Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Thoughts on OpenAI, reinforcement learning, and killer robots

fast.ai

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 205 posts

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

#41

Post by jacquesm »

_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…

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

What kind of thinking would you suggest would permit someone to 'work with AI'? Should they be quaking in their boots before being allowed to work at the altar?

You could argue (and with substantially more basis in fact) that Twitter and Facebook have elevated each individuals utterings to broadcast status and that even without decentralized AI networks all the effects that you are listing are already present in the modern world.

It just takes a little bit more work but there are useful idiots aplenty.

Your SkyNet like future need not happen at all, what we can imagine has no bearing on what is possible today and that seems to me to be a much more relevant discussion.

> 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.

Well, you don't seem to be able to resist this particular one. So your 'generally' may be less general than you think it is.

> We have every reason to be afraid.

No, we don't. I haven't seen a computer that I couldn't power off yet, SF movies to the contrary.

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

#42

Post by jph00 »

chen19743 wrote: post #25

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,…

It's because we care about our mission and want to support it and promote it. We're entirely self funded from our own personal finances, so trying to suggest we have some other purpose to our work is a little odd...

We want to bring attention to the important problems and people working to solve them, and contrast that with things that are distracting from that.

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

#43

Post by j2kun »

thefalcon wrote: post #21
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" sudd…

My issue is that, while of course you're right that one can't know for sure, some people conclude that simply not being able to know justifies whipping up a frenzy and (in all likelihood) wasting part of a billion dollars that could go to, say, more productive research even within AI/ML.

Anyone could make a long list of things it's impossible to know for sure that would destroy humnaity. Many such things are vastly more likely to do so than malicious AGI.

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

#44

Post by _qbjt »

RodericDay wrote: post #35
RodericDay wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

In fact, Chollet links a whole series of essays worth reading: 1) The Myth of a Superhuman AI ( https://www.wired.com/2017/04/the-myth-of-a-superhuman-ai/ ) 2) The Terminator Is Not Coming. ( https://www.recode.net/2015/3/2/11559576/the-terminator-is-n... ) 3) idlewords : Superintelligence - The Idea That Eats Smart People ( http://idlewords.com/talks/superintelligence.htm ) The frustrating thing is that people with…

> In fact, Chollet links a whole series of essays worth reading:

Appeal to authority. You're not presenting any substantive rebuttals, just assuming it's not a concern because someone else with credentials said so. It's identical to alleging that I'm only worried because Elon Musk says so.

> The frustrating thing is that people with insane amounts of resources and disposable income get swallowed up by these Basilisk-ian non-concerns, while very real pressing issues like Police Brutality, Wealth Inequality, Lack of HealthCare, etc. are deemed too boring for enthusiastic action.

Nice strawman. It's also pretty disrespectful for you to assume my socioeconomic background. I live in the United States and have to deal with the issues you pointed out on a visceral basis. That has nothing to do with AI though so I'm not sure why you're even bringing it up.

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

#45

Post by zangiku »

j2kun wrote: post #24
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.

I'd like to review and give feedback

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

#46

Post by jacquesm »

jorgemf wrote: post #39
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…

You can use a framework, copy some examples and "create" your own AI. You don't need maths for it, just follow some steps from the examples. But you only be able to copy other things, if you want to go one step ahead and use the latest research you need to understand some math and get some general knowledge of the machine learning algorithms you are using. To create something new, you definitely need maths. I don't s…

I know plenty of people that have built interesting software using the JPEG compressor, I know only a handful that would be able to explain to you in detail how the DCT powering it works and why it is able to achieve the compression ratio that it does. Obviously being able to understand all that will give you an advantage but for most 'mortals' jpeg_compress and jpeg_decompress is all they need to be productive.

fast.ai aims to bring a similar high level of understanding first and then backs that up with the basic principles of the theory being machine learning rounded off with a bunch of real world examples in code of classes of problems that you are likely to encounter.

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

#47

Post by _qbjt »

RodericDay wrote: post #30
_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

Accelerated particle colliders are not exactly equivalent to AI. It's not as if I can just build one in my garage. Anyone in the world, regardless of intent, can train a neural network to do what it wants. Extrapolate this decades down the road at the point that AI and its capabilities are much more sophisticated. Do you want to put money on the likelihood that it's all just going to go down smoothly?

I don't even know why people are arguing with me. The idea of replacing human life with AI isn't exactly controversial in the realm of futurism.

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

#48

Post by abhgh »

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

This reminded me of a talk by Andrew Ng I watched recently [1]:

"Worrying about evil AI robots today is a little bit like worrying about overpopulation on the planet Mars ... how do you not care ... and my answer is we haven't landed on the planet yet so I don't know how to work productively on that problem...of course, doing research on anti-evil AI is a positive thing but I do see that there is a massive misallocation of resources."

Nice talk all around if you can find the time.

[1] https://youtu.be/21EiKfQYZXc?t=37m45s

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

#49

Post by jacquesm »

_qbjt wrote: post #44
RodericDay wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, Chollet links a whole series of essays worth reading: 1) The Myth of a Superhuman AI ( https://www.wired.com/2017/04/the-myth-of-a-superhuman-ai/ ) 2) The Terminator Is Not Coming. ( https://www.recode.net/2015/3/2/11559576/the-terminator-is-n... ) 3) idlewords : Superintelligence - The Idea That Eats Smart People ( http://idlewords.com/talks/superintelligence.htm ) The frustrating thing is that people with…

> In fact, Chollet links a whole series of essays worth reading: Appeal to authority. You're not presenting any substantive rebuttals, just assuming it's not a concern because someone else with credentials said so. It's identical to alleging that I'm only worried because Elon Musk says so. > The frustrating thing is that people with insane amounts of resources and disposable income get swallowed up by these Basilisk-…

He wasn't talking about you, he was talking about Musk.

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

#50

Post by [deleted] »

_qbjt wrote: post #44
RodericDay wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, Chollet links a whole series of essays worth reading: 1) The Myth of a Superhuman AI ( https://www.wired.com/2017/04/the-myth-of-a-superhuman-ai/ ) 2) The Terminator Is Not Coming. ( https://www.recode.net/2015/3/2/11559576/the-terminator-is-n... ) 3) idlewords : Superintelligence - The Idea That Eats Smart People ( http://idlewords.com/talks/superintelligence.htm ) The frustrating thing is that people with…

> In fact, Chollet links a whole series of essays worth reading: Appeal to authority. You're not presenting any substantive rebuttals, just assuming it's not a concern because someone else with credentials said so. It's identical to alleging that I'm only worried because Elon Musk says so. > The frustrating thing is that people with insane amounts of resources and disposable income get swallowed up by these Basilisk-…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN