Recently I read an article about the robot dogs. You probably saw these robot dogs developed my Boston Dynamics right? The robotics company that Google purchased? Well I was thinking about why human beings have protector dogs and how the viciousness of these dogs is considered an asset. I watched a video from @cryptoclover where he discusses how Pitbulls are banned in certain places. I watched @craig-grant rant about artificial intelligence and what it is in his own words. These various articles and video bloggers synthesized in my brain to remind me of the fact that algorithms also have to be tamed like dogs. It also allowed me to recall a terrible idea, an almost nightmare idea that I had regarding how AI could become.
Artificial viciousness (programmably vicious AI)
The fact that viciousness is considered an asset to many human beings is what scares me. This means when AI is brought into our reality in a practical way the laws of supply and demand will of course encourage the development of progressively more vicious bots. These bots will be completely ruthless, and vicious in a way which even the most scary attack dogs aren't today. The debate today is about guns in the hands of violent psychopaths and the risk of mass shootings. The debate of the future could be about artificial viciousness, where AI is designed to be as vicious as possible in order to deter attackers.
Imagine for sake of argument that you've got this AI which protects you and your family. It's smarter than you, it's more vicious than you could ever be, it understands how to inflict pain on your enemies in ways you could never imagine, and it's programmed to protect you and your family tree. Imagine this AI evolves along with your family tree becoming more vicious, more capable, more scary, as it learns about the threats to your interests. This AI would be called defensive but how would people feel about this?
What are your thoughts? Respond by posting your thoughts below.
The phrase "artificial viciousness" like the phrase "artificial intelligence" may not be accurate semantically. I am aware of this inaccuracy and use the phrase for sensational effect. In reality there is only intelligence and there is nothing artificial, and there is machine or human intelligence. Viciousness can be augmented currently and I used the protector dog as a current example but also to show that this will scale up with technology either dogs which get enhanced cybernetically or bots which are smart but function like dogs or perhaps swarms of viciousness.