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Introducing OpenAI

openai.com

321–330 of 392 posts

Re: Introducing OpenAI

#322
post #32
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.

Humans are really stupid without training too.

However, humans have amazing ability to generalize from a very small number of examples, which is still a very challenging computational task.

Re: Introducing OpenAI

#323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Skynet scenario seems farfetched because we're very far off from that kind of AI. But on the chance that some day we do reach that level of advancement, even if it's 100 or 500 years, can't hurt to prepare, right? Better to waste time preparing unnecessarily than to face destruction from improper planning.

Yes, it can definitely hurt to prepare, if you're wasting resources. Try proposing that we prepare for an alien invasion, and you'll be laughed out of the room.

The difference is we know we will eventually achieve AGI while we have absolutely zero reason to expect an alien invasion.

Re: Introducing OpenAI

#324
post #262

Earlier 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...

Yeah, interesting. I'll just point out that my argument is not that AI can't affect the physical world. Clearly it can. It's that AI is still embodied in the physical world, and still subject to the laws of physics. We're so much more efficient and effective in the physical world, that we are not threatened by AI, even if it gets much more intelligent than it is today.

Re: Introducing OpenAI

#325
post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The risks of things like rogue drones made from cheap commodity hardware, which might be sensible as well … In Prof. Tegmark’s recent presentation at the UN he mentioned the possibility of extremely cheap drones that approach the victim's face very quickly and pierce a bolt into their brain through one of their eyes. Such a drone wouldn't require high precision projectiles which would make it cheap to build. > Of c…

> extremely cheap drones that approach the victim's face very quickly and pierce a bolt into their brain It's not much more of a threat to society than a handgun. A WMD it is not, unless you make a lot of these and launch them at the same time, which is probably less effective than an H-bomb. (The one major difference between such a drone and a handgun is you might be able to target politicians and other people who'r…

> It's not much more of a threat to society than a handgun.

These drones could be programmed to target specific groups of people, for example of a certain ethnicity, and attack them almost autonomously. Short range slingshot mechanisms are several orders of magnitude cheaper to build than firearms. Moreover, the inhibition threshold is much lower if you are not involved in first-hand violence. There is also a much lower risk of getting busted and no need for intricate escape planning.

Re: Introducing OpenAI

#327
In the spirit of openness, it would be great to see public responses to the downsides of this approach.

In particular, Bostrom Ch5.1 argues that the lead project is more likely than not to get a decisive strategic advantage, leading to a winner-takes-all scenario, which would mean attempts to foster a multipolar scenario (i.e. lots of similarly powerful AGIs rather than one) are unlikely to work.

In Ch11 he explores whether multipolar scenarios are likely to be good or bad, and presents many reasons to think they're going to be bad. So promoting the multipolar approach could be both very hard, and bad.

Re: Introducing OpenAI

#328
post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> extremely cheap drones that approach the victim's face very quickly and pierce a bolt into their brain It's not much more of a threat to society than a handgun. A WMD it is not, unless you make a lot of these and launch them at the same time, which is probably less effective than an H-bomb. (The one major difference between such a drone and a handgun is you might be able to target politicians and other people who'r…

> It's not much more of a threat to society than a handgun. These drones could be programmed to target specific groups of people, for example of a certain ethnicity, and attack them almost autonomously. Short range slingshot mechanisms are several orders of magnitude cheaper to build than firearms. Moreover, the inhibition threshold is much lower if you are not involved in first-hand violence. There is also a much lo…

>Short range slingshot mechanisms

you got me thinking, googling, then frowning. imagine this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crzXD6NjBAE milspecced.

Re: Introducing OpenAI

#329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets start by figuring out how to control humans before we start on the AIs.

Actually, unlike controlling humans, whatever that means, it's very easy to limit the impact of AI - all you have to do is treat advanced chip fabrication processes the way nuclear technology is treated, and put a legal limit on processor power so it's somewhere where it was in the late 80s. (So you have office software and email but neither YouTube nor Doom 3; a reasonable price for our survival, I find.) Fewer orga…

>all you have to do is treat advanced chip fabrication processes the way nuclear technology is treated, and put a legal limit on processor power so it's somewhere where it was in the late 80s.

Are you a villain in a Vernor Vinge novel?

I may not like the numbers you're crunching, but I will defend to the death your right to crunch them.

Re: Introducing OpenAI

#330
post #150

> 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 he believes in the potential harm of AI, then supporting its widespread use doesn't seem logical. 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. Guns are not exactly good at healing, making or creating. A better comparison would be knives. Knives can be used for stabbing and killing but also for sustenance (cook…

>and the NRA is not making the world a safer place.

There is actually very little evidence for this. Violent crime is not strongly correlated with gun ownership (and it may even be negatively correlated). Instead, it appears to be based strongly on factors like poverty.

Here's a good summary. http://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/613/gun-prevalen...

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