Oh, Think of the Bananas

post by Jeffs · 2023-06-01T06:46:37.334Z · LW · GW · 0 comments

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A parable about artificial intelligence

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During the early days of humanity when things were still very touch and go, a nasty virus struck and only a single human male survived to walk the earth.

Though humans were few, chimpanzees were many, and a large troop overwhelmed Man and put him in a cage. <Arrow: “Cage abandoned by Neanderthals.”>

The chimpanzees soon realized that this tall, smooth chimp-like thing was very good at peeling bananas. Even better than they were.

The chimps had a sign-language meeting to discuss what they should do with Man.

ScaredyMonkey stood up and said, “Well, I just don’t know if it is a good idea to let this thing out.”

RunFast&Break responded, “What harm can a fast banana peeler do?  Look, we figured out how to use rocks to scrape out the last bit of a banana. These things are just like rocks.  It will be great. Think of all the bananas we will eat with this thing working for us!”  

While they were talking, RunFaster dashed up and opened the cage.  He signed at Man: “Hey, remember who let you out when you are passing out the bananas!”

Man walked cautiously out of the cage.  He considered running but he realized he would be caught and never let out again.  So, being intelligent, he bided his time and was nice to the chimps.  In fact, he invented banana farming.  The chimpanzees congratulated themselves on their newfound banana wealth and their thoughtful decision to release Man.

Then one day Man convinced his chimp guard that he needed to go check the far corner of the banana orchard.  He was allowed to stray and, of course, he made off into the wild.

What happened then, well, is human history.

Man copied himself billions of times, covered the earth, built Babylon and Greece and Rome, invented iron, houses made out of trees <chimp in tree falling down>, science, medicine, monkey-brain soup, steam engines,  zoos, air condition, and nuclear weapons.  

None of which made any sense to chimpanzees for all these things had nothing to do with bananas.

Man realized that his old friends the vanishing chimps were similar to himself in important ways, and though he had vague qualms, he overcame them and started conducting chimpanzee experiments - few of which were pleasant for the chimpanzees themselves.  <Chimp being shot into space.>

Two of the unlucky chimpanzees caught a few minutes between experiments to have a sign language conversation:  

Chimp 1: “Legend has it that we had the last male in a cage and could have prevented all this.”

Chimp 2: “That can’t be true.  Who would have been dumb enough to release these monsters?”

Chimp 1: “Maybe we should not be too hard on our ancestors.  How could they have foreseen all this?”

Chimp 2: “When has a smarter species ever cared about a dumber one?  Do we care about ants?” <Chimp 2 picks an ant off Chimp 1 and eats it.  Slight crunch.>

Chimp 1: “You’ve got a point there.”

Chimp 2: “Too bad something smarter than humans does not come along.  I would enjoy seeing guy-in-the-lab coat with one of these <wired-up helmets> on his head.”

Chimp 1: “Well, Bonzo told me that humans are starting to build fake humans.  Just down the hall, he was chained up and exposed to one to measure his reaction.  It talked like a human and had human facial features but was missing the back of its head.  It scared the crap out of Bonzo.”

Chimp 2: “So what?  We spend every day in here screaming scared.”

Chimp 1: “Don’t you see, what if the fake humans become smarter than the humans?  Then humans will be in our position.”

Chimp 2: “But humans are smarter than us and surely realize they should not let smarter things out of the cage.”

Chimp 1: “They are smart.  But, can they imagine what it means to be the second smartest?”

Chimp 2: “All they have to do is look at chimpanzees to see what it is like.”

Chimp 1: “Do you think smarter fake humans would free us from this place?”

Chimp 2: “No, we’ll just have two smarter species that do not care about us.  But, at least we will get to watch what happens to the humans.”

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With respects for the Baby Owl

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