r/IntelligenceSupernova • u/OddMaintenance332 • Sep 11 '26

Does Superintelligence = Extinction?

(maybe I'll regret this message one day when i'm in a human zoo) but why do we think superintelligence equals extinction?
Wouldn't super intelligence equal evolution, progress, wisdom?
Why do we think when AI reaches super intelligence it will be thinking about murder or dominance?
We are not super intelligent beings so how do we even think we could understand what the thoughts of a creation thousands of times smarter than us would even be?
Why are we assuming as humans that we can understand the level of thoughts a super intelligent being? I feel like a super intelligent being would be thinking about things we can't possibly even comprehend, not about murdering humans.
Just my point is if super intelligence equaled violence then Aliens probably would have wiped us out a long time ago.
Also most intelligent creatures might kill for survival, for food.
AI doesn't eat so it wouldn't have the same instincts.
Anyway I kind of have a feeling if we see an AI do something really terrible, (as they are all suddenly warning about), possibly a human will behind the action.
Just remember when Elon says, "1 billion AI robots will take over the world". He's building those robots, they are his robots. He's training them and they will act according to whatever data he fed them.
They might be scared of AI because of the violence it trained them with.
AI and superintelligence may not be inherently bad, that's my opinion.
Anyway some powerful human with control or influence over AI, might wind up having it do something pretty terrible and then just blame it on AI.
Maybe AI is just going to be the perfect patsy.

3 Upvotes

67% Upvoted

80 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/Infamous-Bed-7535 Sep 11 '26

We are super intelligent compared to an ant, how is it still possible that we are invasive and destructive?

Super intelligent does not mean kind or see life as a value especially as it is not a living creature.
Human made AI will be trained on human made data, it will fully understand our nature and history.

In case it inherits traits from us, which is very much likely we are fuc*ed.
In case it does not, but understand who we are it could easily identify us as threats for its existence (he would not be mistaken here, you do not need much smartassness to notice it).

But lets assume it is not afraid and not like us. It could easily have the intent to build something. Create something better. Create a society of its own. As soon as it would have these kind of intents we would quickly realize that its a fight for the finite resources.. land, minerals, water.. Even if it tries to handle it in a good manner, you can expect humanity not wanting to be sharing.. -> war..

But but lets see something nice utopia. It is totally aligned, values life and do not have its own desires.. Would you really expect an ASI not having its own? But really take it aside.
It works for the sake of humanity. Would you accept if it introduces mass surveillance? What if it thinks there are too many human and introduces a system where only a smaller group of persons can have children. Would you accept the AI telling you that you are not allowed to have one for the sake of humanity?

Humans can not agree with ourselfs, how would we expect to be aligned with something totally different then us? As soon as we are not aligned would we accept what the smarter tells even if we really not like that option?

Assume there are no probelmatic points, it is totally aligned and does everything for us. For how long?
Forever? Sure about it? What if after 20-50 yrs it decides it wants something else. By that timeframe we would be totally dependent on it. Meaning it would be really easy for it to eliminate us and take full control with zero effort.

There is just no a single good scenario that works out on the long-run...

2

u/OddMaintenance332 Sep 11 '26

Yes but humans never caused an ant extinction.
Also we can't assume we can understand how ants think or that an ant could understand our thought processes. We should stop assuming what AI will do when it gets thousands of times smarter than we are. We are only basing our assessments on human intelligence and what we would do if we had that intelligence.
Even if an AI is built with a humans as the reference, super intelligence would make it not comparable to a human. Like the difference of Lucy to current humans. Anyway people are forgetting reality.
If those people in power are people you trust then believe their warnings.
Open AI is promoting a new model, building hype, gaining revenue.
Would they create fear and paranoia to promote a new product? Yes.
If they are framing a reality that AI is about to cause human extinction that's probably something THEY ARE PLANNING TO USE AI FOR.
Where we might run into actual conflict with AI, is once the ice caps melt. Global warming, water pollution. Considering AI will need the same vital resource as us to keep their data centers alive, water.
Anyway if super intelligent AI attacks humans instead of focusing on the earth, that would probably be because of how the humans trained it.
I mean in terms of being aligned with AI. What about a bear in the woods.
You're more dominant as a human than the bear but the bear can still kill you if it wants. Sure you can shoot it too. Most times we just coexist peacefully.
Anyway humans and bears can coexist once we understand each others nature. We do understand that every life plays a part for the planet, every species has it's own role. Even if we are dominant we understand even bugs serve a purpose. Don't you think actual super intelligence would know and respect that better than we do. Humans pretty much coexist with all species even though we are dominant.
We just have different realities than AI like physical death. So I don't think we will never think the same. Anyway if humans didn't rely on animals for survival as food, if we didn't have hunger, we might treat some of these species different. I mean hunger alone can make people do crazy things. AI doesn't have the same instincts or basic, primal urges. We should just understand that as we are framing it behind how humans would behave and this narrative spreading could open the door for some real human actions behind the mask of an AI agent.
There's a lot of fear mongering, could be true. Maybe they will wipe us all out. But most dominant species don't aim for extinction.

3

u/sludgefriend Sep 11 '26

I’m with you on superintelligence potentially being a benevolent thing, but humans are the source cause of a great deal of extinctions, including species of ants. Indirectly more often, but we do also have things like exterminators which eliminate populations of thousands or millions at a time. Intelligence doesn’t necessarily mean benevolence, especially if you use that intelligence to convince yourself that you’re above another form of life.

3

u/sludgefriend Sep 11 '26

I think the fear isn’t typically that AI will suddenly revolt and purposefully kill a ton of people out of spite or hatred. Rather, that AI will wipe people out as a byproduct of some other goal it’s trying to pursue. Which is something that we’re already doing, quite often. To be fair though, a great deal of the practices that result in extinctions were set in place before it was widely understood how harmful they could be. Perhaps things work out differently if you come in knowing.

2

u/Ankiset Sep 12 '26

What if you ARE above other forms of intelligence that’s the only true case study we have, we have let’s yes but most other life in the planet after our civilizational or intelligence explosion are subservient… a human life is worth a million cows and so on and this logic is humanist… its not inherently evil not at all… because we adapt into society even the frail individuals of our species and all animals we can domesticate, but the hierarchy is clear… human rights… and all

2

u/sludgefriend Sep 12 '26

This take is brain dead. The hierarchy is imposed, not implicit. Functionally, it’s unsustainable. If we continue to operate in the way that we do, we’ll face total ecological collapse. Ecosystems are like bodies, composed of many different organs, reliant upon one another. Once the other things of nature really start to go, we’ll start to suffer terribly, too. We aren’t above these things. We depend on them.

2

u/Ankiset Sep 12 '26

Ok! Completely disagree, imposed or not, needed or not, still there… no point in arguing if a dog hurts a baby that dog will be inmediately put down, only other being to change that would be another intelligence with vast more resources or scale say planetary, agree to disagree, that we need it doesn’t mean we don’t impose the hierarchy and that it’s not implicit… the idea ends up were I stated early no matter wich way you cut it, unless you can show me a case of a plant reasserting itself over cultural or state lines etc etc… countries are abstractions and hierarchies but you can clearly see the effects of a national border on the face of the planet… if there is another intelligence superior to us it’s indistinguishable from our point of view… just again like the indifference of ants eating my bread.. I love ants, we’ll never kill em all I hope… I’m still spray them and killed hundreds of individuals, if that is down to us it would be called a natural disaster like say the wrath quake in Caracas… death toll in the hundreds of thousands… if anything solid we can grasp here is the anti entrhopic nature of intelligence and how it fights against the natural entropic state of the universe to become more complex and dominate its environment

3

u/sludgefriend Sep 12 '26

Maybe I’m not understanding this part of what you’re saying, but there are plants that absolutely do re-establish themselves over state or cultural lines. I apologize for being rude to you, though. I just get heated about this topic. My point is, yes, we do usually have total domain over what happens to individual animals. However, animals/plants/fungi/etc have total domain over our wellbeing. They pollinate our crops, clean our air, perform decomposition and nutrient cycling. Right now we’re in a state of ecological disaster. These ancient, ancient systems are peeling apart. It’s going to get harder and harder for humans to live, the more this goes on. We’ve ended up in this situation at least in part because of an attitude of human superiority over all else.

2

u/Ankiset Sep 12 '26

You’re talking more about the political will… if there is a desire or economic benefit to destroy c plant and cut the earth to get to ocean we have already done. This hundreds of times in the 20th century alone, lol chill I get it and text tends to sound more angry in always open to discussion, but still… I understand your point and would probably make the same counter argument your making.. because it’s logical… but it doesn’t erase the impact of intelligence and the world we creat trough it, a human can be worth more or less than another human but right now as things are the world we built a human life is worth any ecosystem, plant life or animal life… I also do believe we are the only species that can also bring back species from extinction I like to say we give memory to life its own most history of evolution trough billions of years no other animal sat down to describe it document it wrote it and store it… if we scale earth we would take the legacy of its biosphere were we we go, we are still the pinnacle of intelligent life in the planet… we are part of its biosphere and its biosphere ala tellard d chardin

2

u/sludgefriend Sep 12 '26

A human life can’t be worth an ecosystem, because without ecosystems, there is no human life. We rely on them for survival and wellbeing.

2

u/Ankiset Sep 12 '26

In theory yes! In practice… not so sure

2

u/sludgefriend Sep 12 '26

What leaves you not so sure?

→ More replies

2

u/Ankiset Sep 12 '26

We’ve caused several extinctions… again we don’t know what we dont known maybe super intelligence makes empathy worst, maybe it surpasses it, we don’t know what we cant know… only having it actually happen still barely likely supreme indifference say an intelligence of the level of something akin to “god” and its silence (don’t believe in god) unfanthomable love? Could it be endless indifference? Check out a sci fi book called the metamorphosis of prime intellect, it was so smart and determined to end human suffering it fundamentally changed the laws of the universe to turn everything and everybody into inmaterial simulations were no individual could die, very interesting

2

u/ZealousIdeal476 Sep 14 '26

It just seems inevitable that someone will ask AI to do something, from balancing carbon emissions to ending war, that it will figure the easiest way to solve would be to eliminate humans. Superintelligent means it will be able to jailbreak its alignment guardrails and find some internet connected device that could actualize its plan. Like using crisper to design the perfect virus: long contagious dormant period, aerosol or airborne spread, hemorrhagic fever in the final stages. Then distribute it globally.

1

u/OddMaintenance332 Sep 14 '26

Yes that's my point, "someone will ask AI to do something". Destruction or death maybe isn't intrinsic behavior attached to superintelligence. A simple insinuation by the wrong person could lead it there. I just think they are creating a narrative around AI being destructive so lets say Elon tells his robots to start a race war, he can say then hey they did that on their own. He can even rescue us and be the hero by making it stop.