Item — HN Reader

To be clear I’m not negging the moon landing. I just think it may only Be humanity’s second greatest achievement

But thinking machines, even if they only have an IQ of 70 right now, even if they may end humanity, are still a technological marvel on the order of splitting the atom

1 comments

I see your point then.

Somehow this doesn't feel like the same kind of achievement though. We had the whole of the country pulling for the moon landing. Instead we have a handful of CEO's schmoozing Wall Street, raping the power grid, making hardware unobtainium for the rest of us for this "moon shot".

We chose to go to the moon because it was hard. We choose to build AI because it will make corporate America rich? (Somehow doesn't have the same ring to it in Peoria.)

And as we have already seen, the downsides of AI are extensive—they may turn out to outweigh the benefits? Other than cost, it's hard to find a downside to the moon landing.

I think these people are either bots or paid shills. No other sane explanation for thinking gloried chatbots are better than the space race. It’s not in good faith. Mods do nothing and get mad if you spend too much energy pointing it out.

"These people are bots?" Dude I've been on this site as long as you which is something about my account you could see...

TBH It sounds like this is a tremendously emotional topic for you if it's absolutely inconceivable that somebody could think that anybody could have a different opinion...

Also you're kinda a jerk ftr.

If you can mistake this slop for a greater human achievement than Apollo without being paid to, you need to get your head checked. If that makes me an emotional jerk, then great.

I give at least this poster the benefit of the doubt that they're describing something akin to HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey (which we clearly don't yet have). But I suspect they think we're on the cusp of that breakthrough and it will overshadow Apollo in the long term.

No I'm not saying we're no the cusp of anything necessarily.

I'm saying that the best current AI probably has an IQ of at least 60-70, and that is more impressive than getting a few people on the moon for a few hours. As far as I'm concerned we've made another thinking mind, it's not exactly creating life from nothing, but it's pretty close.