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OpenAI

scottaaronson.blog

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Re: OpenAI

#51

Post by omnicognate »

zzzzzzzza wrote: post #44
atmosx wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To have access to the forefront of AI you have to be super-rich. I don’t see how AI will change that, if anything will make it harder to change by giving yet another advantage to those who already have plenty.

uhm, i spend less than 40 cents a day on avg on gpt3 queries... a bit more accessible than like a hackerspace membership or building a factory or something

You don't have access to the forefront of AI. You have the ability to give money to those that do so you can use what they've made.

To have access to the forefront of AI means being able to make, own and profit from things like GPT-3, and it requires access to vast computational and data resources.

Re: OpenAI

#52

Post by sva_ »

astrange wrote: post #27
eru wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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, [...]

Your analogy is weak and also false: viruses can't self-reproduce, but need to bind to a host's protein synthesis pathways.

Re: OpenAI

#53

Post by austinjp »

astrange wrote: post #27
eru wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> a paperclip factory isn't self-reproducing (that would be a paperclip factory factory)

This seems an odd refutation for several reasons.

First, the paperclip AI might determine that self-reproducing factories would be an optimisation, and aim to achieve that by any means necessary.

Second, a single paperclip factory that doesn't reproduce might still develop the means of bringing raw materials to it.

Either way, an all-consuming paperclip AI emerges.

In general, I find the equating of the paperclip problem with a religious cult to be naive.

Re: OpenAI

#54

Post by sva_ »

omnicognate wrote: post #51
zzzzzzzza wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

uhm, i spend less than 40 cents a day on avg on gpt3 queries... a bit more accessible than like a hackerspace membership or building a factory or something

You don't have access to the forefront of AI. You have the ability to give money to those that do so you can use what they've made. To have access to the forefront of AI means being able to make, own and profit from things like GPT-3, and it requires access to vast computational and data resources.

I doubt GPT-3 is profitable as of now.

Re: OpenAI

#55

Post by csmpltn »

siboehm wrote: post #47
d--b wrote: post #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…

You can be very worried about the medium-term dangers of AGI even if you believed (which I don't) that consciousness could never arise in a computer system. I think it can be a useful metaphor to compare AGI to nuclear weapons. Currently we're trying to figure out how to make the nuclear bomb not go off spontaneously, and how to steer the rocket. (One big problem w/ the metaphor is that AGI will be very beneficial on…

> "Most of these AGI doom-scenarios require no self-awareness at all. AGI is just an insanely powerful tool that we currently wouldn't know how to direct, control or stop if we actually had access to it."

You're talking about "doomsday scenarios". Can you actually provide a few concrete examples?

Re: OpenAI

#56

Post by omnicognate »

sva_ wrote: post #54
omnicognate wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have access to the forefront of AI. You have the ability to give money to those that do so you can use what they've made. To have access to the forefront of AI means being able to make, own and profit from things like GPT-3, and it requires access to vast computational and data resources.

I doubt GPT-3 is profitable as of now.

That's not the point. Whether OpenAI is (yet) profiting from its models doesn't change the fact that GP lacks the resources to do what OpenAI is doing.

Re: OpenAI

#57

Post by nlqrt »

"[...] where the misuse of AI for spambots, surveillance, propaganda, and other nefarious purposes is already a major societal concern [...]"

I'm curious what he will do and whether for example he approves of the code laundering CoPilot tool. I also hope he'll resist being used as an academic promoter of such tools, explicitly or implicitly (there are many ways, his mere association with the company buys goodwill already).

Re: OpenAI

#58

Post by hansword »

'OpenAI, of course, has the word “open” right in its name, ... don’t expect me to share any proprietary information'

Yeah, Mr Aaronson just lost quite a bit of respect from my side. Going into AI is a great move, moving to the ClosedAI corporation.......? Why?

(Edit: Removed an outdated reference to Elon Musk, thanks @pilaf !)

Re: OpenAI

#59

Post by drdeca »

encryptluks2 wrote: post #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?

Proof?

The point aiui is mostly arguing that the FDA errs too much on the side of caution in this area, and the trade-off would have been worth it to approve earlier. Not insinuating that like, there was some corruption (or laziness or something) that delayed it.

Re: OpenAI

#60

Post by pilaf »

hansword wrote: post #58

'OpenAI, of course, has the word “open” right in its name, ... don’t expect me to share any proprietary information' Yeah, Mr Aaronson just lost quite a bit of respect from my side. Going into AI is a great move, moving to the ClosedAI corporation.......? Why? (Edit: Removed an outdated reference to Elon Musk, thanks @pilaf !)

Elon Musk left the board of OpenAI in 2018.
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