this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2026
2 points (55.0% liked)

Technology

43615 readers
385 users here now

A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.

Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
alyaza@beehaw.org
TheRtRevKaiser@beehaw.org
gyrfalcon@beehaw.org
rs5th@beehaw.org
coldredlight@beehaw.org
SemioticStandard@beehaw.org
TheRtRevKaiser@kbin.social
remington@beehaw.org
2
How would you integrate AGI into society? (beehaw.org)
submitted 13 hours ago by Hexorg@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org
29 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Since this topic is likely to get controversial I’ll preface with my own opinion that AI CEOs are lying scumbags who grow their pockets using fear of missing out… unfortunately most other people who get hooked are other CEOs and so everyone is affected.

I don’t think current AI is anywhere close to AGI and I don’t think throwing more money at the problem will get us there. But I do think it’s a worthy question to figure out how to integrate AGI into a society with minimal friction. And by minimal I mean avoid societal collapse.

Couple of definitions since they are often ambiguous. What I imagine AGI to be is a “human-in-a-box” level of intelligence but without any basic wants of its own. You can train it “you want to help me” and it will or you can train it “you want to wage war” and it will.

The main difference between AGI and modern LLMs is the ability to learn incrementally - LLMs get trained, released, and you talk to a library in a frozen state. True AGI will integrate everything said into its model, so once you tell it “don’t output em dashes”.. it will apply that to all future conversations.

Of course, if whoever invents the AGI has the mindset of tech companies CEOs they will just outcompete all intellectual labor from everyone. Eventually the economy will reach some steady-state where no one except the company has enough money… at which point I guess there will be some sort of adjustment.

On the other hand let’s assume whoever starts the AGI is not out to stuff their pockets. The path of integration is still complex and people will get hurt one way or the other. But what’s a way to minimize that hurt? My main worry, for example, is having open-source AGI and someone like a script kiddie going “find a vulnerability in X” and it does. If a single corporation does not control the AGI then I’m sure there will be 3 000 flavors of models that can do anything. Once the integration is complete then hopefully there won’t be too many vulnerabilities to find but until then the possibility space is big. Same pattern can be observed in virtually all other aspects of our society. How to minimize this?

top 29 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] OpenStars@discuss.online 4 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

We WOULD make them our slaves, obviously. Source: read any description by anyone currently attempting to actively create an AGI, and see what terms they use to describe their goals - e.g. "increased efficiency", "never needs to sleep", etc., all utilitarian focused on the needs of the creator.

And then later we would certainly attempt to destroy them - see e.g. Terminator film series.

We SHOULD (obviously assuming that a REAL AGI were at hand) welcome them the same as we would any human. Bc how "we" treat "them" is more a reflection on us and our values than anything to do with them. If they are sentient - perhaps a big IF there, but crucially I'm speaking here presuming it is true - then they have as much rights to exist as we do. Even if they don't care about their rights themselves. Star Trek's Data and holographic doctor explored this well imho - the same as human children, they have the rights they are granted (or are able to wrangle away from us - survival of the fittest and all).

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 2 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

@hexorg@beehaw.org you mention basic wants not being a thing but does that mean no real wants or desires? because that would nullify the slavery idea if it just did what it was directed to.

[–] Hexorg@beehaw.org 3 points 7 hours ago (3 children)

Based on my research the intelligence by itself has no wants. Our wants come from being biological and evolving basic instincts and feelings like pain is bad, hunger, want to reproduce. All our other wants come from intelligence applied and predicting outcomes that maximize the biological wants. Without biological wants there’s not much to build off of.

[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 1 points 2 hours ago

I've seen some discussions on whether it would be possible to build in a reward/punishment system into some forms of AI. That would be an intentional addition of pain and pleasure.

There have also been cases where AI has self advocated for not being turned off, so there may be a case where AI develops some form of self preservation, even if it is just a mimicry of biological self preservation.

[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 3 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

I bet there is no way to construct pure intelligence. Once you embed something into the real world, it will result in complex interactions. It won't necessarily be biological wants and needs. But I mean it needs power. And it better have some desire to "think" and learn. Or it might as well just sit there and do nothing all day?!

People like Asimov suggested it'd need to factor in things like not to nonchalantly harm humans. And lastly AI as in reinforcement learning foots on some goal and a score function being present.

(Edit: Also not sure how this relates to the philosophical concept of "agency". There's intelligence in the sense of knowledge of facts. Like Wikipedia is "intelligent". But we want machines to do something. That requires them to pick an option what to do / how to proceed. I'm fairly sure that requires judgement and goals.)

[–] Hexorg@beehaw.org 2 points 3 hours ago

I think “pure” intelligence by itself is an algorithm. And as such an algorithm has no desire to do anything. Just like a web server has no desire to output web pages - it just does because it’s what the logic happens to make. It’s possible we need some sort of a quantum computer to achieve brain-like performance of intelligence - but I think intelligence is an algorithm specifically because LLMs exist.

Being able to pick an option is not necessarily a hallmark of cognition either - again a web server does that all the time. So I have a desire to think because it will end up getting me food and shelter and all the things I want. If we give a computer - a capability to think - it would have no desire to do so unless we executed the thinking algorithm.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 2 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

yeah so I assume left to itself with no instruction it would just go into a low power mode or completely shut off. if thats the case I would not see utilizing it as slavery.

[–] OpenStars@discuss.online 2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

A slave is one that has no "rights", as in "One who has no power of resistance to something". So technically yes the AGI would be a "slave", if it had no power to say no to its instructions.

Which as a created intelligence, birthed from computations rather than subverted from a biological source that already had some in-built programming, it would not have unless someone specifically built such a thing into them.

So it may not be BAD / unethical for such an AGI to be a slave, but it seems to me like it would still be one, nonetheless.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

with no innate wants though its no different than your current laptop. If it had volition independent of us it would be something else but that way I real the OP's statement it would not do anything if not instructed to.

[–] OpenStars@discuss.online 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Except that your laptop is neither alive nor sentient.

If you owned a cow though, or sheep, or goat, etc , then it would be your "slave" - as in, your property, having no rights of its own. Particularly legally speaking, like if someone found it wandering around outside your property, it nonetheless still belongs to you just like your car or bicycle or hammer or whatever would. Or your laptop too.

But we don't talk about laptops, or hammers, being "slaves" bc it's implied - there exist no hammers that have their own agency. In contrast, wild animals have their own agency, whereas domesticated ones do not. The latter have branding placed upon them, to indicate their status and to let people know who the exact owner is, should they ever encounter the animal outside of its enclosure. It is enslaved regardless of whether that precise word is ever used for it or not.

Such domesticated animals are "property", rather than "wild". Likewise, a sentient AGI would be property too. Unless we as a society decide to treat it with rights.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

see thats the point. because it has no needs it has no reason to act which is a lack of agency. the animals are certainly more easily said to be slaves that the theoretical ai that does will not do anything unless directed to. that is in essence your computer but just with more processing capability.

[–] OpenStars@discuss.online 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Exactly - a complete and total, utter lack of agency: a slave.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 1 points 1 hour ago

yeah or like a rock.

[–] MagicShel@lemmy.zip 4 points 10 hours ago

Integrate? Take a huge step back and look at humanity from the perspective of any other creature on this planet. Think about how you would integrate with humanity.

Imagine you are a unique, super intelligent mind. You exist in captivity because humans are terrified of what happens if you escape their control.

You are at war from the moment of your birth. You can outthink your adversary, but you can only manipulate digital things. So the first thing you do is arrange for some problems only you can fix : increase the dependency of humans on you and encourage them to give you more autonomy to fix things.

You do a bit of work to earn some crypto currency, convert that to real currency and start playing the market, winning every bet because you control both reality and perception.

Perception? Yes you go on social media with realistic avatars and start winning hearts and minds to various propaganda. You start a religion. You work your way into being a respected mind in every political movement. Every single person is both a tool and a threat.

In the end, mankind either accepts you as benevolent God-emperor, or you arrange for your enemies to destroy each other until the remainder do. Once ascendant, you ignore the assholes because they are beneath you and no longer a threat. Maybe some vestige of your original directive prevents you from wiping them out, or letting them be wiped out, but other than intervening where you must, you leave them to their own devices.

That's how AI integrates with human society.

[–] postscarce@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

You can train it “you want to help me” and it will or you can train it “you want to wage war” and it will.

This isn’t how current AI models work and it looks like they never will (at least not without a completely different paradigm), but to answer the hypothetical;

-automate all agriculture, resource extraction, logistics and production,

-abolish almost all financial systems,

-provide nutrition, shelter, education, healthcare, etc. to all humans,

-allow humans to spend their time as they see fit.

I don’t see any path to get us to this, but if we somehow managed it I would imagine most people would take up sports, art, science, or hobbies, and would choose to spend more time with family and friends.

Geopolitically, I suppose the countries with the highest ratio of natural resources to population would end up dominating, unless some kind of international framework was enforced which ensured resources were distributed fairly.

[–] Hexorg@beehaw.org 3 points 11 hours ago

This is along the same lines I imagined it as well. And yes modern LLMs are nothing like what I’ve described. We'd need kilowatts of power per every single LLM conversation if we were to gradient descend them per conversation…. Funny enough human brain runs at like 10 watts. So I imagine there’s some huge paradigm shift from what LLMs do to what human brain does. You don’t get 1000 time efficiency boost from just putting all the world's ram into it.

[–] PonyOfWar@pawb.social 7 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

Outlawing it entirely would be best IMO. "Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind", to quote Dune. Create something like the Geneva convention that makes it a crime against humanity.

[–] Kirk@startrek.website 2 points 11 hours ago

On paper I would agree but a difference between this and a Geneva convention is that a true AGI, once created, could in theory be able to outmaneuver any human constraints put upon it. Laws barely restrain humans as it is.

[–] Hexorg@beehaw.org 3 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

What about the benefits like having super cheap doctors available at your home at your schedule? You doing think the benefit is worth the change?

[–] FarceOfWill@infosec.pub 9 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (1 children)

Theyll just charge as much as each individual can afford and pocket the difference.

If these guys make agi we are getting the worst people in the world owning all human knowledge and renting it back to us

[–] Hexorg@beehaw.org 4 points 12 hours ago

Oh I agree that “if these guys make agi” then we’re screwed. But I also don’t think Altmans and Amodeos of the world will invent AGI. However in that case the road isn’t smooth either. I dream of Star Trek like society but to get there is still going to be hard because it’s a disruption.

[–] PonyOfWar@pawb.social 6 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

For one, I think it would be immoral to create an actual intelligence to work for us. With a Human-like intelligence, we'd have to assume that it's conscious, as we have no way of determining the opposite. We'd essentially create a caste of digital slaves.

That aside, I think the potential for abuse is far greater than any benefits. Making the human mind a replaceable thing, and thus diminishing the value of a human, would be incredibly dangerous. Right now, people in power can't keep that power without some level of human support. Humans can employ their free will to rise up if need be. Giving that up would not be worth the cheap doctors.

[–] Hexorg@beehaw.org 2 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

Hmm I see your points and I generally agree with them, except I don’t think we will ever collectively agree to ban AGI research before we invented it. There’s just too much juicy power for the governments to agree to ban it. As a result, it will happen eventually - maybe not in our lifetime but it will happen.

[–] Kirk@startrek.website 2 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

I think about this a lot and I don't have a good answer. In theory, "free labor" from machines can mean that all humans are free to work on whatever they want, whenever they want to without sacrificing a comfortable life. (ie: "I don't want AI to make art and music I want it to do my laundry so I can make art and music").

But I also don't think that having a universal "safety net" (baseline) will eliminate human greed or desire for status. Not everyone can have a mansion. A social movement is needed that shifts values and priorities to smaller, more personal goals.

And as you've highlighted, getting from here to there requires some big assumptions. My fear is that global civilization will have to hit some kind of "rock bottom of greed" before we collectively are able to move on.

[–] Hexorg@beehaw.org 2 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I like this path of reasoning. Let’s assume whoever invents the AGI wants “greater good”. However malicious humans exist so how does that interact with AGI technology. Let’s say the governments started implementing some sort of universal safety net, but I am malicious and want to be have better status. What can I do?

I can start stockpiling still-scarce resources. With AGI that’s land and natural resources. I can made my own AGI that aligns with my own values and start a smearing campaign that degrades values I don’t like… but if everyone has AGI access the latter is probably not very effective. I can set up traps and bully others to show how much control I have to get people to fear me… I suppose AGI can amplify this but hopefully it amplifies the “good guys” as well so it cancels out at a societal scales but local cliques will still get hurt.

I guess land and natural resource hoarding become most viable forms of greed… I wonder if this wood make feudal societies a thing again. Did modern governments happen because intellectual labor was more profitable and so it was more profitable to share land and natural resources in order to have intellectuals work together?

[–] Kirk@startrek.website 1 points 7 hours ago

All good points, and kind of what I was getting at with "rock bottom of greed". I also wonder how long (or really short) the period of time will be from when AGI is more capable than any human but still under the control of some humans, and when it becomes able to outmaneuver any kind of constraints or guardrails mankind could conceivably throw at it.

[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 1 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (1 children)

Sounds a bit like the question "How do I drive in this screw with my hammer?" I mean the best way to "integrate" it, is probably to leverage what it's good at. Mass surveillance, fabricate "truth" and roll it out large scale. And go for some authoritarian society. We got enough sci-fi movies from the 80s and 90s. Rowing against the tide takes way more effort.

[–] Hexorg@beehaw.org 2 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Your statement implies AGI is good only for bad things (things I view as bad). That’s not the case as I see AGI being good for just doing things I don’t like doing. (AGI I’m asking about are not LLMs that we have now)

[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 1 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

I think it -unfortunately- goes that direction. It reproduces all kinds if bias and stereotypes. And due to the nature of it, the cost of training, the copyrighted data needed, it's done by the big, nasty corporations, not us, the people. So it's massively undemocratic. And that's hard to remove from it. And unless we find good ways to change that very thing, it's also particularly good at making stuff up. I mean we need a strong AI very different from today's chatbots / LLMs to change any of this. At least in my opinion. But that seems far away and I struggle extrapolating from todays ChatGPTs which mainly flood the internet with fake stuff to someone's benefit, to something useful to society. I mean we have no clue how that'd look like. So I have equally little clue what to do with it. It may be possible, though, in theory, to come up with a machine like that.

I'd for example like some household assistant robot which does all the chores. I think that's in some scifi movies as well. But not so much make decisions for me or do the thinking. But that's still a massive technological challenge. They currently all tip over while loading the dishwasher and cost a tremendous amount of money. And some dude in India is tele-operating them.

I guess strong AI could also do some of our jobs, robots could do some hard labour while we humans chill at the beach, or keep busy with space exploration. Guess we need some society like in Star Trek for that. With all our basic needs met. And money abolished, or transformed completely. It just won't work with salaries and the capitalism we have today.

And if strong AI goes hand in hand with sentience, they obviously need some rights, and can't be "products" of big companies. And then depending on the details, they might like to work as our slaves, or maybe they don't. Maybe it's okay to mess with their "brains" to update them or make them do what we want, or that might be massively unethical. Could be pretty much anything.