Is chat GPT a danger to humanity?

[Count Steer]

And crypto miners,

Saw an interesting comment the other day about the potential for combining AI and blockchain, adding a crypto tag to any AI generated content to mark it as such.

Like a watermark? Can't see the AI people going anywhere near that, unless their arm is firmly up their back - and there's about zero probability of that happening.

[Screwdriver]

It does make you wonder why such a nominally “useless” pursuit (crypto mining) became so popular. Why we decided to build massively powerful computer systems which sit there really doing nothing of any real value.

Good job I’m not a paranoid conspiracy theorist or I might admire such a brilliant strategy for quietly acquiring control. Discreet. Anonymous. Untraceable. Also effectively, infinite…

No need to build Terminators when your only real enemy can be so easily bought.

[weeksy]

It does make you wonder why such a nominally “useless” pursuit (crypto mining) became so popular. Why we decided to build massively powerful computer systems which sit there really doing nothing of any real value.

Good job I’m not a paranoid conspiracy theorist or I might admire such a brilliant strategy for quietly acquiring control. Discreet. Anonymous. Untraceable. Also effectively, infinite…

No need to build Terminators when your only real enemy can be so easily bought.

It's not useless to the people who mine it as it potentially has massive value ?

[Screwdriver]

It's not useless to the people who mine it as it potentially has massive value ?

Indeed but why? Reminds me of the Golgafrinchams adopting the leaf as currency then burning down all the trees to control rampant inflation.

What actual practical purpose does running hugely time (and energy) consuming mathematical computations have? Yes I appreciate those calculations have been assigned a “value” but they have served no actual functional purpose.

[Mussels]

It's not useless to the people who mine it as it potentially has massive value ?

Indeed but why? Reminds me of the Golgafrinchams adopting the leaf as currency then burning down all the trees to control rampant inflation.

What actual practical purpose does running hugely time (and energy) consuming mathematical computations have? Yes I appreciate those calculations have been assigned a “value” but they have served no actual functional purpose.

It's about as meaningful as mining precious gems.

[weeksy]

It's not useless to the people who mine it as it potentially has massive value ?

Indeed but why? Reminds me of the Golgafrinchams adopting the leaf as currency then burning down all the trees to control rampant inflation.

What actual practical purpose does running hugely time (and energy) consuming mathematical computations have? Yes I appreciate those calculations have been assigned a “value” but they have served no actual functional purpose.

The why doesn't matter to 99.9% of people who mine them, the fact it has value is enough why

If someone can put in £20k and get out £200k who cares about why. Humans are very money driven

[Screwdriver]

It's about as meaningful as mining precious gems.

Well a gem is of course inherently desirable as an object of beauty. Plus it has scarcity value etc.

There is nothing beautiful about say, the product of two massive prime numbers ( or the . Nor does that knowledge have any practical application beyond the cryptographic security aspect (which will disappear when we have quantum computers with sufficient qbits)**.

**Is that right incidentally, or do I have the wrong end of the stick?

[Screwdriver]

The why doesn't matter to 99.9% of people who mine them, the fact it has value is enough why

If someone can put in £20k and get out £200k who cares about why. Humans are very money driven

I think I just said that.

[weeksy]

The why doesn't matter to 99.9% of people who mine them, the fact it has value is enough why

If someone can put in £20k and get out £200k who cares about why. Humans are very money driven

I think I just said that.

Lovely

[Count Steer]

It's not useless to the people who mine it as it potentially has massive value ?

Indeed but why? Reminds me of the Golgafrinchams adopting the leaf as currency then burning down all the trees to control rampant inflation.

What actual practical purpose does running hugely time (and energy) consuming mathematical computations have? Yes I appreciate those calculations have been assigned a “value” but they have served no actual functional purpose.

It reminds me of those islanders (Yap islands in Micronesia) that have things like millstones as currency. Absolutely useless, hard to make and in limited supply. Some of them are up to 4m diameter.

I wonder if they ever do any business 'off-island'?

[Mr. Dazzle]

Aren't they intended to stop any one person being rich though? Kinda the point that they're stupid.

[Count Steer]

Aren't they intended to stop any one person being rich though? Kinda the point that they're stupid.

Not too different I suppose, from coinage and notes (slightly different scale!) - they only have value because that's what enough people have agreed to assign to them. (Different when money was made of valuable material of course. S'why coins have milled edges (historically), you could see when someone had clipped a bit off).

[Cousin Jack]

Not too different I suppose, from coinage and notes (slightly different scale!) - they only have value because that's what enough people have agreed to assign to them. (Different when money was made of valuable material of course. S'why coins have milled edges (historically), you could see when someone had clipped a bit off).

Except gold and silver had little 'real' value, you couldn't eat them and they were pretty useless as practical metals for making stuff. They were only 'valuable' because they were scarce, and they could be hoarded for years without tarnishing. Gold has a usefulness today, but that is a pretty recent thing.

[Screwdriver]

Except gold and silver had little 'real' value, you couldn't eat them and they were pretty useless as practical metals for making stuff. They were only 'valuable' because they were scarce, and they could be hoarded for years without tarnishing. Gold has a usefulness today, but that is a pretty recent thing.

I don't think that is right, quite the opposite. Before we invented the ridiculous concept of fiat money, gold and silver were recognised as having intrinsic value in that they were (and still are!) extremely desirable commodities. Since antiquity when its desirability was linked to its lustre and scarcity, we have found those elements have even more intrinsic value in electronics etc.

They also happen to extremely useful materials for making stuff. Gold is not merely very pretty, it can be hammered to an incredible thinness, in the order of a couple of hundred atoms thick iirc. Very easy to work, easy to cast, doesn't oxidise etc. etc.

Prime factors are an entirely useless waste of energy which achieve "value" merely by association with a defunct value system which used to be backed by gold.

[Count Steer]

Not too different I suppose, from coinage and notes (slightly different scale!) - they only have value because that's what enough people have agreed to assign to them. (Different when money was made of valuable material of course. S'why coins have milled edges (historically), you could see when someone had clipped a bit off).

Except gold and silver had little 'real' value, you couldn't eat them and they were pretty useless as practical metals for making stuff. They were only 'valuable' because they were scarce, and they could be hoarded for years without tarnishing. Gold has a usefulness today, but that is a pretty recent thing.

Gold and silver are very workable metals - using limited kit. Many useable things were made from it. Sure, alternatives to gold goblets and belt buckles were available but it's value was always because you could actually make and remake (nice) things from them. I'd call that useful.

ie wot Screwd said.

[Cousin Jack]

Yes, they ate shiny and pretty. Yes, they are available in pretty shapes. Yes they are rare and expensive, and a good way of flaunting your wealth. Much like a Lambo today, technically it is a transport machine, but a piss poor one. Good way to show you a millionaire though.

Gold was rare and shiny, so it was collected like a magpie collects shiny things, as a status symbol.

[Screwdriver]

Gold and jewellery are also symbols. An early form of language...

As naturally occurring metal (you used to be able to just find nuggets of it unlike most other metals) it would immediately stand out from its environment just by being so shiny compared to anything else at the time except, say, diamonds or gemstones.

But diamonds/gems cannot easily be formed into units of commodities. What is an opal worth? Depends how big it is and while that is related to weight, you can't split one in half without reducing its value/desirability/scarcity by an order of magnitude. Gold can be collected, hoarded and made into bigger or smaller units with ease.

It was a "perfect" currency. We only moved away from commodities backed finance recently, easily within living memory, in the 1970's.

I won't argue the pro's and con's of such a system you will be delighted to hear, except to note that even with an erstwhile "sensible" strategy for managing modern capitalism, it can be manipulated. The system can be "gamed" to coin a phrase.

A.I. systems are virtually designed to discover exploits and determine the result for irreducible calculations. They will just sit there and think for a microsecond, during which time they will have run a million iterations of strategy to determine the best outcome.

Best for who you might wonder.

[Screwdriver]

Seems I am not the only one who recognises this issue.

[Yambo]

I wouldn't normally watch Piers Morgan but this popped up on my screen and I was interested.

[Screwdriver]

I wouldn't normally watch Piers Morgan but this popped up on my screen and I was interested.

Just popped in to attend to some pm's. I am taking a break (honest).

But if you like that, you should read his book "Scary Smart". It helps to read it in that incredible sing song Egyptian accent. Mo is an incredible human and to think AI can be come literally smarter than a razor sharp intelligence like his is pretty scary (hence the book).