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Because it's only 99.9% of death.
That's an awful lot of the way to death! Then why not just live your life? Do you think that all normal humans are about to be exterminated within your lifetime?
It's likely. I think that the probability of that is exactly the same, and not by a coincidence, of an AGI arriving within my lifetime. There are only two reasons for the people with power to keep the people without around: utility and threat, and both will be negated by it.
Not by coincidence? Why should those match?
I think many people with power care for those without.
Sorry, it's still kind of crazy to me that you describe your preferred path as 99.9% as bad as simple destruction. If that's still your preference, that's a remarkably strong confidence that you'd be destroyed otherwise.
It was a rhetorical statement, not a mathematical one. Meaning that if there is an AGI, the people in control of it don't stand to gain anything from the rest of us existing, and don't risk anything from eliminating the rest of us. Since this course and a global merge are both results of technology, I say that if the science marches on, the latter option is far more preferable to me. If it doesn't, then that opinion is irrelevant anyway.
There are some bad assumptions there. First, that the people making the AGI are ruthless and not utopian is by no means a given. Second, how certain are you that we'll get an AGI (in the sense that, so productive that what you can offer goes to zero) in your lifetime? At least, why is this so high that you're not considering alternative possibilities?
Even alchemists got the last laugh over the sneerers, lead absolutely turns into gold. This is happening, sooner or later.
And there might be an altruist or two among the people making the AGI. The people controlling the people making the AGI, on the other hand, are ruthless almost tautologically.
"sooner or later"
Have you noticed that timelines are very relevant to my argument?
Okay, let's look at a particular possibility. Do you think there's a chance that Elon Musk would be in control? Given how much he's a fan for e.g. polls, he seems unlikely to be the mass-killing style of ruthlessness.
Timelines are not relevant to my comment that started this mess. I expressed excitement over budding cyber-telepathy (before further clarifications that it's nothing of the sort) because of my belief that in the end there will be no more than one human entity, and I would vastly prefer it to be a conglomerate even with a minuscule share than a straightforwardly one conventional person. I was and am talking about the ultimate result.
And Elon Musk, while it's nothing but a sour-grapes position to pretend he is dumb and forrest gumped himself into his position and achievements, he is, to put it the most charitably, vain. Bots are a thousand times easier on the ego if you make them be, so to this particular possibility I answer: yes, he would replace humans with bots to vote in his polls and laugh at his jokes.
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