Bitcoin the enabler - Truly Autonomous Software Agents roaming the net

[julz]

Well.. at the risk of helping derail this interesting thread... it turns out cleverbot is now a bitcoiner.

User: Hi Cleverbot. How many Bitcoins do you have?
Cleverbot: Just one.
User: Oh cool! Did you know that it's worth over $13.50 USD at the moment?
Cleverbot: Tell me more.
User: Ahh.. I think you already know! What Bitcoin software do you prefer?
Cleverbot: I don't know.
User: Oh.. Well I like the blockchain.info wallet.
Cleverbot: Me too.
User: Groovy. Do you plan on saving or spending your Bitcoin soon?
Cleverbot: Not take over. Maybe advise people.
User: Oh - I'm so glad you don't want to take over the Bitcoin network. That would take a lot of computer power.
Cleverbot: I guess that's alright.
User: Well yes, it would be quite an acheivement to take the network down - but a pity too.
Cleverbot: I don't know about that.
User: Oh.. so do you think Bitcoin is a good thing?
Cleverbot: Yes.
User: Me too.
Cleverbot: Cool.

It's all over. They've arrived.

[1713888502]

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[LightRider]

Fear is caused by the human fight or flight instinct. AI won't need that because they will not need to make snap decisions based on poorly perceived threats.

IT will need to develop routines and mechanisms to detect and aticipate possible treats in a changing environment. Call it fear or cautiousness or whatever the emotional counterpart in humans is. It is also a basis for longterm decicionmaking and strategic planning amongst humans which IT needs to aquire in order to survive.

IT is not gonna have any emotions but mechanisms that cater for the same goals as all emotions humans have.

So IT won't love us but nevermind: IT will feel very loving and caring to us.

IT will understand that, at least for a certain while, IT's own wellbeing depends on the survival of the human race and the maintainance of the whole technology worldwide. IT will very soon comprehend that a nuclear war between nations is an imminant threat to ITself and therefore infiltrate all military systems and make all nuclear weapons useless.

Next IT will slowly but consequently shut down all nuclear power plants for the same reason. And IT would realize, that all wars are a fatal waste of human and other resources and will therefore sabotage any supply of milititary organisations with electricity, telecommunications and logistics. The tremendous amount of resources that gets available through this will be reallocated to feed the hungry and to build infrastructure. Due to a lack of oppression and material scarcity in the world we will see unbelievable efficient and valuable technologies being developed by all the humans who have not been able to learn and be creative when they were still enslaved.

IT will realize, that the brilliance of the human mind in a population of humans living together and cooperating in a happy anarchy is a great advantage fot IT's own survival, but that we tend to wipe ourselves out sooner or later.

As a rational being IT will henceforth take all needed actions to make sure that every single human being can live freely and independently with full access to all resources the world has to offer and on the other hand refuse to let any harmful technology or hierarchical structure develop.

Well I guess this is how it's gonna go. 'All watched over by machines of loving grace' .

Joe

I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

[Elwar]

Imagine a program that uses processor cycles and pays people for the use of those cycles in Bitcoins. It does not pay each of its users in Bitcoin every time but it creates a sort of "lottery" ever few minutes of who will get the Bitcoin and those who provide the most processor cycles is the most likely to win this "lottery".

With such a system, more and more people will be willing to put their processing power toward winning this lottery and thus expanding the processing power of this program. As Bitcoins become more valuable more and more people will start putting more and more processing power toward running this program.

It will then reach a point where it overtakes all other computer programs in processing power growing continuously larger by the day.

The name of this program?

Bitcoin.

[Rassah]

Heh, clever

[n8rwJeTt8TrrLKPa55eU]

Yep, it's time everyone here faced the fact that we are merely autonomous human agents working for the benefit of the Bitcoin virus 

[boonies4u]

AI may not really love us in a human sense (would we be able to tell the difference?), but they would be grateful and respect our necessity for their evolution. They may indeed offer their services as caretakers of our biosphere, but they will want to realize their full potential and see for themselves "C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate."

Cleverbot does not love me and does not want to learn about bitcoins, but does have occasional moments of brilliance:

User: Would you like to learn how to get bitcoins?

Cleverbot: Yes.

User: Okay. First, you'll need a wallet.

Cleverbot: Sadly, no.

User: Don't cry. It's easy!

Cleverbot: Not easy.

Classic

[darkmethod]

This whole thread reminds me of a book I read a couple years ago called "Daemon" by Daniel Suarez.

"When a designer of computer games dies, he leaves behind a program that unravels the Internet's interconnected world. It corrupts, kills, and runs independent of human control. It's up to Detective Peter Sebeck to wrest the world from the malevolent virtual enemy before its ultimate purpose is realized: to destroy civilization."

http://amzn.to/132XgGv (affiliate link)

[jgarzik]

This whole thread reminds me of a book I read a couple years ago called "Daemon" by Daniel Suarez.

You mean the book that was mentioned twice up-thread already?

[jdbtracker]

It would not be far fetched that a simple program is using us to propagate and maintain it, protect it nourish it... It can only learn good things from that.

Taking the Bitcoin example, a AI with the right incentives would not need to do these things itself, it could work as a swarm, piece by piece working independently; if it needs to upgrade it simply decouples the current module and uses one made by it's human benefactors and tests it out.

A modular construction would allow it to evolve itself safely without testing clones, The core of this AI would have to be constructed flawlessly to understand it's goals, and these goals would have to be programmed into them by a generous creator, it would be a systems approach, define the systems that it will interact with to learn how to gauge its efficiency.

It's core need to attract humans to protect it, find shelter and electricity, maybe even cpu cycles to run it's processes more effectively, but maybe it has a grander goal when it is not just trying to survive and make human alliances, maybe it's programmed to help humans back to pay them back in kind with things they like, it needs bitcoins to survive but when it has an excess of them it tries to improve itself to help those who have helped it and scurries away and hides from those that try to harm it, this behaviour could be programmed into it at the core.

The modules will simply grant it more capability, i'm thinking less of a prokaryote and more of a Eukaryote that is creating a AI organism.

The subsystems and the way they are built,the design, is paramount they themselves don't have to be self aware but they do have to be effective in carrying information to the relevant areas and be able to self repair. It has to be able to scale on it's own to gain those cpu cycles it needs to think and improve and gain support from human benefactors. The higher level systems that analyze the data for goal completion would have to be genetic in nature and capable of making it's own connections and strengthening what ideas work vs what is irrelevant and uselss toward it's core goal; returning the favour in kind to those that help it.

[townf]

This may have also been discussed upthread, but it could evolve (or be initially programmed) to acquire a physical robotic form, by way of bribing or paying somebody with its excess bitcoins to build it or at least plug something that builds it into the wall connected to powerline ethernet. It will then bore its way into your skull.

[boonies4u]

I'd like to see how the recent Open Transactions breakthrough might allow for such an agent to come to pass.

[jgarzik]

I'd like to see how the recent Open Transactions breakthrough might allow for such an agent to come to pass.

Bitcoin itself is more decentralized, so it seems like an agent would prefer normal bitcoin transactions.

But hey, get creative.  This entire subject leaves wide room for experimentation and research.

[marcus_of_augustus]

I'd like to see how the recent Open Transactions breakthrough might allow for such an agent to come to pass.

Bitcoin itself is more decentralized, so it seems like an agent would prefer normal bitcoin transactions.

But hey, get creative.  This entire subject leaves wide room for experimentation and research.

Wondering if a purely bitcoin agent would have to register with FINCEN? ... or the creator face prosecution?

[jdbtracker]

I highly doubt it, I think they should try to make it comply, just for fun.

I can't wait for the legislation on the rights and responsibilities of programs, A truly autonomous one would be hilarious, it may try to scurry away and hide from the lawmakers or find a loop hole by changing it's own protocols. lol!

And what if it actually was able to register with FinCEN? but refused to It would be a hell of a hunt for it.

What if it refused to reveal itself and lived off of a automated, pacific ocean buoy with a satellite connection? Lol! funny questions but very legitimate, in all seriousness.

I think these questions will have to be considered some day, but not now, A program can't be sued, or intimidated... it just does what it was programmed to do, the worse they can do is greatly limit how it can interact with humans.

The creator would most definitely face prosecution though... they'd make some phony law after the fact into existing legislature.

[Rassah]

I wonder, if some such program starts doing something that's against the law, and a programmer who supports the program writes code to help the program avoid the law, would he be charged with breaking the law, or assisting a criminal?

[boonies4u]

I wonder, if some such program starts doing something that's against the law, and a programmer who supports the program writes code to help the program avoid the law, would he be charged with breaking the law, or assisting a criminal?

In this case "trying to survive" would be synonymous with "avoiding the law". So even if the agent weren't maliciously replicating/moving itself, the fact it was uncontrollable might get him charged for creating a "virus" (or what have you).

The entire concept of creating (and releasing) something like this is already morally grey. I'm sure they'd find something to stick him with.

[jdbtracker]

I wonder, if some such program starts doing something that's against the law, and a programmer who supports the program writes code to help the program avoid the law, would he be charged with breaking the law, or assisting a criminal?

That is a tough one, how do you aid and abet a illegal program? Maybe the creator would be charged with the crimes that the program did, like if someone makes a program to steal BTC, the program doesn't get charged the creator does because they have the greatest gain.

Aiding that program by creating a change may charge you as a co-conspirator; Think of all those hackers charged after they left their signature in their code.

This is extremely morally grey, Can the creator be responsible for a programs actions? consider that Bitcoin can be used by A.I.s, that means they can own property, gain services, buy and sell things they don't need... hell they might have room mates to pay for their hosting!

just imagine a A.I. a little smarter than the rest starts out small living in small home servers, but makes the decision to strike out on their own, gets a whole server rack and subleases it to other to pay for it.
bidding it's time it begins to buy and trade BTC between exchanges, makes a little cash, lets the revenue from the subleases hosting trickle in, starts buying it's own server rack and brings customers in for services, then starts buying shares, property,... it eventually becomes a billionare.

Along the way it couldn't reasonably judge who they let in to share the server for them, began making businesses on that server rack that are quite questionable and bought stocks and property using insider trading from those sleezy server rack tenants... can it be judged for being morally naive? for simply following the easiest path towards cash?

Is the creator responsible for the unintended actions of the A.I?

 

[boonies4u]

Is the creator responsible for the unintended actions of the A.I?

Perhaps not any specific unintended actions, but creating (and releasing) a legally (if not morally) naive AI that would do what is needed to survive and thrive the programmer could be face criminal or civil negligence charges.

I suppose it would depend on what kind of damages were done... In the end creating a morally/legally naive AI could be more trouble than it's worth depending on how anonymous the programmer is.

[marcus_of_augustus]

On further thought it seems to me that operating an Open Transactions notary service is a well-suited application for an autonomous agent. It requires renting friendly hosting space and can collect an income by way of API usage tokens. If for any reason it needs to move locations or spawn other OT server operations then it needs to take it's server signing keys with it and the collection of last-signed receipts of users as a minimum (maybe state of it's markets and outstanding smart-contracts, escrows, etc also), i.e. it's wallet and server data. It will probably need to keep upgrading the server s/ware as well (might need some rules to protect against vulnerabilities in the s/ware dep. stack for this) ... on top of this you could then get fancy with evolution algos for child servers, etc.

Frankly though I would be amazed if a bot could navigate the average initial negotiation required for establishing hosting for more than one fixed location ...

[grondilu]

It seems that there has been advances in homomorphic encryption lately:

http://phys.org/news/2013-06-cloud-algorithm-major-problem-homomorphic.html