These works are always interesting because if the AI that’s generated is smart enough to teach others strong morals, it would be strong and well-educated enough on morals and ethical codes to avoid the types of take-over globalist outcomes. However, this writing does a great job of addressing that common issue, as the designers of the algorithm encourage the machine for monetary and political gain. In addition, it is implied Prometheus is pulling all the strings because this is what the machine deems is the morally good approach to solving humanitarian issues.
The biggest portion that went wrong in this scenario is the human interference. Their goals were control and making money, and the AI provided them with the ability to meet those goals.
This text touches on a fundamental aspect of machine learning that is very important for its moral implications. That is that advanced AI tends to rely on some sort of learning algorithm, in which the computation adjusts based on feedback. In order for these to remain in human’s best, ethical, interests, the goal of this learning needs to stay moral and focused, which can be directly hard-coded into an AI system.
I have some skepticism regarding the possibility of an AI dystopia like the ones we are afraid of are possible, because they rely on the assumption that everything in the world has recordable, simple, computational outcomes. What I mean by this is that there is an assumption that simple actions, phrases, or input variables can alway result in complex, accurate, totally predictable conclusions. The real world typically has more randomness and nuance than that, so there is a limit to the level of intelligence or power an intelligent being could have. As if life is a computational Rorschach Inkblot Test. Maybe computers are different, and they can see more nuanced and complex patterns than we can, but I am suspicious that is is enough to do the damage we say it can. At least for the near future.
As far as utopias go, there are too many human beings for that to be a realistic possibility. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure the same way one man’s dream is another man’s nightmare.