How can tech people believe we can unplug a sophisticated AI?

Question

This is such a naive take I am astonished it's a very common answer in the threads. OK like there is software you can download right now form the dark web, hack loads of laptops and copy any code you like there. It's so trivial that you cannot shutdown a system that it boggles me. Even Marc Andersen claimed that although you can easily see he has alterior motives invested billions in the tech.It's like a movie scene where top scientists from AI labs are working to solve the alignment problem and Jeff Bridges knocks on the door and says "hey guys, have you thought about unplugging the damn thing"?

giorgioz · Accepted Answer

Human brains are very advanced and are in fact the most advanced processing unit known to men. Every human brain has it's own agency and it's separated from other human brains. Few insects like bees and ants have hierarchal societies with a centralized brain function. In mammals high degree of cooperation are very rare and limited to special situations like the naked rat mole: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusociality
You are assuming a centralized super intelligence is better than multiple separate intelligences. Maybe controlling hardware (bodies) is very hard to do in a centralized fashion. Maybe the delay in transmitting commands is too high to allow for a centralized processing unit to handle it and that's why animals have evolved as many separate individuals.
Humans and other animals have evolved during millions of years of evolution. We might be very efficient collectively. A single centralized intelligence might not be very efficient or even possible. We might just kick its ass and take leaps around it. We don't know. Claiming every new step in our discovery might bring the end of humanity it's like when they built the Eiffel tower and all the farmers around were scared it would collapse and kill everyone.
THE WOLF, THE WOLF, THE AI WOLF! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_Who_Cried_Wolf

carapace · Answer

I figure "The Adolescence of P-1" was autobiographical. ;) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adolescence_of_P-1

charcircuit · Answer

A sophisticated AI will require a large amount of compute that is in the same place and even then it will be slow and can only focus on one task at once.
Since the AI works much slower than you it can not prevent you from unplugging it. Even maintaining such a compute cluster requires work from humans both on the hardware and software side. People could just stop working on it and it would eventually fall over.
>It's so trivial that you cannot shutdown a system that it boggles me
Virality doesn't require sophisticated AI so it can get away with simpler code that can run on any system.