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Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter

futureoflife.org

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Re: Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter

#232

I'm really disappointed to see the HN reaction of straight up scoffing at this like it's irreversible and so let's just step on the gas. It's some weird combination of techno-utopianism and nihilism and good old elitism.

I'm very cognizant of the risks, but the biggest risk seems to me that wealthy people hold it back to get an uncrossable political-economic moat in order to permanently secure their own position.

exactly. Specifically China. They've said for years, they want to be the global AI leader. They have more data than anyone. Now that they know LLMs work as good as they do, they are going all in.

They achieve AGI first, that's bad. Communist AGI is a greater existential risk than us creating AGI. We must create it first so we can use it to harden our systems.

Re: Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter

#233
post #69

I understand that some people find this a hopeless gesture. But I think anybody who thinks "losing jobs" or "China" is a bad outcome from AI is hopelessly lost. The upside of AI if done right - nobody ever having to work again The downside of AI if done wrong - end of humanity It doesn't take a rocket scientist to determine we've made AIs go from thinking like an ant to thinking like a 6-year-old in a few years. Anyb…

If China achieves AGI first, we are done. The first thing they'll do is create cyber-weapons. Their AGI could find vulnerabilities in our systems and brick all of our devices.

It's a far greater near term existential risk for us to allow China to gain a lead here.

Re: Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter

#236

They are simply paid by the Chinese. Pausing just gives Chinese time to catch up. It's like nuclear weapons or human cloning. You can't stop it because benefit for the winner is too huge.

Define winner in this context.

Making friends with a super intelligent AI that will help you out doesn't count.

Re: Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter

#237

They are simply paid by the Chinese. Pausing just gives Chinese time to catch up. It's like nuclear weapons or human cloning. You can't stop it because benefit for the winner is too huge.

You think Musk is "simply paid by the Chinese"?

I'm not a fan of his antics or public persona, but it's a pretty huge claim to make with 0 backup that he's in the pocket of the CCP. Where did you get that idea anyway?

Re: Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter

#238

They are simply paid by the Chinese. Pausing just gives Chinese time to catch up. It's like nuclear weapons or human cloning. You can't stop it because benefit for the winner is too huge.

You think Musk is "simply paid by the Chinese"? I'm not a fan of his antics or public persona, but it's a pretty huge claim to make with 0 backup that he's in the pocket of the CCP. Where did you get that idea anyway?

It's not a totally outrageous theory. He has major interests (a Tesla factory) in the PRC and so would presumably be susceptible to influence by the state ("Sure would be a shame if Tesla China went the same way as ARM China.")

Of course, my personal zero-hard-evidence theory is that he is a US intelligence asset.

Re: Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter

#239

They are simply paid by the Chinese. Pausing just gives Chinese time to catch up. It's like nuclear weapons or human cloning. You can't stop it because benefit for the winner is too huge.

You think Musk is "simply paid by the Chinese"? I'm not a fan of his antics or public persona, but it's a pretty huge claim to make with 0 backup that he's in the pocket of the CCP. Where did you get that idea anyway?

Not claiming this is relevant to this particular case but Musk can have pressure applied by the CCP in the form of threats to his businesses like Tesla and Starlink.

Re: Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter

#240

I'm really disappointed to see the HN reaction of straight up scoffing at this like it's irreversible and so let's just step on the gas. It's some weird combination of techno-utopianism and nihilism and good old elitism.

I think the "good old elitism" is exactly what the alignment folks are expressing. They think only they and large corporations should have these tools, while we, the common folk, should not.
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