mccJul 23, 2024
Holy fuck I just got literally Plato's Cave'd by ReCaptcha
Show threadstandevJul 24, 2024
@mcc @clive I hope you clicked it… I want to train future robots to try to climb those stairs
Show threadBrazMogu (i.e. Bruno Guedes)Jul 24, 2024
@standev @mcc @clive "trap the AI in Plato's Cave" sounds like an actually reasonable failsafe plan for the sort of theoretical AI ethics issues tech enthusiasts live to waffle about and pretend they're actually dilemmas
Show threadstandevJul 24, 2024
@brazmogu @mcc @clive I fully agree, but I’m also concerned about more mundane cyberpunk dystopian outcomes. If we can do more things to enable people to trap robotaxis in paint circles, we should.
Show threadGlyphJul 24, 2024
@standev @brazmogu @mcc @clive the real move isn’t really about trapping the AIs though, it is to trap the xrisk clowns inside the “trap the AIs inside plato’s cave” cave
Show threadmcc
@glyph @standev @brazmogu @clive So a thought I toy with occasionally is, since I believe capitalism is the real paperclip-optimizing doom AI, we could have neutralized humanity's destructive impulse toward wealth-gathering by keeping the cryptocurrency ecosystem alive once we entered full communism. Let acquisition-minded people trade fake tokens to buy other fake tokens. Unfortunately, the success of the Proof of Work meme means cryptocurrency cannot be coexisted with by any civilization.
Jul 24, 2024 at 4:36pmWeb
Show threadmccJul 24, 2024
@glyph @standev @brazmogu @clive So in order to trap the capitalists in a plato's cave, we'd need to engage in a two-step process: First replace BitCoin with a fake algorithm that doesn't do the hashing, and convince miners to move the hashing to "quantum-based" miners that supposedly are 10x faster but actually just contain a single resistor, and THEN, once BitCoin is neutralized, get them into collecting BitCoin and NFTs and discontinue all commerce for "real" goods and services.
Show threadMimirJul 24, 2024
@mcc i think proof of stake is the ideal implementation tbh. they'll love it because it's literally hardcoded "the rich get richer"
Show threadBrazMogu (i.e. Bruno Guedes)Jul 24, 2024
@mcc @glyph @standev @clive I think we might be able to replace the algorithm with a randomizer that returns "true" 1 out of 100 times and get them extra busy trying to reverse engineer the actual hashing problem like pidgeons in a Skinner Box
Show threadmccJul 24, 2024
@brazmogu @glyph @standev @clive okay so getting off topic here but, that is effectively how bitcoin works already. since sha256 is considered unbreakable in the near future, the hashes are effectively a cryptographically secure random number. what the "miners" are doing in practice is repeatedly rolling the random-number-generator die millions of times until it rolls up 1.
Show threadBrazMogu (i.e. Bruno Guedes)Jul 24, 2024
@mcc @glyph @standev @clive ...this explains a lot, actually
Show threadmccJul 24, 2024
@brazmogu @glyph @standev @clive And the reason bitcoin is a global warming problem is it turns out when you generate 5.7 * 10²⁰ random numbers per second, it uses a lot of energy :(
Show threadBrazMogu (i.e. Bruno Guedes)Jul 24, 2024
@mcc @glyph @standev @clive I mean, I knew it was a rather brute force process of trying to find a solution to a problem by trial and error, but I didn't know the force was THAT brute
Show threadClive ThompsonJul 24, 2024

@brazmogu @mcc @glyph @standev

you sold me at the single resistor

genius

Show threadMister DaveJul 24, 2024
@mcc this one, marked 10000% https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/ohmite/HS100%25201K5%2520J/5306234