Anybody knows if there is any chance of OpenAI sponsoring H1B visas?
I love the idea but being in Europe my options for doing serious AI research outside of academia seem pretty much limited to Google and Facebook.
Introducing OpenAI
281–290 of 392 posts
Re: Introducing OpenAI
#282Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're right, guns are pure evil. Clearly, we should take them out of the hands of cops, bodyguards, hunters, and civilians defending themselves.
Ironically, you're absolutely right. Cops, bodyguards and civilians defending themselves generally only need guns because their adversaries have guns. Just take them out of everyone's hands. I know this works, if you can make it happen, because I've seen the gun death statistics for countries with effective gun control. Hunters are a different case, but their weapons are rather different too. To be honest I wouldn't…
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Re: Introducing OpenAI
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
Powerful AI has already caused mayhem in the human world: http://www.wired.com/2008/09/six-year-old-st/ You can be malicious and destructive without traditional weapons... perhaps even more so with AI presiding over all our data. I mean we already have AI that answers our emails for us... won't be that long before its slipping things in that we don't notice.
This example of a human error has nothing to do with AI.
It's a small demonstration of the dangers of putting computer programs that do exactly as they are programmed in charge of making important decisions.
Let's say we program an AI and get one little detail wrong and things go to hell as a result. We can call that "human error" or "AI error" but either way it's a reason for caution.
I am actually somewhat concerned by this OpenAI project, and here's why. Let's say there's going to be some kind of "first mover advantage" where the first nation to build an AI that's sufficiently smart has the possibility to neuter the attempts being made by other nations. If there's a first mover advantage, we don't want a close arms race, because then each team will be incentivized to cut corners in order to be the first mover. Let's say international tensions happen to be high around this time and nations race to put anything in to production in order to be the first.
The issue with something like OpenAI is that increasing the common stock of public AI knowledge leaves arms race participants closer to one another, which means a more heated race.
And if there's no first mover advantage, that's basically the scenario where AI was never going to be an issue to begin with. So it makes sense to focus on preparing for the more dangerous possibility that there is a first mover advantage.
Re: Introducing OpenAI
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not the same guy, but I'd like to answer: Familiar, that's how it feels. I'm confident that I'm right about the other matter, and subjects are related, so I'm not bothered.
I don't think openai was formed to concentrate on neural networks, and I think we can assume the members are well aware of the limitations of neural nets. I just don't understand the folks that are so confident that strong AI is either not possible, or not achievable within our lifetimes. If you're in the camp that thinks it's not possible, then you must ascribe some sort of magical or spiritual significance to the h…
I ascribe spiritual significance to the mind (not the brain).
If consciousness is more than a mere product of brain's functioning, Strong AI does not have to be beyond the horizon.
Re: Introducing OpenAI
#285This 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…
> But data data data, that could turn out to be very valuable.
Yes, but data also can be collected openly collectively, in the spirit of Wikipedia or OpenStreetMaps etc.
What I think OpenAI should encourage is the development of algorithms that can be used to crowdsource AI. I don't think there are good algorithms yet for model merging, but I would be gladly proven wrong.
Re: Introducing OpenAI
#286 If I develop any advance AI I will use it for my own wellbeing, perhaps to live longer and obtain a higher finantial status and fullfill some of my dreams. Then I would develop a shield to protect myself and the AI from big corporations and to retain the advantage I got. Perhaps I would try to make Mars a paradise to live in my a thousand year old life, and find or design a partner for that long period. Let the machine create the dream.
Re: Introducing OpenAI
#287Earlier 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?
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 consid…
"Andrew Ng (I believe) compared worrying about evil AI to worrying about overpopulation on Mars."
Berkeley AI prof Stuart Russell's response goes something like: Let's say that in the same way Silicon Valley companies are pouring money in to advancing AI, the nations of the world were pouring money in to sending people to Mars. But the world's nations aren't spending any money on critical questions like what people are going to eat & breathe once they get there.
Or if you look at global warming, it would have been nice if people realized it was going to be a problem and started working on it much earlier than we did.
Re: Introducing OpenAI
#288If I develop any advance AI I will use it for my own wellbeing, perhaps to live longer and obtain a higher finantial status and fullfill some of my dreams. Then I would develop a shield to protect myself and the AI from big corporations and to retain the advantage I got. Perhaps I would try to make Mars a paradise to live in my a thousand year old life, and find or design a partner for that long period. Let the machi…
The first and main test for an advanced AI is to be able to provide its creator with a big sum of money in a sustainable way. Why would anyone wish to share such a useful technology? What I think should be handy is to find experts or partners for protecting the research with strong closed walls, a womb for the baby AI device to grow up aimed to take over the world of business to get the necessary resources, probably in a creeply way, to full expand itself and provide his creator with the best reward you could imagine.
Re: Introducing OpenAI
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
Physics. You're right that ecosystems are brutal. That's exactly why I'm not worried about AI as an existential threat to humanity. A few years back Bill Joy was sounding the alarm on nanotechnology. He sounded a lot like Elon Musk does today. Nanobots could be a run-away technology that would reduce the world to "grey goo". But nothing like that will ever happen. The world is already awash in nanobots. We call them…
Advanced nanotechnology is not the only possible way to achieve power: http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/07/no-physical-substrate-n...
great read. thanks for that.
Re: Introducing OpenAI
#290> Musk: I think the best defense against the misuse of AI is to empower as many people as possible to have AI. If everyone has AI powers, then there’s not any one person or a small set of individuals who can have AI superpower. In a sense, we have no other defense. AI is just math and code, and I know of no way to distinguish good linear algebra from evil linear algebra. The barriers to putting that math and code tog…
> If you take the quote above, and substitute the word "guns" for "AI", you basically have the NRA, and the NRA is not making the world a safer place. Sorry but this "guns > NRA > bad > evil" thing is getting pretty old. I don't even own a gun and I have trouble making the "gun > bad" connection when there are hundreds of millions of guns in the US. We should have rivers of blood running down every street. We don't.…
It's a commonly held belief that gun violence is linked to mental illness, but it doesn't appear to be true:
http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2014/12/mental-illness-wrong-scap...