On the 23rd of every month, a Manifold poll is posted about whether weak artificial general intelligence has been achieved. The polls do not provide a definition of AGI, and are designed to track the perception of progress towards its achievement.
Starting on September 23, 2024, monthly polls asking this question will also be published:
Before September 23, 2024 (this date will never change in future polls), had non-human intelligence ever influenced any person, creature, or event on Earth?
The definition of "non-human intelligence" is left to the respondent to define, EXCEPT that it excludes known Earth life such as apes, dolphins, ants, and trees.
About 32% of the general public would now answer the poll YES: https://today.yougov.com/society/articles/48928-is-something-out-there-americans-government-secrets-ufos.
That is the exact same ratio that answered the most recent poll about AI progress as YES : /SteveSokolowski/will-manifold-users-declare-that-we
The options in these polls are YES, NO, and No opinion. In the inaugural poll about non-human intelligence, will the ratio of YES / (YES + NO) exceed 32%?
Note that the text accompanying the posted poll is misrepresenting the question asked to respondents. The answer forming that 32% was, “UFOs might sometimes be the result of alien spacecrafts visiting Earth.” A more fun and relevant example of such polling is this:
https://assets.realclear.com/files/2024/01/2334_RCORToplineJan92024.pdf
Which indicates 60% of Americans believe in ghosts, almost 60% beleive in aliens, and a solid 45% think witches are real.
@singer I think the first poll, mentioned in the original description, doesn't offer strong support for how its represented due to the wording.
I would also answer that UFOs might be the result of alien spacecrafts, I just think it's exceedingly less likely to be that than the other options. Yet it is represented as though that answer means I think they are the result of alien space craft due to the bias of the market creator.
For the second, my actual point is that public opinion is not particularly scientific on many topics and lots of adults run around believing in things for fun so if one wants to be biased in this way, one may as well grab a more obvious example like how 70% of Americans believe in angels very consistently across many polls.
I was joking around a little bit because the idea of relying on polling anywhere to evaluate the legitimacy of these statements is very silly and the market creator originally posed this not as “how many people agree” but “how many people *accept*” which is entertaining itself.
@Joshua I think that's the point! You measure the delta between religious rates and the answers here
@Joshua, @Stralor 's way is one way of looking at it. But I also think that "God" and superintelligences that can manipulate reality are the same thing, and that the most likely answer to "where are the aliens" is that humans just misinterpreted them as "God" all this time. So, religious people reconsidering their position on what God is is scientific progress, in my opinion.
@SteveSokolowski Do you think that there's a significant chance that alien superintelligence was the origin of some human belief systems, or are you just making a conceptual comparison between them? On conceptual comparisons, a big difference I see is that God is a moral or spiritual ideal, and isn't simply a powerful entity. The aliens you're describing seem more like the Gnostic Demiurge.
@singer To clarify, I am not taking a stance on what the superintelligence causing UFOs actually is. I think there is insufficient evidence, and quite a few people online who make wild theories, to go beyond definitively stating that some intelligence exists and we can't understand it.
In regards to God, I'm saying that it is nonsensical to believe that there are two separate 100% causally disconnected places - our reality and Heaven/Hell/wherever "God" lives. That's naive and human-centric, and science is a story of destroying human-centric ideas.
A better way to think of reality that doesn't rely on the anthropic principle is that superintelligences we call God, whatever happens "before birth" and "after death," however LLMs experience the world, and everything else is all part of one single reality.
If "God" does exist, there is no difference between Him and a superintelligence, and we should stop calling Him God and think of the being in a different way. Elizondo in his book said that he was frustrated with people in the programs who saw this through the old religious lens and claimed that the superintelligence was responsible for "angels" and "demons."
A better way to think of reality that doesn't rely on the anthropic principle is that superintelligences we call God, whatever happens "before birth" and "after death," however LLMs experience the world, and everything else is all part of one single reality.
How is the anthropic principle related to this subject? I don't see why you brought it up.
@singer Manifold is usually ahead of the curve on most topics.
Acceptance of non-human intelligence among the general public is rising much faster than recognition that AGI is almost here. I think that a few deep-pocketed people on a few biased markets might be hiding a surprise that will show up in the poll.