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Microsoft lays off one of its responsible AI teams

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Re: Microsoft lays off one of its responsible AI teams

#171

Post by piokoch »

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…

Chief Diversity Officers is a cheap PR. You can be a company that forces its employees to piss into bottle as you punish going to toilet, but if you have Chief Diversity Officer, you change your logo once a year to rainbow colors then you are considered to be a progressive, well-behaved company.

I don't even blame companies for this, they are just optimizing, if public is so stupid that it is buying it then, well, why not?

Re: Microsoft lays off one of its responsible AI teams

#172

Post by xyzzy123 »

bmc7505 wrote: post #111
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…

Those two branches despise each other with intense passion. I never actually made this connection before, but having spent far too much time listening to both camps, this observation does ring true. Another observation I had is that there is an orthogonal axis to the safety/ethics dichotomy that follows a more scholastic approach, namely neuro/symbolism. These two branches correspond, roughly, to the debate between m…

I feel the difference is that to a first approximation, ai alignment folks tend to be grey tribe and ai ethics people tend to be blue or rainbow tribe.

The schism isn't a technical disagreement about ai, it's a disagreement between subcultures about what values are important.

Re: Microsoft lays off one of its responsible AI teams

#173

Post by Dylan16807 »

xyzzy123 wrote: post #172
bmc7505 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those two branches despise each other with intense passion. I never actually made this connection before, but having spent far too much time listening to both camps, this observation does ring true. Another observation I had is that there is an orthogonal axis to the safety/ethics dichotomy that follows a more scholastic approach, namely neuro/symbolism. These two branches correspond, roughly, to the debate between m…

I feel the difference is that to a first approximation, ai alignment folks tend to be grey tribe and ai ethics people tend to be blue or rainbow tribe. The schism isn't a technical disagreement about ai, it's a disagreement between subcultures about what values are important.

Am I supposed to know these terms?

Re: Microsoft lays off one of its responsible AI teams

#174

Post by 6nf »

nradov wrote: post #126
ssalka wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI alignment people are the group who are capable of bringing AGI to life, but want to do it responsibly. AI ethics people are the group who are not capable of bringing AGI to life, but want to make sure that those who can do it responsibly or not at all.

There is no evidence that any group is capable of bringing AGI to life.

Ok so what’s your point? We can just ignore it? Or what.

Re: Microsoft lays off one of its responsible AI teams

#175

Post by zirgs »

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…

SD doesn't default to creating black people, but it understands the n-word. Should AI understand racial slurs?

Re: Microsoft lays off one of its responsible AI teams

#176

Post by xyzzy123 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #173
xyzzy123 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel the difference is that to a first approximation, ai alignment folks tend to be grey tribe and ai ethics people tend to be blue or rainbow tribe. The schism isn't a technical disagreement about ai, it's a disagreement between subcultures about what values are important.

Am I supposed to know these terms?

Sorry, yes that wasn't clear. Scott Alexander coined most of them in "I can tolerate anything except the outgroup" [1]

Red & blue are exactly what a U.S reader would think they are. "Grey" is an attempt by Scott to define something else, loosely hacker-ish / rationalist (you can tell who he thinks the cool people are). "Rainbow tribe" I just made up, but I think you can guess what I mean now based on context.

Alignment tends to be "rationalist panic" and ethics is a more traditional "moral panic". I believe both perspectives are valuable.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20200219044501/https://slatestar...

Re: Microsoft lays off one of its responsible AI teams

#177

Post by jpgvm »

zirgs wrote: post #175
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…

SD doesn't default to creating black people, but it understands the n-word. Should AI understand racial slurs?

Would an AI that doesn't understand racial slurs be more useful?

I don't think we should hamper the usefulness of a tool to please someones sensibilities. For most people in most of the world such words aren't relevant.

I get it, these models are made in the US and they think these models should preserve and further their values but the rest of the world doesn't care. Most likely each of them have their own batch of words they would prefer the AI didn't understand for whatever uncomfortable reason. Reality is that censoring it on any axis won't please everyone.

Re: Microsoft lays off one of its responsible AI teams

#178

Post by yyyk »

teolandon wrote: post #90
pixl97 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, if that's the case let me come over and cannibalize your body for sustenance so I may continue my breeding. Oh right, it's unethical and immoral do to that to other humans (though how much better are we for doing that to animals?). I certainly don't want the paperclip maximizer disassembling me for my involuntary donation to the collective.

Your original comment didn't talk about ethics or morals, but was talking about intelligence being its own great filter. More intelligent AI consuming us could be unethical and immoral in your view, but it would still be intelligence spreading, and not filtering itself. Just not specifically human intelligence.

>More intelligent AI consuming us

It's quite possible the eventual AI ends up unintelligent (self-optimizes into grey goo or something).

>could be unethical and immoral in your view

Hmph.

Re: Microsoft lays off one of its responsible AI teams

#179

Post by circuit10 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #163
ssalka wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI alignment people are the group who are capable of bringing AGI to life, but want to do it responsibly. AI ethics people are the group who are not capable of bringing AGI to life, but want to make sure that those who can do it responsibly or not at all.

> AI alignment people are the group who are capable of bringing AGI to life, but want to do it responsibly. AI alignment people are the group who believe “responsibly” means, centrally, bringing AGI to existence as fast as possible, and, critically, under the tight, opaque, authoritarian control of a narrow group of people whose ideology is, well, exemplified by figures like Sam Bankman-Fried, and doing everything po…

> AI alignment people are the group who believe “responsibly” means, centrally, bringing AGI to existence as fast as possible

From what I’ve seen it’s the exact opposite? They want AI development to slow down so we can get it right and make it safe. There are people who are trying to speed it up but that seems like the opposite of alignment to me

Re: Microsoft lays off one of its responsible AI teams

#180

Post by zirgs »

raincole wrote: post #135
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 :)

Yeah, you can't stop countries from building nukes if they really want to. North Korea did it and nobody stopped them.
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