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Thoughts on OpenAI, reinforcement learning, and killer robots

fast.ai

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Re: Thoughts on OpenAI, reinforcement learning, and killer robots

#21

Post by thefalcon »

jorblumesea wrote: post #4

> Cracking AGI is a very long-term goal. Is this fair to say? I feel like advancements in the field happened far quicker than anyone expected, and every few years we are reevaluating timelines. Especially given the research happening in tandem that will almost certainly speed up AGI, like graphene, quantum computing, advanced GPU design... If you asked someone 10 years ago about the possibilities of ML/Deep learning…

I believe it is unfair (and unwise?) to throw in modifiers such as "very long-term" in the quoted sentence, or "very distant" in:

> It is hard for me to empathize with Musk’s fixation on evil super-intelligent AGI killer robots in a very distant future.

The truth is we don't know, (we can't know,) and we (on the whole) are making enormous strides. And it could take one small breakthrough to find ourselves "very" suddenly on the precipice of AGI and evil super-intelligent killer robots. Dismissing the current state of progress as trying to beat Atari is silly.

I, for one, am glad that some people with the resources are taking some efforts to get ahead of that "evil" aspect. But I don't see this as an "us" vs "them" scenario: it's also great that there are people helping make neural net algorithms more accessible.

Re: Thoughts on OpenAI, reinforcement learning, and killer robots

#22

Post by jph00 »

toisanji wrote: post #9

it sounds like people who don't work with machine learning asked that question. People who do work with machine learning should see the difference. Besides what is mentioned in the blog post, OpenAI is a research effort for moving start of the art, while fast.ai is for teaching students in a non math heavy way.

We also do research and try to move the state of the art. Although we share our results and methods largely through courses rather than academic papers.

Our plan is to teach more material each year, in less time, with less prerequisites, by both curating the best practice techniques and adding our own.

So far we've spent much more time on education than research since that's the highest leverage activity right now (helping create more world class practitioners helps move the field forward). And most of the research is more curation and meta-analysis to figure out what really works in practice.

Re: Thoughts on OpenAI, reinforcement learning, and killer robots

#23

Post by jph00 »

gone35 wrote: post #20

I support research funding at all levels, and have nothing against mostly theoretical research, but is it really the best use of resources to throw $1 billion at reinforcement learning without any similar investments into addressing mass unemployment and wealth inequality (both of which are well-documented to cause political instability), how existing gender and racial biases are being encoded in our algorithms, and…

Absolutely! We'd like to see investment in both. Currently we're just not seeing the investment we think there ought to be in the areas Rachel mentioned, or in application areas around food production, education, medicine, and so forth.

Re: Thoughts on OpenAI, reinforcement learning, and killer robots

#24

Post by j2kun »

Yuioup wrote: post #11

Ok, so I consider myself an above-average programmer, capable of building a standard database driven web applications using the latest du-jour techniques. I suck at Math - I mean I _really_ suck at Math. I can visualize algorithms and data structures and have no problem whipping up programs. I have written a lot of code in my lifetime and have helmed a lot of successful projects as my capacity as lead programmer or a…

I'm working on a book for programmers who want to learn math. I can send you the first few chapters if you're interested, but I'm also interested to hear your thoughts about math in general.

Re: Thoughts on OpenAI, reinforcement learning, and killer robots

#25

Post by chen19743 »

Does anyone else feel this is opertunistic? While I appreciate the online course, why start firing shots at another non-profit? Seems the only realistic answer is to drum up attention.

> One significant difference is that fast.ai has not been funded with $1 billion from Elon Musk to create an elite team of researchers with PhDs from the most impressive schools who publish in the most elite journals. OpenAI, however, has.

Re: Thoughts on OpenAI, reinforcement learning, and killer robots

#26

Post by zackya89 »

Yuioup wrote: post #11

Ok, so I consider myself an above-average programmer, capable of building a standard database driven web applications using the latest du-jour techniques. I suck at Math - I mean I _really_ suck at Math. I can visualize algorithms and data structures and have no problem whipping up programs. I have written a lot of code in my lifetime and have helmed a lot of successful projects as my capacity as lead programmer or a…

As far as i understand it, you dont have be math wiz, but have good grasp of the more common statistical analysis, regression etc..

Re: Thoughts on OpenAI, reinforcement learning, and killer robots

#27

Post by stale2002 »

jacquesm wrote: post #18
jph00 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't make specific time predictions because it's just not possible. But we can make relative predictions. However long it takes to get to AGI, when we're (say) half way there, the amount of societal upheaval will be enormous. If we can't navigate that successfully, we'll never get to see AGI...

> when we're (say) half way there, the amount of societal upheaval will be enormous. I had a conversation with a C level exec of a large company last week around this theme. My suggestion that limited AI such as self driving cars has the potential to create a vast number of extremely frustrated individuals making a second round of 'Sabotage' and Luddites a definite possibility was waved away as if those people don't…

If self driving cars/trucks become a thing, and cause millions of people to be unemployed, there is ALSO a correspondingly massive economy increase.

IE, the world is now massively richer because of all this awesome new technology.

Yes, there could be some short term disruption, but honestly I think things will end up fine, just because of the massive amount of extra money and wealth that the world will have that could be used to solve all those short term problems that disruption causes.

Re: Thoughts on OpenAI, reinforcement learning, and killer robots

#28

Post by _qbjt »

> It is hard for me to empathize with Musk’s fixation on evil super-intelligent AGI killer robots in a very distant future.

I would argue this person has no business working with AI with this sort of myopic thinking.

If you think "fake news" is a problem now, just wait until decentralized AI networks are able to tweet, publish articles and affect public discourse in a way that is indistinguishable from human influence. This AI could be trained such that it pushes targeted propaganda and is able to destroy the lives of dissidents using a variety of tactics (generation of fake audio and video material that is indistinguishable from real life targets for the purpose of slander [1][2] as well as other techniques like DDOS, hacking, etc).

Now imagine a world in which all devices are connected in an "Internet of Things" and AI becomes sophisticated enough to exploit these networks and turn them against humans. This has wide ranging implications from surveillance to killing people by hijacking the computer systems in cars to even taking control of military weapon systems that can be used to control and oppress humans.

Now take all of that functionality and embed it within an actual robot that can move around in the real world and is physically stronger than humans [3].

There is nothing that can be done about this because non-proliferation treaties are impossible to enforce due to the nature of software. AI is going to lead to the extinction of all human life on this planet and this is coming from someone who generally disregards conspiracy theories as paranoid fear mongering. We have every reason to be afraid.

[1] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/11/adobe...

[2] https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/12/15957844/ai-fake-video-au...

[3] http://mashable.com/2014/01/12/robotic-muscle/

Re: Thoughts on OpenAI, reinforcement learning, and killer robots

#29

Post by jph00 »

stale2002 wrote: post #27
jacquesm wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when we're (say) half way there, the amount of societal upheaval will be enormous. I had a conversation with a C level exec of a large company last week around this theme. My suggestion that limited AI such as self driving cars has the potential to create a vast number of extremely frustrated individuals making a second round of 'Sabotage' and Luddites a definite possibility was waved away as if those people don't…

If self driving cars/trucks become a thing, and cause millions of people to be unemployed, there is ALSO a correspondingly massive economy increase. IE, the world is now massively richer because of all this awesome new technology. Yes, there could be some short term disruption, but honestly I think things will end up fine, just because of the massive amount of extra money and wealth that the world will have that coul…

That's not how things have generally worked out in the world. Billions live in abject poverty even although the world has plenty enough to feed them and provide shelter.

The issue is income distribution - and just making more money doesn't magically fix the problem.

Re: Thoughts on OpenAI, reinforcement learning, and killer robots

#30

Post by RodericDay »

_qbjt wrote: post #28

> It is hard for me to empathize with Musk’s fixation on evil super-intelligent AGI killer robots in a very distant future. I would argue this person has no business working with AI with this sort of myopic thinking. If you think "fake news" is a problem now, just wait until decentralized AI networks are able to tweet, publish articles and affect public discourse in a way that is indistinguishable from human influenc…

You're just awed by Musk and can't see how ridiculous what he's saying really is.

François Chollet nailed it with the following comparison, mocking LHC alarmists:

> It's not that turning on the LHC will create a black hole that will swallow the Earth. But it could! Albeit no physicist thought so.

https://twitter.com/fchollet/status/891033876415397888

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