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Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter

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Re: Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter

#241

Post by njarboe »

sockaddr wrote: post #239
joenot443 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Threats to Tesla are clear to me as its high production factory complex is in China. What threats to Starlink do you see?

Re: Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter

#242

Post by ChatGTP »

Veen wrote: post #240
6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #67

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.

Hanlon's Razor...Max Tegmark has been saying for a long time that his biggest concern would be black box models we don't understand gaining more intelligence without a solid understand about how they work ...this is long before ChatGPT4 existed so I don't believe it has anything to do with control and keeping people out of anything.

Even Sam Altman has said similar things recently that he believes we're probably going to have to slow down and think about what we're doing.

I think a more advanced civilization would slow down and continue AI research on another planet (Mars?)...not here on Earth.

Re: Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter

#243

Post by paxys »

joenot443 wrote: post #237
anovikov wrote: post #234

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?

Criticizing governments and politicians is Musk's favorite hobby. Find me one negative thing he has ever said or tweeted about the CCP. He has factories there, and knows that his business will take a massive hit should he ever step out of line. So yes, he will absolutely spread their propaganda if they pressure him to.

Re: Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter

#247

Post by achow »

itg wrote: post #231

In a way, this seems like sour grapes to me. I bet if it was their own company/institution that released gpt-4, they wouldn't be calling for this pause.

In a corporate drama ('Succession', 'Silicon Valley'?) the plot could be that the likes of Goog is secretly funding this.

Re: Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter

#248

Post by BobbyJo »

jimrandomh wrote: post #162
BobbyJo wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally scoff at this kind of stuff because it's asking for something no one has the power to give. It's like asking to stop the development of nukes in the 40s and 50s, it's just not gonna happen.

Preventing the development of nukes entirely was obviously not going to happen. But delaying the first detonations by a few years, and moving the Partial Nuclear Test Ban treaty up a few years, was quite achievable. Whether delaying AI development a little matters depends on whether you think the success of AI alignment, applied to future superintelligence, is overdetermined to succeed, overdetermined to fail, or clo…

I'm firmly in the camp that delaying it's development could make a difference, I just don't see how that's possible. These models are relatively simple and the equipment necessary to develop them is public (and relatively cheap if we're talking about corporate or national scales). At least with nukes, there was a raw material bottleneck, but there really isn't a limiting factor here that any "good guys" could choke point. It's out there and it's going to get worked on, and the only people the "good guys" can limit are themselves.

Re: Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter

#249

Post by pffft8888 »

ElevenLathe wrote: post #238
joenot443 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Every CEO of every major US company is a US intelligence asset.

Re: Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter

#250

Post by pc_edwin »

I've been a staunch supporter of Elon throughout all his scandals, especially the Twitter ones but I'm unable to come up with any justification for this.

Everything leads to him (and others) pressuring OpenAI to pause so they could catch up.

It doesn't take much smarts to deduce the cats already out of the bag. There is no stopping this, only pressuring/slowing-down/targeting certain players (OpenAI) as a competition tactic.

I often refer to the I, Robot quote "brilliant people often have the most persuasive demons" when it comes these situations with people like Elon or Ye but even then, all this just leaves a really bad taste in my mouth.

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