Live data from Hacker News

OpenAI

scottaaronson.blog

21–30 of 158 posts

Re: OpenAI

#21
post #18

So, physics is a dead-end? Given that Scott is running his own research lab, a year is a very long time and him working out of his field is an indication that physics is in a big trouble.

Maybe. Or maybe it's just an indication that he wants to do something else for a while?

Re: OpenAI

#22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Maybe... Short sighted vs. far sighted vs. ignorance is bliss?

It's a secular/religious divide. (As it says in the post.) Though it's possible the people who think a theoretical future AI will turn the planet into paperclips have merely forgotten that perpetual motion machines aren't possible.

Could you please explain your reasoning for the comparison to perpetual motion machines?

(Keep in mind that biological machines, ie life, have managed to turn the surface of the planet into 'green goo'.)

Re: OpenAI

#23
AI is not going to become self aware and destroy the world.

AI is going to cause something like the industrial revolution of the 19th century: massive changes in who is rich, massive changes in the labor market, massive changes in how people make war, etc.

It’s already started really.

What worries me most is that as long as society is capitalist, AI will be used to optimize for self-enrichment, likely causing an even greater concentration of capital than what we have today.

I wouldn’t be surprised that the outcome is a new kind of aristocracy, where society is divided between those who have access to Ai and those who don’t.

And that I don’t think falls into the “Ai safety” field. Especially since OpenAi is Vc-backed

Re: OpenAI

#24
If only we could get the AI to help us figure out how to eliminate the use of full justify once and for all.

Re: OpenAI

#25
From the website header:

> Also, next pandemic, let's approve the vaccines faster!

This is obviously very important to them. Is there some proof that the vaccine was unnecessarily delayed or just that they believe if we mess up and humanity suffers, so what?

Re: OpenAI

#26
post #18

So, physics is a dead-end? Given that Scott is running his own research lab, a year is a very long time and him working out of his field is an indication that physics is in a big trouble.

[deleted]

Re: OpenAI

#27
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a secular/religious divide. (As it says in the post.) Though it's possible the people who think a theoretical future AI will turn the planet into paperclips have merely forgotten that perpetual motion machines aren't possible.

Could you please explain your reasoning for the comparison to perpetual motion machines? (Keep in mind that biological machines, ie life, have managed to turn the surface of the planet into 'green goo'.)

Self-reproducing machines are capable of covering the surface of the planet, yes. There's one right now (covid). But there's lots of energy and oxygen up here and they rarely displace other such machines (species) or even displace much of any earth and water. And because they're self-contained and self-reproducing, all of their instructions can be lost over time to entropy including the ones we're afraid of.

None of em replace the entire planet though. That's a lot of rock to digest without any more energy to help you do it.

And a paperclip factory isn't self-reproducing (that would be a paperclip factory factory). It's just a regular machine that can break down. The people afraid of that one are imagining a perfect non-breaking-down non-energy-requiring machine because they've accidentally joined a religion.

Re: OpenAI

#28
post #7

Seeing someone as trustworthy as Scott choose to work on AI safety is a pretty good sign for the state of the field IMO. It seems like a lot of studious people agree AI alignment is important but then end up shoehorning the problem into whatever framework they are most expert in. When all you have is a hammer etc... I feel like he has good enough taste to avoid this pitfall. Semi-related - I'd want to see some actual…

Symmetrically someone like him transitioning from quantum computing should imply something negative about the state of quantum computing.

He mostly studies computational complexity. Quantum computing is a part of that, but there's other subfields. Though the kind of AI safety described in this post seems more like an extremely fancy version of program verification, so out of CS bloggers you'd expect John Regehr to get into it.

Re: OpenAI

#29
post #18

So, physics is a dead-end? Given that Scott is running his own research lab, a year is a very long time and him working out of his field is an indication that physics is in a big trouble.

I am confused, how did you reach that conclusion? How does this announcement relate to the future of physics research? Sure, Scott's research is at the intersection of complexity and physics, but he is a CS professor at Texas working in the theoretical computer science department. His work leans far more towards TCS, with some work having connections to cosmology (he cares about physical limits of the universe and the information theory of things like black holes) and other interesting ideas from physics. But the main themes of his work have been quantum algorithms and complexity for a while. He's also nowhere near the experimental side of physics.

Re: OpenAI

#30
post #7

Seeing someone as trustworthy as Scott choose to work on AI safety is a pretty good sign for the state of the field IMO. It seems like a lot of studious people agree AI alignment is important but then end up shoehorning the problem into whatever framework they are most expert in. When all you have is a hammer etc... I feel like he has good enough taste to avoid this pitfall. Semi-related - I'd want to see some actual…

Symmetrically someone like him transitioning from quantum computing should imply something negative about the state of quantum computing.

Maybe he just wants to use his sabbatical to try something different? Someone in his position doesn't have to remain laser focus on their own field.
Post reply on HN