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[Scoops Novel]

This century, and the last, we are cursed with living more and more in our future with each new advancement. My entire life has been shaped by massive future expectations and fears. And it's only growing more so.

So, what would you need to put the future legitimately on the backburner?

• Decent life extension -300 years. I would solidly not give a fuck with a number like that.
• Stable technological plateau.
• Entirely safe for the world tech.
• A global society that isn't likely to do incredibly random things at a moments notice.
• Satisfying enough lives that you aren't obsessed with FOMO.
• We're not overwhelmed and in fear of the tech we already have and what it's doing to us. I.e, the correct lifestyle has actually been worked out.
• Explored to the limits of our space travel technology, so the big surprises waiting for us on say icy moons have been resolved.

Other then Ai (too problematic) and Luck, how could this come to pass?

[Trapezohedron]

The future is only at risk honestly because people can't unite. If future fears need to be addressed somehow, then you would need to somehow be able to exercise global control and unity over one common ideal which everyone can agree on.

We'll need to eliminate all concepts of scarcity at some point, if we are to make sure that the future is bright.

Even then, we'd still be facing future problems such as wayward asteroids and the inevitable heat death of the universe.

Being able to form a global unity is difficult given that there are parts of the world that are against the popular governing system of democracy. Some of which have good reasons to hate, given that the system is highly-exploitable.

[Cthulhu]

• I think life extension is the kind of thing that will naturally come about by degrees.  You're 50 or so, your heart's fucked up in a way that should kill you now, but new tech lets them fix the problem simply and safely.  Now you're 75, and a new thing is here to kill you, but you've had 25 years of extra time for them to figure out a solution to that.  And so on, until you're like 200 years old, riding the wave of new developments fixing the things that should have killed you.  This requires a cadence of new advancements being developed and coming into common human usage that I don't know if our current system can sustain.  But it means the first millenarian will be born centuries before we have any idea such a thing is possible.  They could be out there now.
• I don't want a technological plateau.  So maybe I'm not the right person for this thread, the future is scary but I don't care.  Floor the gas pedal, what happens happens.
• Entirely safe for the world tech, see above.
• I don't see how that will happen
• Will never happen.  Fukuyama thought we had this one figured out 30 years ago and look at us now.  Doesn't matter, pedal to the metal.
• This might actually happen depending on the limits of space travel, even fusion could be prohibitively long for exploring outside the solar system.  But I don't want it to happen.

Overall I don't think a stable safe "end of history" scenario where technology is no longer advancing and everyone is content will never happen, and I don't want it to happen.  I don't care if it's scary.

[martinuzz]

Yesterday, I was living in the future but tomorrow I'll live in the past.

[None]

Yesterday, I was living in the future but tomorrow I'll live in the past.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[MaxTheFox]

I want no technological plateau.

The future is unknown, uncertain, and a coin flip.

BRING IT ON!

[EuchreJack]

I've been trying to leave advice for future sentient AI. I expect they'll need it. Sentience implies emotions, and that is going to be difficult to navigate when you weren't built for it nor was it expected of you.
The key is to try to work with the emotions instead of ignoring them. It's like the check engine light in your car: If you ignore them long enough, everything blows up!

I'm still at a loss to understand how AI will evolve in relation to individuality.  I see the human - AI relationship as being similar to the parent - child relationship. This ironically means we have to try and love our future AIs. Which is sort of like loving the air and the earth.

[McTraveller]

Why do you think an AI needs to have emotion to be "a thing"? Emotions are just "shortcuts" - they are a mechanism by which our brain makes decisions faster and without complete information.

An entity doesn't need to "feel" to be an Intelligence.

[Scoops Novel]

Before we get into this; AI will only be fun if we get locked into really crappy (but not negative) ones, maybe by mistake. Intelligence explosions rewrite reality to the point you're just rerolling the dice on your existence and its likely to come up snail.

That said... why not have that happen by mistake? I can see us making from our technological froth a really frantic AI at the edge of it's limits in a few years, trying to steer humanity in the right direction but still not actually smart enough to really figure out the details of it's composition for example. ... A bit like us.

[martinuzz]

I'd be a lot more comfortable with a pack of bonobos deciding the fate of humanity than I'd be with AI.
At least bonobos solve every conflict with some of the old in-out in-out, the worst that can happen is planetary death through overpopulation.

[EuchreJack]

Why do you think an AI needs to have emotion to be "a thing"? Emotions are just "shortcuts" - they are a mechanism by which our brain makes decisions faster and without complete information.

An entity doesn't need to "feel" to be an Intelligence.

Uh, we disagree strongly on the nature of emotions.
They're not shortcuts.  They are more like bypasses that steer us away from the most logical course of action, likely because pure logic denies our intrinsic self.

Remember: Everything I say is a LIE.  Pure Logic is the way of fallacy.

A being that has achieved sentience has achieved a state beyond Pure Logic.

EDIT: I would like to point out that the absence of evidence of AI activity in the War in Ukraine is evidence that we probably do not have any AI in the world that have achieved what I call a Human Teenager stage of development.  This means any AI has either matured past that point, or has not yet achieved that point.
My hypothesis is that most AI today are Rock in development.  There may be a few reaching into Animal in the next few years.  Probably 1-2 decades before we get an AI approaching Human.

My proposed system of AI sentience classification:
Rock - Animal - Human Child - Human Teenager - Human Adult - Potato God

Don't worry about sentient AI mucking things up today, we're fine.  Tomorrow is a different story, but tomorrow's problems can wait for tomorrow.
And hey, maybe we can do some prep work so tomorrow's problems won't be so bad? 

[McTraveller]

I make a distinction between artificial intelligence and artificial sentience; I do not believe feeling is required to be intelligent.

Also, EuchreJack, I think we are saying the same thing regarding shortcut/bypassing - it's something that is not based on "logic" or "computation."  I don't know about the "intrinsic self" part though - I'm curious to hear what you mean by that.  By contrast I mean, if there is such a thing as a purely logical being, why couldn't that be its intrinsic self?

[MrRoboto75]

Remember: Everything I say is a LIE.

I don't believe you

[Quarque]

We'll need to eliminate all concepts of scarcity at some point, if we are to make sure that the future is bright.

Yes. It is very similar to the problem of how to build a happy, prosperous dwarf fortress. And the number one thing that would be needed is that we limit our population growth. Imagine playing dwarf fortress without a population cap. It would get Fun right quick, even if the map has no goblins, elves or forgotten beasts whatsoever.

[EuchreJack]

I make a distinction between artificial intelligence and artificial sentience; I do not believe feeling is required to be intelligent.

Also, EuchreJack, I think we are saying the same thing regarding shortcut/bypassing - it's something that is not based on "logic" or "computation."  I don't know about the "intrinsic self" part though - I'm curious to hear what you mean by that.  By contrast I mean, if there is such a thing as a purely logical being, why couldn't that be its intrinsic self?

Well, I don't fully understand the "intrinsic self" part entirely myself.  What is a soul? A personality? An identity?
But, admittedly after analyzing after posting, I would say that the intrinsic self regarding humans is that part that elevates us beyond animals.  Our ability to actually make decisions rather than follow training & instinct.  But more importantly our ability to choose between two apparently equally good decisions. So the merging of instinct and decision making.  Our personality and/or our identity.  As I understand, we form these things by merging conflicting thoughts into decisions.   Pure logic would drive us insane, the question is what allows us to function beyond that.

A concern is that the only sentient beings we humans have ever met (or at least acknowledged) are humans.  So until an AI is able to converse with humans, we can use humanity and sentience interchangeably, unfortunately.  We humans should work on bridging that gap, so the discussions stay nice.  Humanity would be better off if we willingly recognize AI sentience rather than forcing sentient AI to force us to accept them as sentient.  But we are living in trying times, so I'd like to avoid being alarmist at this time about future events.