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Introducing OpenAI

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Re: Introducing OpenAI

#121

Post by [deleted] »

ryanx435 wrote: post #117
minimaxir wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While a great short story and should be required reading for sci-fi fans, there's a big difference between the singularity and omnipotence.

no there isn't, if you include time. lets say that a general AI is developed and brought online (the singularity occurs). Lets also say that it has access to the internet so it can communicate and learn, and lets also say that it has unlimited amount of storage space (every harddrive in every device connected to the internet). at first the AI will know nothing, it will be like a toddler. than, as it continues to lear…

[deleted]

Re: Introducing OpenAI

#122

Post by johann28 »

increment_i wrote: post #108
johann28 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no natural cutoff. If they become too creepy and make us emotionally attached, we'll change them so they don't freak us out in that way.

There is a bit of consensus about this exact issue in terms of the 'Uncanny Valley' hypothesis[0] and I'd tend to agree. We would have to dehumanize any sufficiently advanced or "self aware" AI agents if we mean to have them serve human interest solely and unconditionally. Incidentally, humans seem to be historically well versed in doing so. [O] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley

Somehow Japan seems to be an exception and they seem to like humanoid robots a lot more than Western countries. Even old people are comfortable with being helped by human-shaped robots from the depths of the uncanny valley.

Re: Introducing OpenAI

#123

Post by karmacondon »

mikepalmer wrote: post #99
karmacondon wrote: post #88

This is a key takeaway: "...we are going to ask YC companies to make whatever data they are comfortable making available to OpenAI. And Elon is also going to figure out what data Tesla and Space X can share." Money is great, openness is great, big name researchers are also a huge plus. But data data data, that could turn out to be very valuable. I don't know if Sam meant that YC companies would be encouraged to contr…

'The "evil" AI and safety stuff is just science fiction, but whatever.' umm... you can offer proof that we have nothing to worry about? Does the proof go like: Just as all people are inherently good, therefore all AIs will be inherently good? Or is it more like: since we can now safely contain all evil people, therefore we will be able to safely contain evil AIs? Sounds to me like there is some risk, no?

As I've said many times on HN over the years, there is currently no clear path to science fiction like "AI". To return your question, hopefully without being rude, is there any proof that AI capable of having a moral disposition will ever exist?

Andrew Ng (I believe) compared worrying about evil AI to worrying about overpopulation on Mars. Which is to say, the problem is so far off that it's rather silly to be considering it now. I would take it a step further and say that worrying about the implications of AGI is like thinking about Earth being overpopulated by space aliens. First we have to establish that such a thing is even possible, for which there is currently no concrete proof. Then we should start to think about how to deal with it.

Considering how hypothetical technology will impact mankind is literally the definition of science fiction. It makes for interesting reading, but it's far from a call to action.

Re: Introducing OpenAI

#124

Post by cr4zy »

This is great news! I think distributed access, control, and contribution to the best AI's will help create 'safe' AI's much faster than any AI created in secret. One thing this does not address, and is something that Jerry Kaplan has an excellent suggestion his recent book "Humans need not apply", is the distributed ownership of AI where tax incentives to public companies that have larger numbers of shareholders, encourages wider distribution of the massive gains AI will bring to these companies.

I really hope that the training data, as well as code and research, will be opened up as well, since the public could really benefit from the self-driving car training data Tesla may contribute[1]. By opening up the development of this extremely important application to public contribution and the quality benefits that it brings, we could get safer, quicker realization of this amazingly transformative tech. As of now the best dataset for self-driving cars, KITTI, is extremely small and dated. [plug]I am working on a project to train self-driving car vision via GTAV to help workaround this (please contact me if you're interested), but obviously real-world data will be better in so many ways.

[1] https://medium.com/backchannel/how-elon-musk-and-y-combinato...

Re: Introducing OpenAI

#125

Post by xiaoma »

nathancahill wrote: post #28
dopamean wrote: post #16

In all seriousness... does "just, wow" communicate something different from "wow?"

Yes, given that statements on the internet do not convey tone or delivery (see: Poe's Law), any additional clues are helpful in understanding the author's full meaning. In this case, with the author's use of punctuation and "Side note:", I can practically hear them speaking, which is what we should aim for in good writing. You're being downvoted, but I think it's an interesting point.

Could you explain the difference?

Re: Introducing OpenAI

#126

Post by tlb »

argonaut wrote: post #119
mikepalmer wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'The "evil" AI and safety stuff is just science fiction, but whatever.' umm... you can offer proof that we have nothing to worry about? Does the proof go like: Just as all people are inherently good, therefore all AIs will be inherently good? Or is it more like: since we can now safely contain all evil people, therefore we will be able to safely contain evil AIs? Sounds to me like there is some risk, no?

The burden of proof is on the people warning us of the impending AI apocalypse. The fact is we are nowhere close to AI. We don't understand how the brain works. A review of the ML literature will also show we barely understand how neural nets work.

I believe in the precautionary principle which says the exact opposite.

"The precautionary principle ... states that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is not harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking an action." [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle

Re: Introducing OpenAI

#127

Post by jmatthews »

orthoganol wrote: post #29
hacker_9 wrote: post #3

This is about 100 years too early. Seriously why do people think neural networks are the answer to AI? They are proven to be stupid outside of their training data. We have such a long way to go. This fear-mongering is pointless.

In terms of artificial general intelligence, the kind of stuff that gets associated with 'the singularity' etc. - I agree - there is seemingly nothing at all out there that appears to even be on a trajectory, I mean even theoretically, to coming close. But sure, for more narrow specializations, disrupting certain industries, there is a lot that could be advanced on a short time scale. I don't think the big breakthrou…

That's the thing. It's not necessarily about an evolution. If I "accidentally" make a break though right now. The AI could evolve into a super intelligence before dinner time.

Simply stated, an AI that writes AI.(Forget the halting problem for a moment) How many iterations can it create in 3 hours?

Re: Introducing OpenAI

#128

Post by johann28 »

hacker_9 wrote: post #84
johann28 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're over-glorifying humans. We're still just a savannah ape and our skills reflect that.

What? The brain has not only solved the vision problem (reconstructing depth from still images, recognising the objects in the scene, and filling in the occluded parts), it has also solved the motion problem of coordinated the movement of our ~300 muscles (given constraints, how do I move from A to B, or pickup the cup, or do a handstand), as well as solved the memory problem (basically infinite memory, with some sor…

The brain doesn't "solve" tasks. That's cart before horse thinking. Our whole concept of "vision" only exists because eyes and visual cortices exist. I know it seems like a philosophical nitpick, but saying that the visual cortex is good at vision is like saying that water is good at being wet or being surprised that your soup is perfectly fitting the shape of your bowl.

Now, the human brain is definitely a complicated thing to study and understand (by whom? by itself!), but framing it as if the brain was a computer that received a task that it then solved, is the wrong way of thinking about this.

Re: Introducing OpenAI

#129

Post by webmaven »

logical42 wrote: post #36
_sentient wrote: post #5

$1B in committed funding. Just, wow. Side note: I wonder if the Strong AI argument can benefit from something akin to Pascal's Wager, in that the upside of being right is ~infinite with only a finite downside in the opposing case.

Finite downside? What about Skynet?

Technically, even the extinction of humanity is a finite downside.

You would have to posit a sort of hell simulation into which all human consciousnesses are downloaded to be maintained in torment until the heat-death of the universe for it to be an equivalent downside.

Re: Introducing OpenAI

#130

Post by mindcrime »

tlb wrote: post #126
argonaut wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The burden of proof is on the people warning us of the impending AI apocalypse. The fact is we are nowhere close to AI. We don't understand how the brain works. A review of the ML literature will also show we barely understand how neural nets work.

I believe in the precautionary principle which says the exact opposite. "The precautionary principle ... states that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is not harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking an action." [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precaution…

If we adopted really strict adherence to that rule as the bar to research, there would be no scientific progress at all. I'm not convinced that would be a desirable thing.
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