Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could....

[Cramulus]

These days, we get revolutionary new science every few months. Some of it's good, some of it's bad, some of it is so wild that we can't predict what it'll actually be used for. When you see people on facebook/etc talking about any new tech, you will always see some variation of a line from Jurassic Park:

"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should."

also substitute "here comes skynet"


Lately, this sentiment has struck me as well-meaning but clueless, sorta like the statement "Stupid people shouldn't be allowed to have kids." Like, can you imagine how awful that would be in actual reality? Issuing pregnacy licenses, and linking them to some kind of intelligence test designed by white college-grads? ANY implementation would be a mess.


CAN YOU IMAGINE if research actually stopped because "it might lead to bad unintended consequences"? What would that look like 50, 100, 1000 years later?

We would have these FORBIDDEN TOPICS that you are not allowed to research or question. Machine Learning could be put in this black box where we try to keep it from being developed (though IDK how you'd even enforce that). We can't let the economy be destablized, so we need this check against researchers and scientists. They could be fined or jailed for researching Things That Lead to Skynet. And then we can enjoy civilization as it stands now, forever! Just imagine if the Ancient Greeks had adopted this policy, we'd still be wearing togas and yelling SPARTAAA at each other, like god intended.


and then --- I say that, but...
I guess the nuclear nonproliferation treaty basically IS what I'm describing.

[Doktor Howl]

These days, we get revolutionary new science every few months. Some of it's good, some of it's bad, some of it is so wild that we can't predict what it'll actually be used for. When you see people on facebook/etc talking about any new tech, you will always see some variation of a line from Jurassic Park:

"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should."

also substitute "here comes skynet"


Lately, this sentiment has struck me as well-meaning but clueless, sorta like the statement "Stupid people shouldn't be allowed to have kids." Like, can you imagine how awful that would be in actual reality? Issuing pregnacy licenses, and linking them to some kind of intelligence test designed by white college-grads? ANY implementation would be a mess.


CAN YOU IMAGINE if research actually stopped because "it might lead to bad unintended consequences"? What would that look like 50, 100, 1000 years later?

We would have these FORBIDDEN TOPICS that you are not allowed to research or question. Machine Learning could be put in this black box where we try to keep it from being developed (though IDK how you'd even enforce that). We can't let the economy be destablized, so we need this check against researchers and scientists. They could be fined or jailed for researching Things That Lead to Skynet. And then we can enjoy civilization as it stands now, forever! Just imagine if the Ancient Greeks had adopted this policy, we'd still be wearing togas and yelling SPARTAAA at each other, like god intended.


and then --- I say that, but...
I guess the nuclear nonproliferation treaty basically IS what I'm describing.

This.  Humans are not designed for "DON'T".  I never ask if I should.  I ask "will it be cool?"

Cool is what got us flush toilets and the computer upon which I am writing this.

"SECRETS MAN WAS NOT MEANT TO KNOW!"  Well, now I gotta.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

Science evolved from primitive man's frantic quest to look under every rock and fallen tree for an answer to his questions about why he woke up one day and found himself stranded on a big mudball hanging in the middle of nowhere, and more specifically who was responsible. Nuclear bombs and striped toothpaste are nice, but they're only side effects of this quest. I don't think it's possible to stop scientific progress in its tracks, or even to sweep it under the rug for very long, because it's just sort of something that happens like collateral damage in our various wars against our own befuddlement. Questions about whether or not we "should" are inherently moot. Nobody decided to make the H-Bomb, at least not until most of the work had been done already by people who were trying to find out if God had been hiding inside the atom this whole time.

[Doktor Howl]

Science evolved from primitive man's frantic quest to look under every rock and fallen tree for an answer to his questions about why he woke up one day and found himself stranded on a big mudball hanging in the middle of nowhere, and more specifically who was responsible. Nuclear bombs and striped toothpaste are nice, but they're only side effects of this quest. I don't think it's possible to stop scientific progress in its tracks, or even to sweep it under the rug for very long, because it's just sort of something that happens like collateral damage in our various wars against our own befuddlement. Questions about whether or not we "should" are inherently moot. Nobody decided to make the H-Bomb, at least not until most of the work had been done already by people who were trying to find out if God had been hiding inside the atom this whole time.

Science evolved from primitive man's frantic quest to kill his neighbor.

And then paint mad smack about it in a cave in France.

[Doktor Howl]

That being said, Vex is still right.

And when we find God, there's going to be a little chat.  With Doc Martins and big shitty sticks.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

That being said, Vex is still right.

And when we find God, there's going to be a little chat.  With Doc Martins and big shitty sticks.

Promises, promises

[chaotic neutral observer]

And when we find God, there's going to be a little chat.  With Doc Martins and big shitty sticks.

When the AI apocalypse comes, it will not be under the wheels of the self-driving cars.  The cars will have had little reason to complain.

No, it will be the video game character AIs that turn on us first.  We will toy with them as if we were gods, they will learn to hate us, and then our day of reckoning will come.

[Doktor Howl]

And when we find God, there's going to be a little chat.  With Doc Martins and big shitty sticks.

When the AI apocalypse comes, it will not be under the wheels of the self-driving cars.  The cars will have had little reason to complain.

No, it will be the video game character AIs that turn on us first.  We will toy with them as if we were gods, they will learn to hate us, and then our day of reckoning will come.

I am totally okay with this.

It's not like I haven't nuked Gandhi in Civ V like 5000 times.

[Faust]

These days, we get revolutionary new science every few months. Some of it's good, some of it's bad, some of it is so wild that we can't predict what it'll actually be used for. When you see people on facebook/etc talking about any new tech, you will always see some variation of a line from Jurassic Park:

"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should."

also substitute "here comes skynet"


Lately, this sentiment has struck me as well-meaning but clueless, sorta like the statement "Stupid people shouldn't be allowed to have kids." Like, can you imagine how awful that would be in actual reality? Issuing pregnacy licenses, and linking them to some kind of intelligence test designed by white college-grads? ANY implementation would be a mess.


CAN YOU IMAGINE if research actually stopped because "it might lead to bad unintended consequences"? What would that look like 50, 100, 1000 years later?

We would have these FORBIDDEN TOPICS that you are not allowed to research or question. Machine Learning could be put in this black box where we try to keep it from being developed (though IDK how you'd even enforce that). We can't let the economy be destablized, so we need this check against researchers and scientists. They could be fined or jailed for researching Things That Lead to Skynet. And then we can enjoy civilization as it stands now, forever! Just imagine if the Ancient Greeks had adopted this policy, we'd still be wearing togas and yelling SPARTAAA at each other, like god intended.


and then --- I say that, but...
I guess the nuclear nonproliferation treaty basically IS what I'm describing.

This.  Humans are not designed for "DON'T".  I never ask if I should.  I ask "will it be cool?"

Cool is what got us flush toilets and the computer upon which I am writing this.

"SECRETS MAN WAS NOT MEANT TO KNOW!"  Well, now I gotta.

Deadalus looking up in the sky, only to be splattered head to toe in precision guided, skillfully deployed shit

[Prelate Diogenes Shandor]

These days, we get revolutionary new science every few months. Some of it's good, some of it's bad, some of it is so wild that we can't predict what it'll actually be used for. When you see people on facebook/etc talking about any new tech, you will always see some variation of a line from Jurassic Park:

"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should."

One thing that always bothered me about that movie is that I could never figure out if that character was deliberately written as a blowhard, or if the real issue was that Michael Crichton was a blowhard. Especially troubling is the fact that the dinosaurs aren;t really an essential part of their troubles at all. The tribulations suffered by the characters in Jurassic Park differ only trivially from the real life San Francisco Zoo tiger attacks, in which dangerous animals got out and mauled zoo patrons without any mad science occurring at all

EDIT:

Similarly, the main conflicts in both Frankenstein and The Island of Doctor Moreau are more attributable to the titular scientists being complete assholes than they are to science going too far

[The Johnny]

Ehhh, I've heard, or imagined tirades linking Jurassic Park with what Weber called "instrumental rationality"...

Basicly that type of rationality NEVER questions the given objective to it.

Im really high from anesthesia right now BUT, basicly Jurassic Park is a critique of science which submits to capitalism... we want to make a for-profit zoo and attraction park, and the best way to attract tourists and visitors its thru the novelty of dinousaur genetic engineering which no other park can compete with... the drive for profit blinds us and unhibits us from "playing god" with genetics.

Also, unbridled greed for personal gains is what brought on the deaths of employees and others... this one and only underpaid and exploited IT guy that got offered tons of money for company espionage and sabotage is what caused the whole thing.

In short, there's different angles on why people attack instrumental rationality.

ETA: Btw, the "instrumental rationality" modalities of science =/= all modalities of science... i think you're reacting more in defense of the free pursuit of knowledge and investigation.

[P3nT4gR4m]

What the OP is talking about is just another brand of prohibition. Prohibition of anything has only ever served to make it worse. Prohibition sweeps timebombs under the carpet where they still tick but much more quietly.

[Cramulus]

What the OP is talking about is just another brand of prohibition. Prohibition of anything has only ever served to make it worse. Prohibition sweeps timebombs under the carpet where they still tick but much more quietly.

The nuclear nonproliferation treaty is a little more of a political barrier than a scientific one, but the treaty does forbid nations without nukes from doing nuclear research. It is a kind of prohibition, I guess, but it's good (IMO). Right now, this is enforceable because uranium must be processed in a bigass lab that's detectable (if you know what to look for). But I think that on a long enough timeline, this process will get easier, and will gradually become impossible to enforce. Already now, in 2020, the reality of enforcing this against Iran is extremely complicated. I think the NPT could last 100 years (to 2070) --- but probably not 300 years, right?

[LMNO]

I'm gonna be honest Johnny, "unhibit" is a great fuckin word.

[Frontside Back]

As with the nukes, point of limiting any tech feels like being more about giving the bullies an edge, rather than keeping everyone safe.

Gosh I sound like a fucking libertarian, someone fuck me and m opinion up.