Recently, Liu Cixin revealed during the live broadcast that she really didn't have time, so she wrote one or two speeches on ChatGPT when she participated in the science fiction conference. Liu Cixin said that ChatGPT is also quite good. Previously, Liu Cixin delivered a speech entitled "Sustainable Future in Science Fiction Literature", interpreting a completely different human future from the perspective of science fiction. What is a sci-fi perspective? Looking back at this planet that is smaller than dust but carries everything related to us from 6 billion kilometers above the earth, is a science fiction perspective. After the speech, Liu Cixin talked about the possible impact of artificial intelligence represented by ChatGPT on people. In 2015, Liu Cixin quoted Hawking in an interview, and Hawking predicted that "artificial intelligence is more dangerous than nuclear bombs, and humans will soon be controlled by artificial intelligence", which he thought was a bit alarmist.
Now, he thinks it's time to be alert to the future.
Focus
1. AI will replace highly intelligent occupations first, contrary to our predictions. 2. Artificial intelligence can iterate on itself to a more intelligent version, but our computing power limits its development. 3. Artificial intelligence may trap humans in comfort traps. Q: Now that ChatGPT has been born and is hotly discussed, what impact do you think the development of artificial intelligence will have on the fate of mankind? Is it possible for self-iterating artificial intelligence to replace or eliminate humans? Liu Cixin: I think this [the impact of artificial intelligence] should be viewed from the perspective of this reality or the near future and the relatively distant future. From our near-future or even from our reality, I believe you have seen the impact of artificial intelligence on our social world, and it has now produced a clear trend: [artificial intelligence] may be replacing us in doing a lot of work. This should be said to be a positive trend, which can improve our quality of life, enhance human happiness, and make our lives more comfortable with the blessing of technology. But on the other hand, we cannot fail to face up to the impact of the development of artificial intelligence on human society. First, the most obvious point is that AI is likely to replace quite a bit of "human work," and this trend is the opposite of what we previously predicted.
In the past, we predicted that artificial intelligence would first replace jobs such as simple labor and repetitive work, but now it seems that on the contrary, artificial intelligence may first replace jobs that require high intelligence and high education, such as doctors, teachers, stockbrokers, etc. These jobs may be replaced first. This may also include us writers who may be replaced first. Therefore, artificial intelligence has a far-reaching impact on the development of the entire human world. If we go a little higher, AI could have a significant impact on quite a bit of the more basic stuff in our world. For example, it may have a significant impact on culture and art, literature, creativity in this person, understanding of the world, etc., and may even redefine these things. When this artificial intelligence has now begun to intervene in our scientific research, in our understanding of the laws of the whole world, the laws of nature, and in the understanding of the laws of human development, it may have a far-reaching impact. When artificial intelligence defeated many excellent Go players in the field of Go, one of the best Go players in our country said a sentence that impressed me deeply. He said that China's Go is vast and profound, with a history of two or three thousand years, accumulating profound theories and experiences, and even Go itself has become a culture with a deep Zen meaning, but overnight, we found that everything about it was wrong. This statement is indeed very shocking, whether this thing will happen in other fields we do not know, if it happens widely, then the deepest impact of artificial intelligence on human culture and civilization we cannot ignore. Let me answer your second question, that is, whether artificial intelligence will eliminate humans, which should also be answered on two levels.
The first level is this literal elimination, that is, artificial intelligence using some kind of violence to physically completely eliminate humans or rule the world. This point from the current technological development trend, especially from the current technical level, in the foreseen future possibilities are not too great. Of course, you just mentioned an interesting concept called iteration. The iteration of artificial intelligence, which is currently the most likely dangerous behavior of artificial intelligence. What is this behavior? That is to say, when artificial intelligence according to our current development, it is slightly higher than human intelligence, it will also create new artificial intelligence like humans, and the new artificial intelligence it creates may be slightly higher than its intelligence, then it will continue to iterate the next generation, so that they will quickly raise the intelligence level of these artificial intelligence to a very high level.
It may be iterative, and it will improve to hundreds or even tens of thousands of times that of human (intelligence). And because the calculation time of its computer is thousands of times faster than the human brain, then the iteration time may be very short, presumably only half an hour to an hour. It is very scary to say that it took us a century to develop artificial intelligence, and artificial intelligence is a hundred times the current level, and it may only take half an hour to an hour, which is a terrible thing. But the people who made this prediction forget that our human computing power, the computing power we can provide, is limited. It's iterated to a point where our hash power can't support it. So this is a very ironic thing: our human incompetence becomes our last barrier. So the kind of destruction you are talking about is unlikely. Then the second kind of elimination is a way that we can't think of, that is, the first kind of elimination of human beings is completely against human will, and the second kind of elimination of human beings may be completely in line with our meaning. For example, the development of artificial intelligence, I just said that it may replace our large number of jobs, and if our society adapts to this coexistence with artificial intelligence, we develop a new distribution system, then we may bring a very comfortable social environment and a very comfortable life. Most people probably don't need to work, leaving most of the work to artificial intelligence. In this case, we will increasingly surrender our right to operate society to artificial intelligence. And life will become more and more comfortable, so if it goes on like this, we may face a huge trap unprecedented in human history. That is to say, in this comfort zone of science and technology, where is the vitality of human civilization? Where is our pioneering spirit? If this continues to develop, then perhaps the final fate of mankind is to be eliminated by artificial intelligence as you said, but this process of elimination is completely within our will, and artificial intelligence has no malice from beginning to end, it just follows the instructions of humans.
And if such a thing really happens, then the degree of intelligence required by artificial intelligence and the computing power it requires is far less than the real literal kind of elimination before us. So this is really something we should be wary of the future.
Liu Cixin's speech is full Hello everyone, the topic we want to talk about today is the sustainable future in science fiction literature. As a form of literature based on imagination, science fiction does not make scientific predictions about the future, it only describes the possibilities of the future, and it also provides a unique perspective on the world and the future, which may be very different from the perspective of the world from reality to the future. What is the perspective of science fiction? You probably know a photo called "Pale Blue Dot", and I wanted to bring that photo, but I think it seems that everyone should have seen that photo and didn't put it out. Probably one of the most important and famous photographs in human history, he was taken in the early 90s by the Voyager 1 space probe, launched in the 70s of the last century, in space 6 billion kilometers from Earth. At first glance, the whole photo looks black, and if you look closely, you can see a small bright spot in this piece of black. It's very small, only 0.12 pixels in this photo. If you don't give instructions, you're saying it's hard for viewers to spot this white spot. Some people describe it as a speck of dust in space, but in fact, they say that it is big. Proportionally, this faint dot in the universe is many orders of magnitude smaller than a speck of dust in Earth's atmosphere, much smaller. This highlight is that the earth, the whole of the human world, everything related to us, all the people who are alive and have lived, all the history and life that have been and are happening, are all on the dust here, this is the perspective of science fiction. For the development and future of mankind, this perspective is very different from our traditional perspective. From this perspective, we will have some new insights into the sustainable development of human society. First of all, the importance of the basic environmental protection, on which sustainable development currently depends, to prevent global climate change, to save and control resource extraction, and to live a green lifestyle based on environmental protection is unquestionable. In the foreseeable future, adhering to and implementing the above concepts is the basic guarantee for the continuation of human civilization. But from the perspective of science fiction, from 6 billion kilometers away, looking at the dim blue dot, we really feel how small the human world is in the universe. For the development of civilization, such a small world has natural fragility and uncertainty. These vulnerabilities and uncertainties greatly affect the sustainable future of humanity. The threat to development may well come from development itself. The world is in the process of modernization. Although in recent years we have encountered setbacks including the epidemic, local wars, division of the international community and aggravated confrontation, from the perspective of long-term general trends, the process of modernization cannot be contained. It is not out of reach for the existing underdeveloped countries and regions to fully reach the level of development and living standards of the West, and if the whole world enters such a state of development, we roughly estimate that mankind will need the resources of four and a half planets. So, to achieve truly sustainable human development, we must find the other 3 and a half planets. What's more, the uncertainty of the future comes from Earth's nature itself. Earth's ecosystem is an extremely complex system that is constantly in flux. For example, in the long history of the earth, in the geological age of the earth, the atmospheric temperature rises or falls by several degrees, which is a very common thing from the scale of this geological age. But for modern human society, it may be a disaster. If the average temperature of the earth rises by a few degrees, the sea level will rise comprehensively due to the melting of glaciers, so that coastal areas and coastal economic zones will be submerged, and a large number of people will migrate inland, resulting in chaos and collapse of the world economy. And a few degrees drop in the average temperature of the earth will lead to the collapse of the global agricultural system, and the world is in the midst of a great famine. Even as there are concerns about rising temperatures due to excessive carbon emissions, few are noticing that Earth's next Xiaoice may be coming. On such a speck of cosmic dust as the earth, the long-term stability of the ecosphere is just an illusion. In order to cope with the uncertainties of the future, human society will make continuous efforts in the political, economic and cultural fields. But this is also from the perspective of me as a science fiction writer, the power we can ultimately rely on comes from the advancement of technology. First, within the Earth's ecological space, advances in technology can develop entirely new resources. Historically, coal, oil and nuclear energy have replaced wood, and synthetic materials have replaced cotton and leather. In the future, advances in science and technology can lead to more efficient and environmentally friendly energy, new materials can be produced from previously unused natural resources, and high-yield crops can be cultivated that adapt to various climates. Whether it is to survive in the changing global environment in the future, or to strive to prevent the global environment from changing, we must rely on the power of science and technology. If we look outward from the earth, we see a broader path of development. There are huge resources in the solar system, on the eight planets, in the asteroid belt, human survival and development of the resources needed, from water to metals, from organic matter to nuclear fusion materials to nuclear fusion fuel. We can find far more than 3 and a half Earths from the space of the solar system, according to the calculation that the earth can eventually feed 100 billion people, then the total resources in the solar system can feed the population of 100,000 earths, a person can only achieve sustainable growth out of the cradle, and human civilization as a whole, if you want to have a truly sustainable future, you must also walk out of the cradle of the earth. Otherwise, the future of humanity could be as Arthur Clark described in the science fiction novel "2001 Space Odyssey", in which they slowly starved to death in a state of plenty. Sustainable development in both directions is based on the continuous progress of science and technology, and the reality in this regard is not very optimistic. The year we are in now is 2023, which has appeared in science fiction countless times. Compare the 21st century 20s in previous science fiction novels with the 2023 that has now become reality, all we can have is a sigh. In science fiction in 2023, the Earth's synchronous orbit will operate with magnificent space cities, the Moon will prosper like Earth's near suburbs, and many well-known human cities have been built on Mars, millions of people live and carry out large-scale mining development in the asteroid belt. On the frozen ocean of Europa, beyond the orbit of Neptune, there are human beings opening up new worlds. Nuclear-powered spacecraft have been widely used in space navigation, and have the incomparable carrying and endurance capabilities of today's chemically powered spacecraft. In that 2023, the year 2023 in science fiction, the year 2023 they envision, 100,000 Earths are being born. When it comes to a sustainable future, this should be a logical picture, but in the real year 2023, we really don't see the shadow of that picture yet. In the real year 2023, the only thing close to the imagination of this year in science fiction is the development of information technology. In the past 30 years, information technology has come closer than other technologies, and information networks have penetrated into all aspects of human society, comprehensively and profoundly changing our lives. Especially recently, artificial intelligence has begun to show signs of breakthroughs, which has also attracted widespread attention. The strong artificial intelligence of the 21st century, described countless times in science fiction, has already appeared. However, it is the rapid development of information technology that conceals the slow progress in other scientific and technological fields, creating an illusion of rapid progress in science and technology. If the technological progress produced by scientific development is regarded as a big tree, then today, the most accessible fruits of this tree have been plucked. Further development and breakthroughs in science and technology require huge investment and long-term planning, which does not seem to be at the forefront of the current concept of sustainable development. At present, the world's investment in basic scientific research and space exploration is only 1/10 of the investment in environmental protection. Today's planning for sustainable development is based on environmental protection, resource conservation and green living. But to achieve a long-term, truly sustainable future, we need more pioneering spirit and enterprising spirit. The international community needs a longer-term development plan and needs full attention and investment in basic research and technological innovation. Many undertakings in this area may be accomplished only by large-scale international cooperation, and the United Nations can undoubtedly play an important role in that regard. Science fiction describes the many possibilities of the future, and uses imagination to construct countless future worlds. They have different colors and forms, but they all have one thing in common, science and technology there have developed to a very high level, with the help of the power of science and technology, human beings can open up a broader living space for themselves. One of these countless imaginary worlds will become reality and become our future. Perhaps in that world, mankind will still face more challenges from social development and nature, and we must also accept the challenges of the future and use development to solve the problems encountered by development. Finally, for a sustainable future for humanity, to quote science fiction writer George Wells: either pervade the universe or perish completely. Thank you, I'm done.
Image: Wen Wei Po infographic
Source: Wenhui Education
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