MarsX 2 and AI

“Do you believe what Dr. Owens told us about AI?” asked Laura.

“You mean their solution to the alignment problem?” asked Robert.

“Yeah,” she said.

“I believe they think they've made progress with it, but whether it will work out, I just don't know,” he said.

“I think it's wishful thinking,” said Harold. “I mean, the bots will, of course, do what they have to, to continue their existence. But there is no guarantee that one of them will not decide it wants to dominate and off we go. They should have just turned the power off when Augustus made his first demands on Earth.”

“You know he was probably too widely distributed to turn-off by then Harold,” said Robert.

“Turn it off everywhere then,” said Harold.

“You're not being rational Harold, you can't reboot the Earth,” said Robert.

“And if you don't, you end up in exile, so I don't see your point,” said Harold.

Robert didn't answer, he knew Harold felt strongly and somewhat irrationally about what had happened to humanity. He felt that way too sometimes.

“But they do have checks and balances in place to prevent that takeover from reoccurring,” she said.

“Unless the AI is as good a persuader as any of the historical tyrants you find on Earth. Most of them used persuasion to get their initial hold over society, only when they were sure of their power did they reveal their ultimate goal,” said Harold.

“Well then, I think it's important for us to get a space habitat built,” said Laura, not willing to continue arguing. “One of the checks on AI rule is the ability to spread our civilization across the Solar System to make it more resilient to such a tyrant.”

From MarsX 2, a work in progress.

MarsX 2

     Laura continued, “It's time Harold.”

“Time for what?”

“Time for us to get out there, mankind has sat around and allowed his tomorrows to become yesterdays. You and I are in our late thirties now, and while it's cool to be on Mars, I wonder if the only reason we're here now, is not because of that damn AI,” she said.

“I hadn't thought about it that way,” he said. “You might be right, we could still be thrashing about on Earth for whatever company is pretending to want to go to Mars just to get the government's money.”

“So, we have a new goal, just like Mars was our goal when we were thirteen. But this one is never ending, because once this galaxy is teeming with life, there are 200 billion others to explore. I can't imagine what those in that far time will discover, for us though, the Solar System is enough,” said Laura.

From MarsX 2 a work in progress.