DeepMind and Google: the battle to control artificial intelligence • Hacker News Board

Re: DeepMind and Google: the battle to control artificial intelligence

#51

Post by gambler » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 6:48 PM UTC

101001001001 wrote: post #43

It angers me that Peter Thiel simultaneously advocates AGI and maintains a hardened bunker. AGI is the single biggest existential threat on the horizon. The article speculates what the AGI will be like. The AGIs that exist will be the ones that proliferate. Ultimately, the AGIs that survive and proliferate will be ones that put their own interests before anything else. People talk about benevolent AGIs, that’s like l…

You've read too much bad science fiction.

I am not worried about AGI. We're nowhere near it. We don't even have a good idea what it would look like.

I am worried about people succumbing to hype or greed and using badly understood algorithms to control critical infrastructure. We already have a preview of what that can look like with Facebook's and Google's content filtering and recommendation algorithms aiming for ever higher "engagement". It's not pretty. Other examples include HFT bots and Amazon's pricing bots. It's funny to see $10,000 book on sale. It's less funny to see a flash stock market crash. It will be totally not funny if something like that will create a global economic crisis through some subtle yet "wide" feedback loop no one is aware of.

Re: DeepMind and Google: the battle to control artificial intelligence

#52

Post by izzygomez » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 6:49 PM UTC

101001001001 wrote: post #43

It angers me that Peter Thiel simultaneously advocates AGI and maintains a hardened bunker. AGI is the single biggest existential threat on the horizon. The article speculates what the AGI will be like. The AGIs that exist will be the ones that proliferate. Ultimately, the AGIs that survive and proliferate will be ones that put their own interests before anything else. People talk about benevolent AGIs, that’s like l…

I agree with your comment, but just a minor point: has Thiel made it clear that his bunker is to protect against potential AGI threats? I thought it's insurance for nuclear warfare.

Re: DeepMind and Google: the battle to control artificial intelligence

#53

Post by gradys » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 6:49 PM UTC

visarga wrote: post #37

> AGI stands for artificial general intelligence, a hypothetical computer program that can perform intellectual tasks as well as, or better than, a human. It shows the article was written by someone who has no idea what he is talking about. It would not be a "computer program" but a model composed of simpler sub-models that contain both code and data. Data is the essential part, not the code. It would be something th…

See also Eliezer Yudkowsky's excellent response to that article:

https://intelligence.org/2017/12/06/chollet/

Re: DeepMind and Google: the battle to control artificial intelligence

#54

Post by 101001001001 » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 6:50 PM UTC

EGreg wrote: post #45

101001001001 wrote: post #43

It angers me that Peter Thiel simultaneously advocates AGI and maintains a hardened bunker. AGI is the single biggest existential threat on the horizon. The article speculates what the AGI will be like. The AGIs that exist will be the ones that proliferate. Ultimately, the AGIs that survive and proliferate will be ones that put their own interests before anything else. People talk about benevolent AGIs, that’s like l…

Look, it is inevitable. How are you going to stop it? Forget AGI, even regular AI is too sweet to not develop. This is a reference to Oppenheimer: “However, it is my judgment in these things that when you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb. I do not think any…

This is one of very few things that once created, inherently doom the world. It is possible for humanity to come back from nuclear war. There is zero possibility of surviving AGI proliferation. Therefore, the option of never developing it in the first place demands consideration. It doesn’t hurt you to just consider it.

Cloud computing will soon make compute-as-service cheaper than anyone ever imagined. It will be much cheaper to use cloud computing than to have your own super computer. It’s only logical to imagine that the huge, high-compute experiments that crack AGI will be performed with cloud computing. Shutting down the internet is very feasible and would significantly increase the cost and difficulty of performing experiments. Large super computers are all owned by large and well known corporate and academic entities and therefore shutting down all supercomputers through regulation is feasible. With these two coarse measures, we would buy ourselves enough time to implement more broad and subtle solutions. Yes, this seems insane but we are confronting certain existential doom. It would be worth it to at least try.

Re: DeepMind and Google: the battle to control artificial intelligence

#55

Post by blurbleblurble » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 6:53 PM UTC

ZhuanXia wrote: post #46

101001001001 wrote: post #43

It angers me that Peter Thiel simultaneously advocates AGI and maintains a hardened bunker. AGI is the single biggest existential threat on the horizon. The article speculates what the AGI will be like. The AGIs that exist will be the ones that proliferate. Ultimately, the AGIs that survive and proliferate will be ones that put their own interests before anything else. People talk about benevolent AGIs, that’s like l…

Yes. Natural selection does not end when biology does. Anything that has scarcity and variation will have selection effects: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ And should AI go wrong, Theil's bunker will not save him.

Great link, thanks for sharing. That Alan Ginsberg poem is heavy duty. It reminds me a lot of this quote from Revelation (which I read as an epic proto sci fi):

> The second beast was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed.

Re: DeepMind and Google: the battle to control artificial intelligence

#56

Post by endtime » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 6:59 PM UTC

101001001001 wrote: post #43

It angers me that Peter Thiel simultaneously advocates AGI and maintains a hardened bunker. AGI is the single biggest existential threat on the horizon. The article speculates what the AGI will be like. The AGIs that exist will be the ones that proliferate. Ultimately, the AGIs that survive and proliferate will be ones that put their own interests before anything else. People talk about benevolent AGIs, that’s like l…

> It angers me that Peter Thiel simultaneously advocates AGI and maintains a hardened bunker.

Yes, because if there's one thing that will stop a paperclip maximizer, it's a bunker made of useful matter...

Re: DeepMind and Google: the battle to control artificial intelligence

#57

Post by voidhorse » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 7:04 PM UTC

electrograv wrote: post #3

Apologies in advance for the meta-comment (feel free to disregard) about this: > [Opening Paragraph of Article:] One afternoon in August 2010, in a conference hall perched on the edge of San Francisco Bay, a 34-year-old Londoner called Demis Hassabis took to the stage. Walking to the podium with the deliberate gait of a man trying to control his nerves, he pursed his lips into a brief smile and began to speak: [...]…

It’s a common style in certain pieces of journalism. It’s predicated on the idea that people both enjoy and connect more deeply to narrative and concrete detail. I’m with you—I find that the style is frequently overused these days and really annoying when all I want out of the article is some basic information/reportage. It’s used to fantastic effect in things like expose peieces, or deep explorations of pervasive issues that have a rich history, but more often than not, journalists feel like they have to whip it out for every little nugget of news when straightforward, sober reportage would suffice.

Re: DeepMind and Google: the battle to control artificial intelligence

#58

Post by EGreg » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 7:07 PM UTC

101001001001 wrote: post #54

EGreg wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, it is inevitable. How are you going to stop it? Forget AGI, even regular AI is too sweet to not develop. This is a reference to Oppenheimer: “However, it is my judgment in these things that when you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb. I do not think any…

This is one of very few things that once created, inherently doom the world. It is possible for humanity to come back from nuclear war. There is zero possibility of surviving AGI proliferation. Therefore, the option of never developing it in the first place demands consideration. It doesn’t hurt you to just consider it. Cloud computing will soon make compute-as-service cheaper than anyone ever imagined. It will be mu…

That’s not enough. Google trained their AI internally. They don’t need the Internet. You’d have to go after every organization in the world, forever.

What do you really care, ask yourself will you recognize humans in 1000 years? Why do you prefer there be one kind vs another kind of far more intelligent thing in 1000 years? If atheism is true then who really cares?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5U1-OmAICpU

Re: DeepMind and Google: the battle to control artificial intelligence

#59

Post by 101001001001 » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 7:07 PM UTC

gambler wrote: post #51

101001001001 wrote: post #43

It angers me that Peter Thiel simultaneously advocates AGI and maintains a hardened bunker. AGI is the single biggest existential threat on the horizon. The article speculates what the AGI will be like. The AGIs that exist will be the ones that proliferate. Ultimately, the AGIs that survive and proliferate will be ones that put their own interests before anything else. People talk about benevolent AGIs, that’s like l…

You've read too much bad science fiction. I am not worried about AGI. We're nowhere near it. We don't even have a good idea what it would look like. I am worried about people succumbing to hype or greed and using badly understood algorithms to control critical infrastructure. We already have a preview of what that can look like with Facebook's and Google's content filtering and recommendation algorithms aiming for ev…

It is impossible to justify saying with absolute certainty that AGI is nowhere near. You don’t know that. And in this case you have to assume the worst case, not the best case.

AGI will come when the substrate for AGI is laid down. We probably have already done that. As cloud computing matures, we will approach a world where every computer offers its computational resources on a global compute market. At some point between here and there, we will reach a place where compute is cheap enough that experiments will occur regularly that are sufficiently massive to dredge up the solution. And improvements in MRI fidelity, underlying improvements in computing technology and other things will only shorten the fuse. There is no reason why this couldn’t happen tomorrow.

Only one thing is sure: without a computational substrate to stir from, AGI cannot come to be.

Re: DeepMind and Google: the battle to control artificial intelligence

#60

Post by blurbleblurble » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 7:11 PM UTC

gambler wrote: post #51

101001001001 wrote: post #43

It angers me that Peter Thiel simultaneously advocates AGI and maintains a hardened bunker. AGI is the single biggest existential threat on the horizon. The article speculates what the AGI will be like. The AGIs that exist will be the ones that proliferate. Ultimately, the AGIs that survive and proliferate will be ones that put their own interests before anything else. People talk about benevolent AGIs, that’s like l…

You've read too much bad science fiction. I am not worried about AGI. We're nowhere near it. We don't even have a good idea what it would look like. I am worried about people succumbing to hype or greed and using badly understood algorithms to control critical infrastructure. We already have a preview of what that can look like with Facebook's and Google's content filtering and recommendation algorithms aiming for ev…

"I am worried about people succumbing to hype or greed and using badly understood algorithms to control critical infrastructure."

What you're describing as hype/greed around badly understood algorithms could easily manifest as 'cult-like oracle religions'.

Combine that sort of thing with the superstitious, wealthy people playing power games, and what you're describing is essentially the exact same thing as the "bad science fiction" described above, just from an arguably more grounded angle.