aaron-santoson Hacker News • Recommends
On “AI thinks like a corporation (2018)”
For another take on this corporations ≈ ai idea, I cannot recommend enough Charles Stross' 34C3 talk on this very topic. link to this video (picks up approx 10mins in).
0:00 / 0:00
#charlesstross#corporations#artificialintelligence
34C3 - Dude, you broke the Future!
media.ccc.de
274K subscribers • 56 videos on Hallway • Conference channel
- Recommended by 4 people: 4 on Hacker News.
- A classic. People kept recommending it from 2018 to 2023.
- Presented by Charles Stross, science fiction novelist
- May be out of date. Uploaded 8 years ago, in an area where tools change fast.
- An opinion. It argues one side of a question engineers disagree on.
Beginner. No background in the topic needed.
41K views8 years ago4 recommendations
AI and machine learningHistory and cultureAI safety and impactThe tech industryHistory of computing
Charles Stross argues that corporations act as slow, profit-maximizing artificial intelligences and discusses how technology outpaces regulation.
media.ccc.de/v/34c3-9270-dude_you_broke_the_future We're living in yesterday's future, and it's nothing like the speculations of our authors and film/TV producers. As a working science fiction novelist, I take a professional interest in how we get predictions about the future wrong, and why, so that I can avoid repeating the same mistakes. Science fiction is written by people embedded within a society with expectations and political assumptions that bias us towards looking at the shiny surface of new technologies rather than asking how human beings will use them, and to taking narratives of progress at face value rather than asking what hidden agenda they serve. In this talk, author Charles Stross will give a rambling, discursive, and angry tour of what went wrong with the 21st century, why we didn't see it coming, where we can expect it to go next, and a few suggestions for what to do about it if we don't like it. Charles Stross fahrplan.events.ccc.de/congress/2017/Fahrplan/events/9270.ht…Why it's here
4 people recommend thisWhat people say. Highly recommended for its compelling thesis comparing modern corporations to paperclip-maximizing artificial intelligences.
leiperton Hacker News • Recommends
On “Dude, you broke the future”
Charles Stross read the text at the 34C3. If you want to listen to it rather than read it: 1: link to this video 2: link EDIT: Sorry, the read mode on mobile did not show the embedded video.
vertexFarmon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Facial recognition: It’s time for action”
…how it is perceived) gives us a very false sense of security. Like how a few decades ago very few average people could understand how the internet might have a great impact on society. Obviously they aren't thinking that way anymore. Check out Charles Stross's speech at C3 about regulatory lag relative to the the accelerated nature of tech growth: link to this video…
btschaeggon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Rethinking the Luddites in the Age of A.I”
Obligatory mention of Charles Stross' talk where he knits together exactly those two thoughts. "Dude, you broke the future": link to this video
grumdanon Hacker News • Mentions
On “Consumers Are Becoming Wise to Your Nudge”
This reminds me a lot of Charles Stross' talk at 34C3, where he described corporations and competition between them as "human-powered AIs" that maximize profit as their only goal, similar to how a neural network only blindly minimizes a loss function. link to this video
aaron695on Hacker News • Mentions
On “Dude, You Broke the Future (2017)”
> I don't think the author literally believe corporations are AGIs In the video questions section he confirms he means literal. link to this video Look at HN as an AI, you can ask a very complex question and get a very complex answer, it's AGI. 4chan can send humans out to do its real world physical bidding. It can literally get people shot. These are very complex AI's.
stanaon Hacker News • Mentions
On “Among the A.I. doomsayers”
Talk that introduced me to this idea of corporations as Paperclip Maximiser AI - "Dude you broke the Future" link to this video
u/DevFRusin r/compsci • Mentions
On “Charlie Stross as 34C3 suggests viewing early corporations (1553-1884) as a form of AI to recognize the mechanisms we've already built against the universal paperclip maximizer.”
This presentation is also available as a YouTube video but you have to have a high tolerance for lip smacks to watch it. Overall, though, I found this to be a very thought provoking talk.