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Open Philanthropy Project awards a grant of $30M to OpenAI

openphilanthropy.org

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Re: Open Philanthropy Project awards a grant of $30M to OpenAI

#11

Post by seagreen »

" When OpenAI launched, it characterized the nature of the risks - and the most appropriate strategies for reducing them - in a way that we disagreed with. In particular, it emphasized the importance of distributing AI broadly; our current view is that this may turn out to be a promising strategy for reducing potential risks, but that the opposite may also turn out to be true (for example, if it ends up being important for institutions to keep some major breakthroughs secure to prevent misuse and/or to prevent accidents). Since then, OpenAI has put out more recent content consistent with the latter view, and we are no longer aware of any clear disagreements. "

Really, really happy to see this being carefully considered. Good job to the Open Philanthropy folks!

EDIT: That Slate Star link is amazing: "Both sides here keep talking about who is going to “use” the superhuman intelligence a billion times more powerful than humanity, as if it were a microwave or something."

Re: Open Philanthropy Project awards a grant of $30M to OpenAI

#12

Post by curiousgal »

mankash666 wrote: post #8
acgourley wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you disagree with any research looking to prevent existential risk to our species, or do you believe AI cannot become an existential risk?

I think existential risks to our species of much higher magnitude exist today. Climate change and pollution for instance. I think a "possible existential threat in the future" is a weaker case for philanthropy than existing ones.

Both of those issue cannot be solved by throwing money at them, especially the first. It requires political forces.

Then again, the money could be used to buy politicians' votes in favor of environment-friendly policies. It's so blatant in the U.S. these days.

Re: Open Philanthropy Project awards a grant of $30M to OpenAI

#14

Post by [deleted] »

davmre wrote: post #7
mankash666 wrote: post #3

I think there are more important causes than "reducing potential risks from advanced AI". Honest to god, $30M will go a long way in saving lives TODAY. Flint, MI anyone?

There are always going to be more important causes, under any particular person's view of "more important", which depends very strongly on both subjective values and (in the case of AI alignment work) on precise probabilities of far-future outcomes. A dollar given to the Against Malaria Foundation will do a lot more good, in QALY terms, than the same dollar spent in Flint. And both dollars will do more (direct) good…

[deleted]

Re: Open Philanthropy Project awards a grant of $30M to OpenAI

#15

Post by rl3 »

mankash666 wrote: post #3

I think there are more important causes than "reducing potential risks from advanced AI". Honest to god, $30M will go a long way in saving lives TODAY. Flint, MI anyone?

>I think there are more important causes than "reducing potential risks from advanced AI". Honest to god, $30M will go a long way in saving lives TODAY.

If the intelligence explosion hypothesis proves true even 100 years from now, it will have the potential to decide the fate of humanity.

Given the stakes, beginning foundational research as early as possible is prudent. $30M in the grand scheme of things isn't much at all. If you were to express that amount as a fraction of the planet's total wealth, it would amount to something utterly infinitesimal​​. Yet, the potential payoffs are immeasurable.

Philanthropy and research isn't some crude single-threaded triage process. The timescales involved, combined with the fact you can't just throw money at some problems demands a diverse approach that pursues many ends in parallel.

Re: Open Philanthropy Project awards a grant of $30M to OpenAI

#16

Post by rspeer »

rl3 wrote: post #15
mankash666 wrote: post #3

I think there are more important causes than "reducing potential risks from advanced AI". Honest to god, $30M will go a long way in saving lives TODAY. Flint, MI anyone?

> I think there are more important causes than "reducing potential risks from advanced AI". Honest to god, $30M will go a long way in saving lives TODAY. If the intelligence explosion hypothesis proves true even 100 years from now, it will have the potential to decide the fate of humanity. Given the stakes, beginning foundational research as early as possible is prudent. $30M in the grand scheme of things isn't much…

That's Pascal's Wager.

What makes you think that OpenAI is doing anything that has any meaningful impact on AGI? We have no idea what AGI looks like.

Re: Open Philanthropy Project awards a grant of $30M to OpenAI

#17

Post by rspeer »

arikr wrote: post #6
mankash666 wrote: post #3

I think there are more important causes than "reducing potential risks from advanced AI". Honest to god, $30M will go a long way in saving lives TODAY. Flint, MI anyone?

It's about expected value. A 0.0001% chance of reducing an extreme risk will have a very high expected value.

You can justify lots of things with Pascal's wager, but most of them are religions.

Re: Open Philanthropy Project awards a grant of $30M to OpenAI

#18

Post by rspeer »

vpontis wrote: post #2

That's awesome! Open Philanthropy reminds me of https://80000hours.org/ . In their relationship disclosure: > OpenAI researchers Dario Amodei and Paul Christiano are both technical advisors to Open Philanthropy and live in the same house as Holden. In addition, Holden is engaged to Dario’s sister Daniela. This is so tangled. I don't mean it as a criticism as I'm sure a lot of SV investments would have a much longer R…

Well, I would use it as a criticism. This is a tangled web of like-minded people giving money to each other and calling it charity.

Some people conflate this with Effective Altruism, which I think sucks. Compared to the rigorous work done by GiveWell, there's no way to tell if this is effective, or even altruistic.

It's just people assuming that the world will be a better place if more people who think like them have money, an assumption held by basically everyone everywhere.

Re: Open Philanthropy Project awards a grant of $30M to OpenAI

#19

Post by acgourley »

rspeer wrote: post #16
rl3 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think there are more important causes than "reducing potential risks from advanced AI". Honest to god, $30M will go a long way in saving lives TODAY. If the intelligence explosion hypothesis proves true even 100 years from now, it will have the potential to decide the fate of humanity. Given the stakes, beginning foundational research as early as possible is prudent. $30M in the grand scheme of things isn't much…

That's Pascal's Wager. What makes you think that OpenAI is doing anything that has any meaningful impact on AGI? We have no idea what AGI looks like.

You've brought up Pascal's Wager twice in this thread, as if it really can end an argument by itself. Just because you don't like what high impact / low probability EV calculations do in Theology doesn't mean you can wave away high impact / low probability EV calculations in other domains.

Re: Open Philanthropy Project awards a grant of $30M to OpenAI

#20

Post by bermanoid »

rspeer wrote: post #16
rl3 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think there are more important causes than "reducing potential risks from advanced AI". Honest to god, $30M will go a long way in saving lives TODAY. If the intelligence explosion hypothesis proves true even 100 years from now, it will have the potential to decide the fate of humanity. Given the stakes, beginning foundational research as early as possible is prudent. $30M in the grand scheme of things isn't much…

That's Pascal's Wager. What makes you think that OpenAI is doing anything that has any meaningful impact on AGI? We have no idea what AGI looks like.

Many people's estimate of the probability-weighted impact OpenAI will have is much greater than anything that I'd ever call a Pascal's Wager. You may disagree, but a lot of us actually have our expectations somewhat quantified and grounded, which is very different from the argument as applied to religion.

Personally, I think there's a greater than 10% chance that we'll see AGI that definitively surpasses human ability within the next 50-100 years (growing a lot higher as we get near/past 100). And given what's coming out this early on with minimal funding, I expect that the work that OpenAI does in the near future will have at least a 10% chance of strongly influencing the direction of that AGI work during the critical turning points. A 1% or more chance of their work mattering a lot is plain old betting-on-a-black-swan territory, not Pascal's Wager.

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