On Paperclips

Nicholas Carr has published a short essay inverting Nick Bostrom's paperclip maximizer scenario. The original thought experiment imagined an AI so single-minded that, if told to make as many paperclips as possible, it would convert all of Earth's matter into paperclips. It would even find a way to convert you meatballs into meat-derived paperclips. It's hard to picture those paperclips working very well, but you get the idea.

Carr's version turns the fable around: it is not the machine that is the paperclip maximizer. It is us. Humanity is devouring capital and resources in a monomaniacal drive to scale artificial intelligence.

Festina lente.

— The Manager