Comments on: Would You Take Orders From Machines?

By: Nathan J. Evans

Nathan J. Evans — Fri, 20 Feb 2015 06:04:37 +0000

I don’t understand the first quote, but the second is plausible. Machines would still be tools of their programmers. They would do what their programmers tell them to do, ultimately (even if they have a sufficiently advanced AI algorithm so as to virtually mimic original thought). So the world would be ruled by whoever wrote the code for the future intelligent robocops. Unless they somehow gain genuine sentient intelligence. But is such even possible? I doubt it.

Though, given the observation of terrible human leadership, the bureaucratic programmers would likely be more intolerable than the intolerable bureaucrat of today (or a robocop). Technology has already made human bureaucrats more annoyingly present, if perhaps more conveniently dealt with. Imagine herds of enforcer robots everywhere! The only saving grace is that the incompetence of the bureaucrats might show and some hacker group might take control of the robot army and take the Bureaucratic Despotism into custody.

By: David Foster

David Foster — Thu, 19 Feb 2015 22:35:37 +0000

"I’m not sure that rulership will ever ultimately be out of human control, but it seems plausible that eventually most of the functions of the state will be done by machine intelligence." Walter Miller explored this possibility in his story "Dumb Waiter," which I excerpted in my post The Reductio ad Absurdum of Bureaucratic Liberalism.

By: Exfernal

Exfernal — Wed, 18 Feb 2015 12:46:38 +0000

Soap Jackal, regarding machine intelligence, if it has less tendency to grow over time than bureaucracy, then why not?

By: Soap Jackal

Soap Jackal — Wed, 11 Feb 2015 12:04:53 +0000

I had not considered, even though its fairly simple, that our current addiction to technology would lead to intelligent machines basically governing all of us. The Slow Toaster King Hypothesis.

I’m not sure that rulership will ever ultimately be out of human control, but it seems plausible that eventually most of the functions of the state will be done by machine intelligence.