Artificial Intelligence (AI) enjoys the spotlight these days. Not only are many singing its praises, current and future, many also decry its threats to humanity. Pessimists and optimists exist for every subject. Including Copiosis.
But those warning of AI’s potential threats include those responsible for brining it to the public. Their fears ring credible. Especially since people voicing these fears are intimately involved with AI’s development.
Last week, for example, Open AI CEO Sam Altman testified before the US Congress. Altman urged Congress to crack down on Artificial Intelligence. He strongly suggested it could wreak havoc across civilization. Not like the SkyNet did in the Terminator Franchise, but through much more practical means:
Warnings expressed in the video above and from people like Bill Gates are not overstating things.
The trouble with people + AI
Some people just want to break things. Some people too, will do anything to make money. Even if it causes pain and heartache. Recently a woman discovered how people can use AI to scam her out of millions.
According to the FBI, Americans lose over $2 billion a year through “imposter scams”. The FBI also says scammers are discovering it’s easy using AI in such scams. In as little as a minute, criminals can clone a loved one’s voice. Then use that voice in a compelling but fake ransom scenario.
People with money in their pockets are easy marks. It’s relatively easy to scam people out of their wealth. Especially if you can get them into fear. Money helps that happen. That’s because money must pass from person to person to be useful. So long as that’s the case, criminals will explore all options to separate people and their money. Including using AI.
So we have everything from existential threats to less catastrophic but still tragic scenarios where people can employ AI to others’ detriments. Is AI really the problem though? Or does something else make these scenarios possible?
It can’t happen in Copiosis
Incentives in Copiosis will prompt most criminals to give up crime. Any crime where a person tries to take another’s money, can’t happen in Copiosis. That’s because Copiosis replaces money with nontransferable Net Benefit Rewards (NBR). NBR you receive has no value to another. And there’s no way for a criminal to get it.
Early on hackers might find unintended back doors in our software to create their own NBR. But such experiences won’t happen often. Once they do, many incentives exist in Copiosis which will inspire people to close such inadvertent doors. Any group or individual who discovers and fixes such problems make the system better; in itself a Net Benefit Value creating act. So a lot of people will have their eyes out looking for such problems.
Even when they are successful, their acts create no real pain. Losing money to a scammer today can wind up costing people a lot. Someone creating a bunch of NBR for themselves through a hack really hurts no one. Not only will people catch and correct circumstance making such things possible in Copiosis, people who succeed in creating “fake NBR” will be easily detected. That’s because anyone with a bunch of NBR, must have in their NBR account documented acts meriting such awards. A bunch of NBR and no acts attributable to those awards are a dead giveaway.
In short, such things may happen early on. But the more mature Copiosis gets, these kinds of things will fade into the past and be turned to good. That’s what Copiosis does. It turns everything into good. We spoke to this in a video session some time ago:
Driving beneficial actions
Innovations such as AI are automatically governed by Copiosis’ Net Benefit Value concept. Maximizing their wealth, AI creators will include safeguards in their development to ensure AI only operates for the benefit of humans and the planet.
Today, because of an enormous numbers of reasons, innovators are in a hurry to get their ideas to market. For one, they’re competing with every other innovator. And there are only so many wallets out there to take money from. So being first or second to market can literally make a tangible difference in wealth. Investors push innovators at really unsustainable rates to beat the competition. It’s an artificial urging though, which usually causes people to seriously cut corners. Even corners having nothing to do with human safety.
Elizabeth Holmes, who will soon be in prison, is a good example. Her bogus company Theranos is a cautionary tale of how such made-up pressures cause people to go to extraordinary lengths to hype their ideas. Thankfully, no one was hurt in her case. But will that be the case with AI?
So far, we’re already seeing some using the technology for ill.
When money, competition and pressure come together, that recipe can get the best of people’s intentions, causing them to do things they otherwise would not. Or it causes them to gloss over potential risks. No one knows this better than Altman, Gates and others. Those intimately familiar with sausage making that goes on in Silicon Valley. The ethical line gets blurred when enormous wealth is at stake.
The upward spiral
In Copiosis it’s incredibly easy to get rich so only those really intent on creating mischief will do so. Most people committing crime today are nurtured into that behavior. They’re desperate, angry, bitter or they believe they have no other way to “make it in the world.”
But in Copiosis “making it in the world” is as easy as living. Getting rich is only a little tougher. It just takes developing one’s passions and patience. And everyone has those.
So Copiosis creates a world where crime gradually subsides. It nurtures people in a way consistent with their nature: all people are basically good. Today economic circumstances sometimes cause people to give up their goodness. But in Copiosis, such circumstances will rarely, if ever, happen.
It’s not Utopia. But Copiosis is about as close as humanity will get for the time being. And in an environment like that, a robust AI tuned to create Net Benefit Value could have nothing but up sides.
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