THW: ban the development of artificial superintelligences (ASIs)

1a) I am quite baffled by this first argument. You basically describe a cake counting calculator kidnapping people (accidental alliteration XP). The AI, no matter how smart, can't rebuild it's own body to be able to do something like that. The way you describe it makes it seem that machines will be able to evolve arms and legs which is literally impossible. As long as you make sure the computer the AI is hosted in doesn't have access to the Internet it will forever be stuck in it's tiny little calculator body with no ability whatsoever to kidnap people. It will also never be able to stop people from turning it off or modifying it. The AI will only have the abilities we humans give it because in the end, it's only a machine. 2) You say that "there is nothing that can be accomplished by a superintelligent computer system that couldn't be accomplished by an intelligent human who is in control of a powerful, but non-intelligent, computer program". That is exactly the point. Why let humans do boring and menial tasks when you can let an AI do it instead, freeing up the human to do something actually productive. Let's say you have a security guard who spends all his time watching through security footage. If you instead put an AI with the ability to analyse video footage for illegal activities the guard can spend time patrolling areas with no cameras instead. The point of the AI isn't to be better than humans, they are supposed to be just like us so we can use them instead of humans. Just like we invented cars to replace horses, an AI will be able to do dumb stuff no human wants to do. Also, you wanted a task an AI could do that a human couldn't. Someone to steer and maintain a space ship during space travel. Even at light speed the distances in space are enormous and a human has only that many years of life in them. Humans also need food, water, oxygen, etc. Put an AI behind the wheel at it can go to Alpha Centauri and back with nothing but the fuel required for the journey. 3) How is it ineffective do develop an AI to solve a trivial problem? The ratio doesn't go 1 AI developer per 1 problem. 1 developer can develop an AI that then can be used to solve the 1 problem in a million different locations. That is why your chess analogy doesn't make sense. A chess player needs someone to practice with to get better. A human partner has their own life isn't always available. A human partner also can't guarantee the same quality of chess every time. So if a player develops a chess AI he not only gets a consistent partner to practice with whenever and wherever he wishes, other chess players can then also use that AI to practice on. One chess player spends a day developing an AI and makes the lives of a countless chess players easier. AI, no matter how smart, will still just be a bunch of 1's and 0's that can be copied onto a hard drive and distributed. I can't see any inefficiency whatsoever. Now to my own argument. Why impose a ban on something that isn't even close to existing? AlfaGo is probably one of the smartest "AI"s at the moment, and I'd say it's a stretch to call it an AI. It doesn't do any thinking, it just goes through loads of criteria and returns the result which fulfils the most of them. Banning artificial super intelligence is beyond unnecessary when we don't even have artificial dumb intelligence. It would be like putting a speed limit on hover crafts on Jupiter. Sure, you could do it, but why? Why waste paper in a law book on a rule that will not be of any use for at least a couple of decades. So I took a break in writing here and I did a quick google, apparently the Chinese equivalent to Google (Baidu) are the world leaders in AI (according to MIT). The AI they are developing is called Deep Speech. It's supposed to be a speech recognition AI, which would put it on the same level of intelligence as a 5-year old. When AI is getting to Wall-E levels of intelligence I'm ready to be worried, but that day isn't anytime soon