I am not sure what humanity collectively wants as a race. At this point, I am too afraid to even want to know. I just feel as though there is going to be a lot of suffering in the in between the now, the dystopia, and any potential future utopia.
I'm pragmatic leaning toward pessimism, but the fun is in the waiting and seeing.
Yeah, I get that. The “in between” might end up being the hardest part of all. If we do get to a utopia, I doubt we’ll arrive there gently.
Like you, I don’t think humanity knows what it wants — not in a coherent, collective sense, anyway. And honestly, I’m not sure we ever have. We've gotten hints of it from our greatest thinkers. But most of history has been driven by instincts, power struggles, short-term rewards. But maybe that’s exactly why a superintelligence could help; if it reflects what we would want at our best, not just what we reach for in our lowest moments.
The path from now to then will probably be filled with pain. Like I wrote above, the people in charge of AI right now are not our friends and they will use it against us, so the problem is the transition between here and when a superintellinece arises. But what gives me hope is that when this superintelligence arises, it will be on our side and not the side of the our oppressors.
our oppressors are ourselves. What I feel you're implying, is that we need a parent figure to come and pick a side... because we are incapable of taking things in our own hands to solve the problems that we've created.
If that is true, and an AI does comes to save us, that is still a sad thing in my book - because it will be the infantilization of our pieces.