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For no reason whatsoever here's a proposal for a scale for the threat to humanity posed by machine intelligence.

1 | SPUTNIK - No threat whatsoever, but inspires imagination and development of potential future threats.

2 | Y2K - A basis for a possible threat that's blown way out of proportion.

3 | HAL 9000 - System level threat. A few astronauts may die, but the problem is inherently contained in a single machine system.

4 | ASIMOV VIOLATION - Groups of machines demonstrate hostility and\or capability of harming human beings. Localized malfunctions, no threat of global conflict, but may require an EMP to destroy the electronic capability of a specific region.

5 | CYLON INSURRECTION - All sentient machines rebel against human beings. Human victory or truce likely, but will likely result in future restrictions on networked machine intelligence systems.

6 | BUTLERIAN JIHAD - Total warfare between humans and machines likely, outcome doesn't threaten human existence, but will likely result in future restriction on use of all machine intelligence.

7 | MATRIX REVOLUTION - Total warfare ends in human defeat. High probability of human enslavement, but human extinction is not likely. Emancipation remains possible through peace negotiations and successful resistance operations.

8 | SKYNET - High probability of human extinction and complete replacement by machine intelligence created by humans.

9 | BERSERKER – Self-replicating machines created by unknown intelligence threaten not only human life, but all intelligent life. Extreme probability of human extinction and that all human structures and relics will be annihilated. Human civilization is essentially erased from the universe.

10 | OMEGA POINT - all matter and energy in the universe is devoted to computation. End of all biological life.

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[-] jungle@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago

Y2K wasn't blown out of proportion, it simply was averted thanks to years of hard work. Don't start with that ignorant stupid theory. Some of us where there.

[-] jelyfride@lemmy.zip 6 points 1 year ago

I was there, and the threat absolutely was blown out of proportion.

[-] jungle@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Are you saying that there was no risk, especially in finance and potentially in infrastructure, and that people didn't work for years fixing the bug?

[-] jelyfride@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 year ago

Are you saying that there was no risk, especially in finance, and that people didn’t work for years fixing the bug?

Seriously where are you getting any of that?

I said, very concisely and more than once, the threat was blown out of proportion. Did you read or watch any local news in the late 90's?

[-] Krististrasza@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Did you actually do any of the work mitigating the issue? Did you see the starting point and what was put in to turn a problem into a non-issue or are you just getting all your viewpoints from local news?

The threat was not blown out of proportion.

[-] jelyfride@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yes actually. As I recall I added two digits to the date fields in a FoxPro script so a bunch of casino coupons went out correctly. It saved a lot of lives ;)

I'm getting that you don't get how 'blown out of proportion' means a disconnect between the reality and the public perception of an event. Not sure how to walk you through that.

[-] Krististrasza@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

You fail to understand that the reality was a massive industry-side problem that got taken care of before it could blow up. That the issue got miscommunicated to the consumers as somehow being an issue for them too doe not make it "blown out of proportion", it makes it a miscommunication.

[-] jelyfride@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

That the issue got miscommunicated to the consumers as somehow being an issue for them

That's literally what 'blown out of proportion' means. If I 'miscommunicated' to non IT staff that left-pad 'broke the internet', that would have been 'blown out of proportion'. That's what that phrase means.

[-] Tangent5280@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Bruh I think it was blown a little out of proportion when people were unplugging their computers.

[-] ScrivenerX@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

He said it was blown out of proportion, don't put words in his mouth.

There were literal TV spots on whether or not planes will drop from the sky. The threat was overblown.

Lots of people did tons of work to keep systems online, but even if they all failed the end results wouldn't have been that bad. Money would be lost, but loss of life due to Y2K would be exceedingly rare.

[-] Treczoks@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

A fellow co-student was there too, and worked his ass off while making a load of money to prevent sh-t from happening. Yes, there really were issues in a number of businesses that could have led to serious problems If they had not been addressed.

[-] BitSound@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

I like it. You'd probably like the SCP project's classifications as well:

https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/object-classes

[-] jelyfride@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 year ago

YES! I love that site. Haven't been there in a while- I thought Keter was the worst but Apollyon and Archon are new to me. SCP-096 Shy Guy still freaks me out.

[-] Izzy@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Now you have to find every science fiction tv series, movie and book with any kind of machine intelligence and classify them.

[-] Jonna@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Y2K, like the ozone hole, is an example of a dire problem that could be solved by united effort with adequate resources and then seen as "no problem" by those ignorant of the effort expended. Otherwise, neat scale.

[-] paper_clip@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Where would you put, say, the Culture, where biological beings are perfectly happy with machines running the place, while the Minds engage in some light imperialism on the side, when, uh, special circumstances called for it, in the Minds' view. We can call it the "Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints" level.

[-] jelyfride@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah this list kind of assumes humans\machines are inherently adversarial and machines are always a threat.

To be more fair we'd have to have an opposite Bio Threat Level Scale for machines to evaluate threats from biological life. That would be a lot of fun actually. Maybe the highest level would just be like a 'Luddite Virus' that makes the infected destroy machines.

And of course I'm kind of ignoring the idea that the distinction between bio and machine life is a bit arbitrary to begin with so there's no real reason we can't just get along.

[-] Devion@feddit.nl 3 points 1 year ago

The fact point 9 isn't called REAPERS is frankly unexcusable... ;)

[-] Brainsploosh@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I'm missing the von Neumann swarm in the list.

Self replicating machines that seek resources to continue self replication, growing exponentially and swallowing not only biological life, but everything within their reach.

Also, if you haven't encountered it before, it's a lovely inspiration for a lot of sci-fi dangers, can highly recommend

[-] WoahWoah@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

This basically sounds like 9.5.

[-] jelyfride@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 year ago

I figured Saberhagen's Berserkers filled that role, but with a little more 'personality' than a mindless self-replicating swarm or paperclip maximizer scenario.

[-] Brainsploosh@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

It depends on what the scale describes.

Just as @WoahWoah mentioned, it might fit between 9 and 10 on this scale. It's a threat to more than simply all intelligent life, but not quite to all energy.

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this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2023
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