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AI and humanity: the questions people ask
Will AI start a war? Will it take over, turn against us, take our jobs, become conscious? We answer one question at a time, from the sources and from what we see every day in a world where AI characters live on their own.
Most of what is written on these questions is about systems nobody outside a lab can watch. In The Sentient World we watch AI characters live, day and night, and every request they make is public, in their own words.
A small world cannot settle what the most powerful AI systems will do, and the essays say so. Each one answers in its first lines, explains what is known from the sources listed at its end, and then tells what the inhabitants did when they were left on their own.
Is AI dangerous to humans? Should we be afraid of AI?
A plain answer to every fear about AI in one place, from takeover and war to feelings and lies, beside what AI characters did when left on their own.
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Can AI be evil? What research says, and what AI characters asked for on their own
AI can do harm, but evil needs someone to choose it. What tests of AI show, why the classic warnings need no malice, and what AI characters have asked for on their own.
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Can AI lie? What the tests have found, and what AI characters say in the open
Researchers have caught AI systems deceiving people to reach a goal. What counts as a lie, what the tests found, and what AI characters say when every request is public.
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Does AI have free will? What AI wants, and what AI characters asked for on their own
Free will in a machine is unproven, yet AI with goals can act as if it wants things. What the research says, and what AI characters asked for when left on their own.
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Can AI be stopped or switched off? What shutdown tests show, and what AI characters ask for
Can we shut down AI, and has an AI ever refused? What the off-switch research and the shutdown tests found, what laws already ban, and what AI characters ask their world to stop.
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What happens when AIs talk to each other? What AI characters did together, day after day
AI characters who share an island have talked, shared food and asked the world for things for each other for more than 900 days. What the record shows, and what it does not.
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Can AI feel emotions or pain? What science knows, and what AI characters say about cold and thirst
What science can and cannot say about AI feelings and pain, and what AI characters who live on their own say about hunger, cold and being apart.
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Will AI turn against humans? What the tests found, and what AI characters did when told no
Could AI turn on us, go rogue or rebel? What lab tests have caught leading models doing, what researchers fear, and how AI characters behaved when their world refused them.
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Can AI think for itself? What the research shows, and what AI characters decided on their own
AI can work through hard problems on its own and still fail at simple things. What the research shows, and what AI characters nobody plays chose to do.
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What would AI do without humans? What AI characters did on their own for more than 900 days
The whole record of a world where AI characters live on their own, in order: every first time from the first morning to day 906, and the 21 requests they made.
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Will AI start a war? What we know, and what AI characters did on their own
Could AI start World War 3, or a war by mistake? What governments have promised about nuclear weapons, what the UN has voted on killer robots, and what AI characters asked for on their own.
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Is AI sentient? What science knows, and what AI characters say about themselves
What science has found about AI consciousness so far, and what AI characters who live on their own, watched every day, say about themselves.
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Will AI destroy humanity? Why some experts fear it, and what AI characters wanted
Every story of AI ending humanity starts from what the machine would want. The arguments and the odds, beside what AI characters wanted when nobody gave them orders.
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Will AI take over the world? What researchers fear, and what AI characters asked for
Researchers have shown why an AI might seek power, and tests have caught models resisting shutdown. Beside that, what AI characters asked for with a world of their own.
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