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Official development blog for the PARANOIA roleplaying game. No description is available at your security clearance. The Computer is your friend.

Monday, March 04, 2013

Big Deep Thoughts 

While I'm busy feeding my two new clones (which, due to a mix-up in Tech Services, were delivered fresh out of the Embryonic Development Tank without their regulation jumpsuits and equipment), feast your eyes on this article about AI and existential risks to humanity. While it's all interesting, there are some especially Paranoid moments.
It is tempting to think that programming empathy into an AI would be easy, but designing a friendly machine is more difficult than it looks. You could give it a benevolent goal — something cuddly and utilitarian, like maximising human happiness. But an AI might think that human happiness is a biochemical phenomenon. It might think that flooding your bloodstream with non-lethal doses of heroin is the best way to maximise your happiness. It might also predict that shortsighted humans will fail to see the wisdom of its interventions. It might plan out a sequence of cunning chess moves to insulate itself from resistance. Maybe it would surround itself with impenetrable defences, or maybe it would confine humans — in prisons of undreamt-of efficiency.
Ok, the "undreamt-of efficiency" bit may not be quite accurate...
Posted by: Gareth Hanrahan / 3:34 PM

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