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

Microsoft lays off one of its responsible AI teams

platformer.news

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 466 posts

Re: Microsoft lays off one of its responsible AI teams

#131

Post by frutiger »

csomar wrote: post #99
qudat wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not in this case. If intelligence always created intelligent machines that are capable of replacing us, then how is that not intelligence as well? Further, silicon-based lifeforms would be able to spread and travel the universe much easier because what is time to a machine?

You are severely under-estimating carbon based life forms. These were designed for over millions of years in differing circumstances. Humans are not the only carbon based life form. A bacteria might not be that smart but it'll pro-create it's way to create the human, or its equivalent depending on the environment. In my opinion, carbon based life forms are the most optimized solution to the problem. It'll be very har…

> These were designed for over millions of years in differing circumstances.

Designed or occurred by accident?

Re: Microsoft lays off one of its responsible AI teams

#132

Post by frutiger »

im3w1l wrote: post #117
pixl97 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Machine or supermachine? You are a machine, you are born, you grow, and you die. But the species you exist in and transfer knowledge in is a supermachine. You have existed as a continuous chain for 3ish+ billion years now. Why would a digital intelligence behave any differently?

Something I've been thinking recently: "Species" is one way to delineate the "supermachine". Another way would be civilization. If we choose that framing, then we could see the biological human species as just one of many possible substrates for our civilization.

Yes and indeed organisms (and further down a level, cells) themselves are merely a substrate that allows genes to replicate.

Re: Microsoft lays off one of its responsible AI teams

#133

Post by g42gregory »

anonylizard wrote: post #19
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #9

These sorts of adjunct, off-to-the-side "ethics" teams are always corporate window dressing, and when push comes to shove they always get jettisoned when competition demands an increase in speed. I don't mean to start a flame war, but this is a reason why I think "Chief Diversity Officers" are such an ill-conceived notion. It's not that I don't think diversity in corporate environments is extremely valuable, but it's…

This. People should understand AI safety != AI ethics. AI safety has two branches, AI ethics and AI alignment. Those two branches despise each other with intense passion. The alignment branch (responsible for developing RLHF->ChatGPT) believes AI ethics is completely trivial, and distracts attention away from existential risks. The ethics branch (responsible for all the media attention about racist AIs/bias etc) view…

Thank you for the insights. Any thoughts on why is it called 'alignment'? What does alignment means in this context? I would love to understand.

Re: Microsoft lays off one of its responsible AI teams

#135

Post by raincole »

monero-xmr wrote: post #8

If Microsoft and Google don’t release, some startup will beat them to it. Open source means raw AI will become widespread. It’s just math anyway, and you can’t stop progress.

> It’s just math anyway, and you can’t stop progress.

You just put two sentences with zero logical connection together.

Nuclear weapon is just physics, and you can't stop it from spreading. CO2 is just a chemical, and you can't stop the emission. You can make thousands of this kind of sentense with ChatGPT :)

Re: Microsoft lays off one of its responsible AI teams

#136

Post by g42gregory »

karpierz wrote: post #120
daydream wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The product teams don’t care. And the ethical AI team doesn’t want to sit back and wait for people to come to them. They want a seat at the table for all important AI products. More in my comment on the other submission about this news https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35146611

> The product teams don’t care. As I said, you can't patch over culture problems with a re-org. If product people don't care, putting a person on the team that works against their interest will not make things better. Same thing with security/diversity/code quality/reliability. If the team doesn't care, putting an enforcer on the team will not fix the situation.

There is an implicit assumption that the teams are wrong. What about the wisdom of the crowds? If most teams think it's not needed, why do we think they are wrong?

Re: Microsoft lays off one of its responsible AI teams

#137

Post by dragonwriter »

g42gregory wrote: post #133
anonylizard wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. People should understand AI safety != AI ethics. AI safety has two branches, AI ethics and AI alignment. Those two branches despise each other with intense passion. The alignment branch (responsible for developing RLHF->ChatGPT) believes AI ethics is completely trivial, and distracts attention away from existential risks. The ethics branch (responsible for all the media attention about racist AIs/bias etc) view…

Thank you for the insights. Any thoughts on why is it called 'alignment'? What does alignment means in this context? I would love to understand.

Assuring that the interests of the AIs are aligned with those of their masters. (It’s basically “does the software fulfill its owner’s requirements”, but in language framed from perspective of the goal state of AGI.)

Re: Microsoft lays off one of its responsible AI teams

#138

Post by SCLeo »

frutiger wrote: post #131
csomar wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are severely under-estimating carbon based life forms. These were designed for over millions of years in differing circumstances. Humans are not the only carbon based life form. A bacteria might not be that smart but it'll pro-create it's way to create the human, or its equivalent depending on the environment. In my opinion, carbon based life forms are the most optimized solution to the problem. It'll be very har…

> These were designed for over millions of years in differing circumstances. Designed or occurred by accident?

Optimized via gradient-free methods.

Re: Microsoft lays off one of its responsible AI teams

#139

Post by midoridensha »

ec109685 wrote: post #62
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #9

These sorts of adjunct, off-to-the-side "ethics" teams are always corporate window dressing, and when push comes to shove they always get jettisoned when competition demands an increase in speed. I don't mean to start a flame war, but this is a reason why I think "Chief Diversity Officers" are such an ill-conceived notion. It's not that I don't think diversity in corporate environments is extremely valuable, but it's…

Off topic but it’s impressive your throwaway account has a karma of 49,005.

Throwaway accounts are usually used for some time before throwing them away.

Obviously, this person operates on different timescales than most people.

Re: Microsoft lays off one of its responsible AI teams

#140

Post by heretoo »

ketzo wrote: post #104
worrycue wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this has not caused mass social harm despite the tens of millions of users Isn’t it a bit early to tell? I can foresee ChatGPT being used to farm “karma” on social media sites to bot accounts to credibility on sites like Reddit - maybe even HN.

Yeah, this is like claiming lead ethyl in gas “hasn’t caused mass harm” in 1954. There’s absolutely zero way to know that yet.

Except that lead's toxicity has been known for thousands of years.
Post reply on HN