]

Thank you for describing Yuval Harari as an "expert". It kind of bugs me, I've been working in AI since the 1980's and some guy who studies Medieval History blathers a bunch of nonsense and people don't laugh at him the way they should. I was wondering "why don't I get quoted as an expert in AI?" and then I realized that someone who said "most of what you hear is hype and BS" isn't likely to make the news. Sabine is of course perfectly correct that the Finance industry has been using software to make decisions for decades. When I was a consultant for Accenture we worked with a big financial institution to develop software that could automatically make arbitrage decisions. The nature of Arbitrage makes it an obvious place to use software because being able to make decisions in seconds and even microseconds can result in millions $$ more profit.

[Panosky]

I love the no-bs attitude of Sabine <3 it's so refreshing

[sharkysharkerson]

We’re slowly approaching towards a cargo cult society on a global scale. Everyone is focused on getting answers quickly without any friction, but it’s in the friction where the learning happens. We still need the ability to understand the fundamentals as well as the stamina to solve problems through first principles if we’re to successfully maneuver our way through all future events we don’t have training for.