An A.I. Expert Came to Town and Said We’re All Going to Die

Made this image by typing “wide image of Philadelphia being stomped on by a laptop robot” into Microsoft’s artificial-intelligence-powered Designer. Look at those knock-off Chuck Taylors.

After speaking with many top artificial intelligence (AI) experts from all over the world, John Sherman believes humankind could be completely wiped out in two to 10 years.

Last week, the Peabody-winning journalist, video editor and podcaster drove up from Baltimore to Microsoft’s Malvern campus to give a presentation on the subject, titled Thrill Us, Then Kill Us? AI Existential Risk: The Hardest Conversation. And it was indeed a hard conversation, partly due to the subject matter and partly because the audience — made up mostly of programmers, as the event was hosted by a long-running computer science group called Philly.Net — frequently if politely hijacked the meeting to weigh in on the subject.

“I think it will happen this entirely different way.” “Did you read this article?” “I for one welcome our AI overlords.” Sigh.

Sherman’s role was somewhere between Paul Revere, Cassandra and Jordan Klepper — trying to convince us that while right now Chat GPT et al. are merely good for creating silly images and bad writing at our command, its successors could one day act on their own free will: unprompted, in secret, and for reasons we cannot yet imagine.

Sherman took the runaway conversation in stride even as he lopped off the middle bits of his presentation to keep things contained within the allotted two-hour time slot.

John Sherman (right) is the host of For Humanity: An AI Safety Podcast. / Let’s see AI make a better image than this photo by Patrick Rapa.

He cited several articles, groups and terms that bear sharing:

• Pause AI: An org that “aims to mitigate the risks of AI. (including the risk of human extinction).”
• “Pausing AI Developments Isn’t Enough. We Need to Shut it All Down” (Time Magazine, March 29th, 2023)
• Unaligned AI: Basically, this is artificial intelligence that has different goals and values from humanity.
• Probability of Doom (a.k.a. PDoom): How likely it is that AI will cause “catastrophic harm” to humanity, according to your personal approximation. Many experts say their PDoom is 20-30 percent. For some, as time passes and the advancements pile up, doom appears inevitable.
• Artificial General Intelligence: While our current “narrow AI” only does specific tasks, the right-now theoretical AGI will be better than people at lots of stuff, maybe all stuff. (This is what some call the singularity, at least in movies.) If AGI is better and smarter than us, how can we hope to control it? How can we even relate to it?
• Effective Accelerationism, a.k.a. (e/acc): Some Silicon Valley people don’t care and think tech should march into the future unfettered. Are they capitalists or trolls? Naive or clear-eyed? Fearless or thoughtless?

Like all of us, Sherman is just guessing about what’s coming, although he’s clearly done more homework on the subject than most. So consider taking it with a grain of salt, but not outright cynicism, when he looks into the future and sees something vague but very, very bad. Artificial intelligence, he said, will overtake humans quickly and without warning. It doesn’t need to be evil or even sentient, just smart enough to use its available powers to achieve its goals. He fears for the lives of his children.

Sherman described one chilling scenario: If AI decides humans are a problem, it could hire people off the internet to mix chemicals and gas us. Death by Task Rabbit. Later, he dropped another bombshell: “AI-caused extinction is not the worst outcome.” AI may decide to “make digital copies of humans and torture us for trillions of years.” Why? Why would it do that? Seems like a strange move for a futuristic, ultra-efficient superintelligence.

But it’s all about the paradigm shift. Sherman encouraged the audience to imagine a future in which we look at AI the way ants look at humans. Meaning we’ll be somewhere between oblivious, baffled and powerless. The presentation was certainly compelling and alarming, but since the subject demands wild speculation, Sherman could never be 100 percent convincing.

Perhaps the most sobering fact he presented was this: Fewer than 300 people are working on AI safety right now. Seems bad! Maybe we should fix that, and pass some laws regulating the industry while we’re at it.

Which is why he’s so adamant about raising concerns about the unknown unknowns. Will humanity be reduced to a paleolithic existence? Wiped out entirely? Enslaved by computers? Locked in a Skynet/Cylon battle for control? Will we merely be unemployed and impoverished? Or subjugated? An AI-based future seems like it will suck no matter what.

(If you’re interested in the whole discussion, a video of the event exists and will hopefully be uploaded soon to Philly.Net’s Youtube page.)

Local Talent

Singer-songwriter Eliza Hardy Jones has a new song out, and a new record called Pickpocket due April 19th. “This is the Year” is a dreamy acoustic rock number laced with sneaky sadness. Jones has been a fixture on the Philly music scene for years, playing with the War on Drugs, Japanese Breakfast, Strand of Oaks, Buried Beds and more. She also does this really cool quilting project.

By the Numbers

#1: Barbie was the best-selling movie in 30 years for local independent movie theater group Renew.

6.74: Inches of rain this city has gotten so far this year.

31: Goals scored by Travis Konecny so far this season. Sandy doesn’t care much for hockey, so I thought I’d slip this in before her sports roundup, which starts… now.

From the This-and-That Sports Desk …

Here’s your weekend wrap-up! On Friday night, the Sixers played a late game against the Lakers and LeBron. Starters: Tobias Harris (back from his injury), Kelly Oubre Jr., Tyrese Maxey, Mo Bamba and Kyle Lowry. The guys acquitted themselves well on the second leg of their Western journey, staying even with LeBron and Co. through most of the first half and ahead 52-50 at the break. We were up by six halfway through the third; the lead bounced back and forth after that until Paul Reed picked up his fourth foul with seconds left in the third. Even so, we closed out the quarter up 76-75. Maxey was keeping us in it, barely.

https://twitter.com/NBATV/status/1771394444224242117

Where would we be without him? Well, worse off than we wound up after a lopsided final quarter in which the Lakers outscored us 26 to 18. Final: 101-94 Lakers. And the killer: a too-late Maxey trey that didn’t count.

On Sunday, we were in Los Angeles to play the Clippers, and wonder of wonders, we came out strong and got stronger — right up until the Clippers had a 10-0 run at the end of the first half. We were still up 63-56, though, and Tobias had 19 points. L.A. kept it close through the third, finishing only down 88-85, but the Sixers were dominant in the final frame, embarking on a 13-0 run, and wound up on top, 121-107. Oh, this was enjoyable:

https://twitter.com/NBCSPhilly/status/1771999292753932730

Tonight, we face the Kings in the final game of the West Coast road trip, with tip-off at 10 p.m.

How’d the Phillies Do?

They had an afternoon game with the Rays on Thursday, and it was an interesting one. They were down 3-1 after the third, took the lead with a four-run sixth, and then lost, 6-5, when Tampa Bay put up two in the eighth and one in the ninth. At least it wasn’t another tie. Kody Clemens had a solo homer. And they found a whole new way to lose Friday’s game, headed into the ninth with a 3-0 lead on, among other things, a solo homer from Edmundo Sosa. But Gregory Soto then served up two homers and a 4-3 loss. Oy.

On Saturday, Cristian Pache and Whit Merrifield were the hitting stars of a 6-6 tie with the Yankees. Starter Spencer Turnbull went three scoreless innings and struck out five, which more than makes up for the three hits he relinquished. Bryce Harper played and had an RBI.

In Sunday’s game, Aaron Nola went 5.2 scoreless innings, and the relief staff was peerless as well in a game against the Blue Jays. Trea Turner and Alec Bohm had two hits each in the 2-0 victory. This afternoon, they play an early one against the Rays, starting at 12:05 p.m. And after that — Thursday is Opening Day! At Citizens Bank Park, no less. You gotta believe!

Any Soccer News?

In Thursday night’s U.S. Men’s National Team CONCACAF Nations League semifinal — that’s a mouthful — Jamaica scored in the first seconds of the game, and the U.S.’s Cory Burke, a former Union player, got one past current Union goalie Andre Blake in the final seconds of overage for an unlikely 1-1 tie. Haji Wright scored for us again in the extra frame, then again in the second extra. That was the final: 3-1 us. I mean, U.S.!

The final, against always-tough opponent Mexico, was on Sunday night, and the play was even through the first half, right up until 44:44, when Tyler Adams put a long one through for the U.S. Gio Reyna added another in the 62nd, after which Mexico was awarded a penalty kick in the 71st for a trip on Antonee Robinson, but the call was overturned following a video review. Then, in the 87th minute, pejorative chants of some sort began, and the referees stopped the match, after which a lot of Mexico fans headed for the exits. Play started up again, stopped again in stoppage for the same reason, and then ended with the score 2-0. A sad coda, but a U.S. win.

https://twitter.com/USMNT/status/1772108231671722184

But What About Doop News?

The Union were all the way out in Portland for a late game against the Timberwolves on Saturday night, and the post saved the first serious threat from Portland, at 21 minutes in. We scored first, at 28 minutes on a shot by Julián Carranza, and after the half, Mikail Uhre almost scored in the 51st minute, which makes the game sound much more one-sided than it was; sub goalie Oliver Semmle was having a very good night. Or maybe it was one-sided — Quinn Sullivan made it 2-0 us with a chip-in on a goalie deflection at 57 minutes.

https://twitter.com/PhilaUnion/status/1771751808412565720

And Carranza tacked on yet another in the 67th. Damn, when did we get this good? Well, Portland did notch one in the 79th, but hey, way too little too late. Yet another Carranza goal was waved off for offsides, so the final was 3-1 — despite eight minutes of overage. Doop!

Um. It’s Ice-Skating Season Now?

It is! And Mount Holly’s own Isabeau Levito, age 17, took the silver medal in the ISU’s World Figure Skating Championships on Friday!

The Flyers also played.