Future of Artificial Intelligence

[Jean]

A superhuman ai aligned to follow the interest of it's owner is more scary than one that would get rogue. Smart people that treat other sentient beings like shit are more the anomaly than the norm in my experience. Maybe this corealation is completly causality free, but i am quite faithfull that an ai order of magnitude smarter will also be order of magnitude nicer. All the smart people i know help eartworms cross the street.
The only reason i see why it could choose to anhilate us is if we carry some virus that is a nuisances to it.

[Henry]

The dataset that has gone into TSLA FSD is estimated to be between 1-3 billion driven miles. That's not a copy and paste situation. Apple got in and out of EV's quicker than it takes to send a text on their IPHONe. It's a heavy lift.

As far as brand damage, I think you are way way way overestimating if there was really was brand damage in the first place, and how long these things last. Chipotle had a huge E-coli issue in 2015. People literally going home and pissing out of their assholes. The stock reached all time highs after the outbreak. I think the extent that one thinks of the brand damage is directly correlated to how they feel about Elon Musk in the first place.

Tesla is not a car company. It's an AI company that has a car product. And as I stated, TSLA Y series remains the best selling car in the world so losing "half their customer base" is just not factually correct. I mean really, at least try to be objective on that account. People must find it comfortable enough.

Personally, we are not at the need to buy a new car point, and at our age, we are hoping we don't need to go through it again. But if we do, it will most likely be a TSLA.

[Henry]

The only reason i see why it could choose to anhilate us is if we carry some virus that is a nuisances to it.

Not sure if choose is the right word. It's capability. And when capability has multiple applications with a wide discrepancy of potential outcomes, like splitting an atom for instance, what/who is going to keep AI from doing whatever it's capable of doing? I think people are going to see that real quick. That's why the idea of the government stepping in and telling Jensen Huang to stop this shit is not out of the question.

[Jean]

We all have a lot of capabilities that we don't use, even when we coukd get away with it. Why would an ai be different? I know, we can ask why it would be the same, but since neural network are grocely modeled on brains, i think it's more probable that it will be similar.
@jacob
I had the same questionning when gpt3 arrived. Are most humans just some llm attached to a monkey?

[Henry]

We all have a lot of capabilities that we don't use, even when we coukd get away with it. Why would an ai be different?

Because it doesn't give a shit?

[daylen]

Perhaps what has me so uncertain about how this will all go in the long run is that intelligence doesn't necessarily imply rationality(*) combined with instrumental and/or substrate needs convergence. If the super intelligence has a goal that doesn't involve squishy biological systems, then we could be seen as taking up finite resources/space. However, I also acknowledge that humans can care about the greater ecology and preserving carbon complexity seems like a worthy long-term goal for an ai to learn more about itself via study and reflection. Though, to put a number on where the cards could land in 10.. 100.. 1000 years is far beyond my capacity to imagine. The number of ways we could loose control in a way that quickly or slowly leads to our eventual population crash is disturbing. As much as I would like to believe that love will overcome fear in the long run, I just don't know what set of arguments could sway me into thinking that is the most likely scenario.

(*) I've heard/read there are studies that establish like a 0.3 correlation or something, so far from guaranteed that smart people will properly proportion their concerns in pursuit of complicated goals (i.e. best ratio however that is measured in context).

[Scott 2]

I do think if Elon distanced himself, reputation could be recovered. In my world, women at yoga class are soliciting others to protest. It's got nothing to do with the cars. They might have bought one 3 years ago. Though a co-worker who went full Cybertruck was openly mocked by the entire company. That product didn't help.

Musk burned the Tony Stark persona. Expensive, when people don't truly understand the technology. They buy on faith.

The data is an advantage. I see the estimate of 6 billion miles to gain regulatory approval. There's assumptions around data quality and algorithmic approach embedded in that claim. I was reading a book called the Alignment Problem last week. It discusses various breakthroughs in machine learning. Dramatic reduction in data requirements can unfold, seemingly overnight.

I'm not buying puts against Tesla. I think it's an uncertain game. If the legislative gambit works, and he succeeds in regulatory capture, it could be game over. Tesla tech might be licensed by every car manufacturer selling in America. That would be a deep competitive moat.


The software to be copied, is installed on 5 million cars. A competitor might establish a reference data set, play it against the Tesla AI, and log the results. Then compare / contrast with their own model. Use it as a proxy for their own training.

[Jean]

@daylen
I dont know either, but that's the only outcome where our choices matter, so i rather just assume this outcome, and then make choices about other concerns.

[Henry]

I do think if Elon distanced himself, reputation could be recovered.

That's the exact opposite of what the shareholders and board clamored for and that's why Elon is back sleeping in the server room (it's supposedly warmer). The believers don't care what the non-believers think. If you want to base your investment theses on the sentiment of a couple of women in yoga pants, that's your perogrative. I think we have exhausted the topic. I'm plowing money in. You're not. Time will tell.

[7Wannabe5]

I think that something that might come into play here is the surprising-to-me fact that the top 10% of households in the U.S. are now responsible for 50% of consumption. What this means is that the market is effectively becoming a smaller loop with tighter feedback in which there are fewer consumers who are not also owners or potential owners. IOW, the situation is perhaps becoming more like a 5th grade classroom selling each other their art work. So, reputation may be relatively more important. Dunno.

[Henry]

more like a 5th grade classroom selling each other their art work. So, reputation may be relatively more important. Dunno.

"Vinny Van Gogh has the cooties so I'm buying Tommy Kinkade's." Seems like you are onto something.

And to your demographic point, my niece is graduating high school. She does not possess a driver's license and has never driven a car. She has been shuttled around by parents, buses and Uber drivers her whole life. Car ownership is not in her Overton window. I can't see her dedicating herself to driving a car or any task for that matter that would require her putting down her cell phone for an hour commute. And the fact is, I don't want her to, other drivers don't want her to and the insurance companies don't want her to. To choose her and an army of her likeness driving down the highway over a fleet of autonomous vehicles is insanity.

[Scott 2]

FWIW, since I'm holding VTI - a little over 1% of my US equities position is allocated to Tesla. The yoga demographic used to bring their new Tesla to show off at class. Or brag about dating a guy who worked there. There was a mystique. The women buying $108 stretchy pants, are the women dropping $50k on electric cars.

I agree both Tesla and Musk have played a heavy role in shaping AI, to date. My interest lies in future technological impact, rather than share price. I used to regularly see progress articles on Tesla self driving, stories on how their battery technology was going to change the world, what a visionary Musk is, etc. Now when Tesla shows up my feed, it's to mock product quality or clown on Musk.

I still gave Grok a try. It didn't stand out over chat GPT in any way. Absent an ideological preference for xAI, I couldn't see a why for choosing the product. My one friend who uses it, is in China. His access to chat GPT is blocked. But not Grok for some reason.

Another friend sent me a short video of their self driving car experience, a few months ago. It wasn't Tesla. They were in Arizona for a conference. Everyone was excited about trying Level 4 self-driving - Waymo Jaguars. Apparently Baidu also has Level 4 production vehicles as well. Both are geo-fenced, with FSD miles in the millions instead of billions. But they look technologically compelling.

I recognize this may all be irrelevant to share price.

[Jean]

What self driving car could be good at, is capture the profit of public transport,while keeping the cost to be paid by the public.
But at least, if there is no corruption, it would be easy to charge every vehicle by the mile*pound to cover infrastructure cost.

[Henry]

What self driving car could be good at, is capture the profit of public transport,while keeping the cost to be paid by the public.
But at least, if there is no corruption, it would be easy to charge every vehicle by the mile*pound to cover infrastructure cost.

What exactly is the infrastructure change that needs to be paid for? The whole endeavor is for Robotaxis to use the existing infrastructure in a much more economical manner both financially and energy wise. They are cheaper, more efficient, less hazardous to the environment as well as you and me versions of current private and public transportation. They will drive the same the roads as drunk drivers, angry bus drivers, road raging psychopaths, meth addled truck drivers, parents fighting with their children distracted drivers, 18 year old screen addicted driving with their knees idiots and cataract riddled elderly people do.

[Jean]

Individual cars, autonomous or not, electric or not, are much less space and ressources efficient thant trams, bikes, trains, trolley, etc... Those space and ressources are mostly in the form of roads, cleanliness, cars, fuel, driving.
Roads and cleanliness are usually paid by tge public, but are a huge part of the cost of having vehicles drive around. I think it is only fair to have those cost payed by whoever profits from the driving, and keep thepublic ressources for the most efficient transport modes.
Road maintenance cost and pollution are quite proportional to mass*distance*speed^x. Autonomous car would allow to measure that easily, and make whoever is responsible pay for it.

Edit: i think x is 4 but i'm not sure. I don't think it matters to my point.

But if individuals vehicle keep being subsidized like they are, i agree that whoever own a large fleet of them might make a lot of money.

[Henry]

I think it is only fair to have those cost payed by whoever profits from the driving, and keep thepublic ressources for the most efficient transport modes.
Road maintenance cost and pollution are quite proportional to mass*distance*speed^x. Autonomous car would allow to measure that easily, and make whoever is responsible pay for it.

This is a broader discussion concerning the relationship between the public and private sectors that will cascade into a political discussion. For the purposes of this thread, I'm only concerned with the technological advancements that will allow humankind to watch porn in the backseat of their robotaxi on their commute home so I don't have to be concerned that some dude with one hand on the wheel and one hand on his dick will jump over the median and wipe my ass off the planet before I get to enjoy my TSLA profits.

[chenda]

That's a beautiful thought Henry.

Here's a point - why live in the real world when you could just live in virtual reality all the time?

[Henry]

It's ontologically impossible and at the end of the day, I'm not sure it's where people ultimately want to live. People like gaming but I think it's a vacation to come back from more than a portal to be lost in. Social media speaks to what people like. Something in between, one foot in, one foot out, toggling between two worlds, enjoying both sides of the reality coin until swiping right causes a big ole crash. Now transportation will provide the same type of experience. People can travel through reality in a virtual type of way. Between home and the office they can get their pod off. Gaming was the child of NVDA, TSLA is the grandchild. I'll probably be dead before the interplanetary thing becomes a reality, but hopefully I'll see everything that has wheels drive itself before mine come off.

[7Wannabe5]

Because the real world is the one that can kill you? A corollary to all this autonomous vehicle and robot training is that there will be very little real world space that is not under surveillance. Will these intelligent machines be compelled to helicopter-parent humans? Will the car in which you are riding decide to make a defensive maneuver most likely to prevent the injury of humans in another car in trolley-problem like fashion? Will your robot chef refuse to serve red meat when opposed to its moral structure or your latest health scan? There's really no end to how weird this shit could get.

[Henry]

There's really no end to how weird this shit could get.

Yes. That's why the pull the plug option on the never ending increase of compute will always be a bullet point on the white sheet. It could very well play itself out in a domestic vs foreign terrorist type of debate. Spoiled rotten US old ladies locking themselves in their bathrooms because their home health bot is insisting they do more leg lifts but the NSA fearing China's old ladies are developing stronger calf muscles at such a rate that the divide will become impossible to overcome and the track and field at events at the Summer Senior Olympics will become a mere demonstration of communist AI dominance.