AI: artificial immigrants

Advanced AI is basically the embodiment of immigration as envisioned in the conservative nightmare: We are letting a bunch of new agents into our society They don’t clearly share our values and we suspect a society full of them would be awful by our lights But we expect them to provide very cheap labor Which will undercut local wages and leave locals unemployed They will probably gain power and influence over time—in the economy, politics and culture—and end up controlling everything, sidelining and outcompeting the original population, including those who initially benefited from cheap labor (Meanwhile, half the local population may become friends with them and try to hand them all this on a platter) Whether or not you think this is a good description of the situation with foreign humans joining your country, it is a good description of the likely AI to come, and it’s even worse than imagined: their values are potentially radically alien where foreigners presumably share much by virtue of being human, and AI ‘lives’ are probably worthless if they probably aren’t conscious their ability to work more cheaply than locals is unprecedented. They are also likely to be much more competent The scale of the influx will be breathtaking Discuss