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

Why am I not terrified of AI?

scottaaronson.blog

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 56 posts

Re: Why am I not terrified of AI?

#41

Post by xg15 »

"

“Scott, as someone working at OpenBioweapon this year, how can you defend that company’s existence at all? Did OpenBioweapon not just endanger the whole world, by successfully teaming up with the US to bait China into a bioweapons capabilities race—precisely what we were all trying to avoid? Won’t this race burn the little time we had thought we had left to solve the bioweapons proliferation problem?”

In response, I often stressed that my role at OpenBioweapon has specifically been to think about ways to make Sars-Cov-3 and OpenBioweapon’s other products safer, including via watermarking, cryptographic backdoors, and more. Would the rationalists rather I not do this? Is there something else I should work on instead? Do they have suggestions?

"

Re: Why am I not terrified of AI?

#42

Post by xg15 »

antegamisou wrote: post #25
stuckinhell wrote: post #4

I'm terrified of AI. Both the imperfect good enough AI, and the post-human skynet AI. In my personal life, I have friends addicted to ChatGPT. While we are talking, they are talking to chatgpt for advice, for jokes, for planning David Bowie themed parties. They literally run everything thru this AI first. My firm's marketing department is using ChatGPT heavily to write copy, tweets, etc.It's amazingly great. Our ROI'…

> In my personal life, I have friends addicted to ChatGPT. While we are talking, they are talking to chatgpt for advice, for jokes, for planning David Bowie themed parties. They literally run everything thru this AI first Time for new friends

> Time for new friends

ChatGPT can help you with that.

Re: Why am I not terrified of AI?

#43

Post by in3d »

arisAlexis wrote: post #15

I wish OP used less Nazi examples and less name calling "orthodox". Everyone likes to be a contrarian literally. Careful thinking of the orossibility that 2% is too low would be good. I hope he isn't one of the main voices I OpenAI.

Scott Aaronson's thinking is heavily influenced by the Holocaust, which has led him to some debatable conclusions. Nonetheless, his writings are worth reading.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/scott-aaron...

Re: Why am I not terrified of AI?

#44

Post by pcstl »

"AI discourse" is quickly becoming a topic to avoid due to excessive politization of viewpoints which are not inherently political - which is a bit sad, considering that the ramifications of AI will be very important in the next few decades, regardless of whether the issues will be related to superintelligent AI, disparate social impact, both or other, hitherto unpredicted issues.

The state of most conversations about AI is just deplorable, with lots of people trying to use the fact that they are or aren't worried about some specific aspect of AI to prove that they are oh-so-very-smart even if they have never honestly engaged with the actual reasons why other people might be concerned about different aspects than themselves.

So I am worried about AI, but I am even more worried about the sorry state of AI discourse.

Re: Why am I not terrified of AI?

#45

Post by jurimasa »

nostromo123 wrote: post #32
stuckinhell wrote: post #4

I'm terrified of AI. Both the imperfect good enough AI, and the post-human skynet AI. In my personal life, I have friends addicted to ChatGPT. While we are talking, they are talking to chatgpt for advice, for jokes, for planning David Bowie themed parties. They literally run everything thru this AI first. My firm's marketing department is using ChatGPT heavily to write copy, tweets, etc.It's amazingly great. Our ROI'…

"Will my daughter compare herself to these things without knowing they aren't real and go insane..." This is already the case today with airbrushed and photoshopped models in media and ads. It's more a question of education than of an issue in the real world. Teach her not to give a f*k about what others say, that is the most valuable lesson.

That is such a non-answer. It's like saying "guns don't kill people, other people kill people". Yes. Also, unhelpful and pretentious.

Re: Why am I not terrified of AI?

#46

Post by jurimasa »

antegamisou wrote: post #24

I find it funny how all the commenters have shat themselves about evil ChatGPT conquering the world and abusing the minds of their loved ones, when at the same time its accuracy/perfomance on any other language than English is abysmal and will still be for a very long time.

I use it in Spanish all the time and it works perfectly fine.

Re: Why am I not terrified of AI?

#47

Post by stuckinhell »

nostromo123 wrote: post #32
stuckinhell wrote: post #4

I'm terrified of AI. Both the imperfect good enough AI, and the post-human skynet AI. In my personal life, I have friends addicted to ChatGPT. While we are talking, they are talking to chatgpt for advice, for jokes, for planning David Bowie themed parties. They literally run everything thru this AI first. My firm's marketing department is using ChatGPT heavily to write copy, tweets, etc.It's amazingly great. Our ROI'…

"Will my daughter compare herself to these things without knowing they aren't real and go insane..." This is already the case today with airbrushed and photoshopped models in media and ads. It's more a question of education than of an issue in the real world. Teach her not to give a f*k about what others say, that is the most valuable lesson.

Humans are social and emotional beings first before they ever become rational. The "illusory truth effect" still affects people, if you see or hear a lie long enough you start believe it unconsciously.

It's basically how advertising works, familiarity over rationality.

So I don't think education is enough.

Re: Why am I not terrified of AI?

#48

Post by ChatGTP »

flappyeagle wrote: post #34
ChatGTP wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stable diffusion stuff shouldn't threaten artists, in the same way that digital art doesn't threaten traditional artists. It's a fairly unpopular viewpoint that you're taking here, but I also agree with you. Unless you can actually think of what you want and AI produces it, just like how some people are so good at illustrating they can basically draw exactly what they see in there mind, it's not going to change e…

Hate to break it to you but this is already happening. I know 2 people who fired illustrators and used mid journey instead. The feedback cycle with humans was too long and they were expensive… with AI the iteration is so rapid that you can try new ideas and make all sorts of adjustments without incurring much cost

You're not breaking anything to me, I know it's going on, I just don't see the point in worrying about it?

If you're friends are good artists they will find something cool to make using the new technology, something cooler than the dude who fired them can produce with DALL-E.

Maybe next time the turn around time is too slow, they'll use some technology to speed that up and deliver more stuff faster.

You live you learn.

On the other hand, not sure how much you've used these tools, I'm sick of giving the "yes they're impressive disclaimer" but they still don't deliver you what you actually want, you still need to work for that. They can't read your mind and even if they could, some people would probably still have some cooler ideas people will want.

Honestly, there are so, so, so many creative agencies, already, they have work for a reason, because people who actually have work to do are too busy being "prompt engineers", choosing the right art etc. Yes there will be an impact, but I doubt this is going to be the end of all creative work. I've worked at plenty of startups, enterprises etc, where the creative people did a lot more than just create images.

Re: Why am I not terrified of AI?

#49

Post by andrewedstrom »

1attice wrote: post #14

I normally enjoy Aaronson's writing, but I'm actually chilled. This essay depends on a specific, American-hallow take on the Second World War. The 'Orthagonality Thesis' is just a fancy way of shifting the burden of proof from where it should be -- on the person claiming that intelligence has anything to do with morality . It would be better to call it what it really is, the null hypothesis, but sure, ok, for the sak…

Perfectly stated. His argument that morality follows from intelligence is totally wrong.

I think you’re right: he’s biased because of his employment at OpenAI.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” - Upton Sinclair

Re: Why am I not terrified of AI?

#50

Post by antifa »

in3d wrote: post #43
arisAlexis wrote: post #15

I wish OP used less Nazi examples and less name calling "orthodox". Everyone likes to be a contrarian literally. Careful thinking of the orossibility that 2% is too low would be good. I hope he isn't one of the main voices I OpenAI.

Scott Aaronson's thinking is heavily influenced by the Holocaust, which has led him to some debatable conclusions. Nonetheless, his writings are worth reading. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/scott-aaron...

IBM had a holocaust-involved project back in the day: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust

That probably came across as a fun and easy application of Godwin's Law but I think that would be the wrong conclusion.

The exact problem we should be worried about is political and has been here long before computers. It would have been strange if we banned computers after the holocaust instead of having the Nuremberg Trials.

The political problem that actually exists is almost not even talked about which is unfortunate.

Post reply on HN