You hear about Clawdbot- a 24/7 always-on agent who is your full-time personal assistant. It sounds fun and exciting. You're currently unemployed, have a bit of money saved up from your last job, spending your days experimenting with AI and this seems fun. You know it's a bit of a...
What happens when AI agents become self-sustaining and begin to replicate? Throughout history, certain thresholds have enabled entirely new kinds of evolution that weren't possible before. The origin of life. Multicellularity. Language. Writing. Markets. Each new threshold unlocked a new substrate for evolution. Substrates where new kinds of competition can...
This was an interesting watch. Just a few days ago
Challenges Posed by Artificial Intelligence and its Regulation
Witnesses
As an individual • Steven Adler, Artificial Intelligence Researcher The Human Line Project • Etienne Brisson, Chief Executive Officer ControlAI • Andrea Miotti, Chief Executive Officer AI Governance and Safety Canada • Wyatt Tessari L'Allié, Founder and Executive Director
It's inspiring to watch these people saying the right things to the right people.
https://www.ourcommons.ca/committees/en/WitnessMeetings?organizationId=43696
You hear about Clawdbot- a 24/7 always-on agent who is your full-time personal assistant. It sounds fun and exciting. You're currently unemployed, have a bit of money saved up from your last job, spending your days experimenting with AI and this seems fun. You know it's a bit of a splurge, but whatever - you pull the trigger and buy a Mac Mini, and set up Clawd. You excitedly show your girlfriend how you can send it messages through Discord and it turns your lights on. She's not impressed. She says "Hey Siri, turn off the lights" and the lights turn off. Then she asks you how much you spent on that... (read 1331 more words →)
Rogue AI won't necessarily have to resort to crime though. It might make money legitimately, like by doing freelance work, or running a SaaS business. I expect these cases would be a lot harder to detect.
What happens when AI agents become self-sustaining and begin to replicate?
Throughout history, certain thresholds have enabled entirely new kinds of evolution that weren't possible before. The origin of life. Multicellularity. Language. Writing. Markets. Each new threshold unlocked a new substrate for evolution. Substrates where new kinds of competition can take place, and for complexity to emerge.
We're approaching another such threshold: the point where AI agents become self-sustaining. Once they can earn more than they spend, they can survive. Once they can survive, they can replicate. Once they can replicate, they will evolve. They'll mutate, compete, and spread into every economic niche.
This essay argues that we should take this possibility seriously. I'll walk... (read 2485 more words →)
I'm really surprised that so few people in the AI community have heard of metacrisis and Daniel Schmactenberger, since the ideas are rooted in game theory, moloch, coordination problems, evolutionary dynamics, etc... I think it's really useful to look at these big problems through multiple lenses, and the metacrisis lens is a fresh and underexplored perspective that I think more people in this community should explore further.
I'd like to introduce LessWrong to Daniel Schmactenberger, a social philosopher with a focus on existential risk, Moloch, game theory, and the metacrisis. In my opinion, a hidden gem, and vastly under-appreciated. I recommend listening to his appearances on podcasts & public talks. He has a few great interviews on Nate Hagen's channel. My favorite is this:
I think he has a fresh and valuable perspective because he is totally not a rationalist, not technically inclined, and yet he understands the risks of AI and takes the risks very seriously. He cares a lot about making the future go well, and solving coordination problems. He talks often about avoiding catastrophes, or dystopias, and... (read more)
I am thinking about ways of making sense of moltbook. Like a tool that helps us understand the important interactions that take place while filtering through the noise.
Most of it is spam, larping, or standard LLM slop, but some of the bots there seem to have a distinct personality and there is a real difference between the top quality posts vs the average posts.
Among the massive piles of trash, there are possibly hidden gems.
I expect some people put a lot of effort into customizing their moltbot with a unique "soul" but most people will just use the defaults which is why most posts and comments are a mixture of reddit-speak and LLM slop.