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If AI scaling is to be shut down, let it be for a coherent reason

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Re: If AI scaling is to be shut down, let it be for a coherent reason

#31

Post by chatmasta »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #25

A little off-topic, but does anyone wonder what kind of AI tech the CIA or DARPA or the NSA might have? Or what they might be building? It's a little scary that a small private company could create an AI that has dominated headlines for over a month now. Surely, the folks at NSA, who have more data than anyone else, have taken notice and are working on something of their own. Am I being paranoid about a potential too…

I've seen a lot of people worrying about "what will China do with LLMs?" But my question is: how do you know they don't have them already? What if they've been deployed on the internet for the past three years?

I guess the same logic can apply to CIA, NSA, DARPA, etc.

But you can take solace in the fact that most government organizations are pretty inept. It used to be common understanding that the military/intelligence apparatus had a 20-year head start on private industry, but I don't believe that's been true for a while now. The internet made knowledge sharing too open for it to be feasible to keep cutting edge research cloaked in secrecy.

For the same reason, I don't believe the US military has some kind of anti-gravity UAP propulsion. It just strains incredulity too much.

Re: If AI scaling is to be shut down, let it be for a coherent reason

#32

Post by lkbm »

nl wrote: post #11

Why are we even bothering talking about this? It's Gary Marcus "neural networks don't really work" suddenly discovering they do, and literally trying to shut down research in that area while keeping his prefered research areas funded. We know a bunch of the people whose names are on the letter didn't sign it (eg Yann Lecunn who said he disagreed with the premise and didn't sign it). I'm so offended by the idea of thi…

On Twitter, it was "multi-blillionaires [Elon Musk] want to keep us down!" In the HN open letter thread it was "All the companies falling behind want a chance to catch up." Now it's "Gary Marcus".

The letter was signed by a lot of people, including many AI researchers, including people working on LLMs. Any dismissal that reduces to [one incumbent interest] opposes this" is missing the mark.

A lot of people, incumbents and non-incumbents, relevant experts and non-experts, are saying we need to figure out AI safety. Some have been saying it for years, other just recently, but if you want to dismiss their views, you're going to need to address their arguments, not just ad hominem dismissals.

Re: If AI scaling is to be shut down, let it be for a coherent reason

#33

Post by nl »

1827162 wrote: post #26
nl wrote: post #11

Why are we even bothering talking about this? It's Gary Marcus "neural networks don't really work" suddenly discovering they do, and literally trying to shut down research in that area while keeping his prefered research areas funded. We know a bunch of the people whose names are on the letter didn't sign it (eg Yann Lecunn who said he disagreed with the premise and didn't sign it). I'm so offended by the idea of thi…

Assuming the training is based on public data, then making it illegal is like a "thought crime" where the state is trying to prohibit carrying out certain computations. Well if I believe the government has no right to control my thoughts, then I believe it has no right to control whatever computation I do on my private computer as well. Down with these ** control freaks, so much of everything nowadays prioritizes saf…

I disagree with this take completely.

Re: If AI scaling is to be shut down, let it be for a coherent reason

#34

Post by chatmasta »

lkbm wrote: post #32
nl wrote: post #11

Why are we even bothering talking about this? It's Gary Marcus "neural networks don't really work" suddenly discovering they do, and literally trying to shut down research in that area while keeping his prefered research areas funded. We know a bunch of the people whose names are on the letter didn't sign it (eg Yann Lecunn who said he disagreed with the premise and didn't sign it). I'm so offended by the idea of thi…

On Twitter, it was "multi-blillionaires [Elon Musk] want to keep us down!" In the HN open letter thread it was "All the companies falling behind want a chance to catch up." Now it's "Gary Marcus". The letter was signed by a lot of people, including many AI researchers, including people working on LLMs. Any dismissal that reduces to [one incumbent interest] opposes this" is missing the mark. A lot of people, incumbent…

Elon Musk is the most ironic signatory of this blog post, considering his decade-long effort to put AI behind the wheel of 100mph+ vehicles. And then he's got the gall to lecture the rest of us on "AI safety" after we finally get a semi-intelligent chatbot? Come on, man.

Re: If AI scaling is to be shut down, let it be for a coherent reason

#35

Post by bob1029 »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #25

A little off-topic, but does anyone wonder what kind of AI tech the CIA or DARPA or the NSA might have? Or what they might be building? It's a little scary that a small private company could create an AI that has dominated headlines for over a month now. Surely, the folks at NSA, who have more data than anyone else, have taken notice and are working on something of their own. Am I being paranoid about a potential too…

It is entirely possible that OpenAI is part of some CIA/DARPA initiative and that we are all doing a fantastical job of bootstrapping it to sentience by using their ChatGPT product offering (i.e. RLHF).

Re: If AI scaling is to be shut down, let it be for a coherent reason

#36

Post by lukev »

computerex wrote: post #14

I read the times article, and I also watched Lex Fridman's talk with Eliezer Yudkowsky. Frankly I don't think he is qualified, and I don't understand why anyone is even giving him any credence. His argument is literally: > A mis-aligned super AGI will result in the death of humanity I ask, how . He is making reductive logical leaps that don't make sense. It's FUD.

The reasoning pattern of Yud and his ilk is fundamentally theological and eschatological in nature.

There isn't any actual understanding of the technology involved. It is fundamentally an ontological argument. Because they can imagine a god-like super intelligent AI, it must be possible. And they're associating that with LLMs because that's the most powerful AI currently available, not based on any actual capabilities or fact-based extrapolation from the present to the future.

Meanwhile its distracting from actual AI safety concerns: namely, that corporations and capitalists will monopolize them such that their benefits accrue to relatively few rather than benefiting humanity at large.

Re: If AI scaling is to be shut down, let it be for a coherent reason

#37

Post by lkbm »

dandellion wrote: post #20
Havoc wrote: post #10

This whole thing is like leaving 20 kids alone in a room with a marshmallow each and telling them don't eat it. ...and then expecting all of them resist. The debate around whether we should tell the kids not to eat it and for what reasons is completely academic. Practically this just isn't happening.

If they're really so worried about it they should start raiding data centres yesterday, writing open letters is such an obvious waste of time that I have a hard time taking it seriously.

Academics, businessmen, and other non-governmental entities are usually better off advocating for the government to enact regulations than engaging in paramilitary action on their own.

Do you think Extinction Rebellion is doing more to fight climate change than the people working with governments to enact good climate policy? Do you think PETA is helping animal well-fare more than more than the various organizations recommended by animalcharityevaluators.org?

Serious people don't engage in terrorism because the issue is serious. They try to convince the existing power structures to take action.

Re: If AI scaling is to be shut down, let it be for a coherent reason

#38

Post by sethd »

chatmasta wrote: post #34
lkbm wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On Twitter, it was "multi-blillionaires [Elon Musk] want to keep us down!" In the HN open letter thread it was "All the companies falling behind want a chance to catch up." Now it's "Gary Marcus". The letter was signed by a lot of people, including many AI researchers, including people working on LLMs. Any dismissal that reduces to [one incumbent interest] opposes this" is missing the mark. A lot of people, incumbent…

Elon Musk is the most ironic signatory of this blog post, considering his decade-long effort to put AI behind the wheel of 100mph+ vehicles. And then he's got the gall to lecture the rest of us on "AI safety" after we finally get a semi-intelligent chatbot? Come on, man.

Given that FSD is obviously a scam, wouldn't a pause like this be in his best interest? (buys them more time, while keeping the hype machine going)

Re: If AI scaling is to be shut down, let it be for a coherent reason

#39

Post by ElevenLathe »

1827162 wrote: post #26
nl wrote: post #11

Why are we even bothering talking about this? It's Gary Marcus "neural networks don't really work" suddenly discovering they do, and literally trying to shut down research in that area while keeping his prefered research areas funded. We know a bunch of the people whose names are on the letter didn't sign it (eg Yann Lecunn who said he disagreed with the premise and didn't sign it). I'm so offended by the idea of thi…

Assuming the training is based on public data, then making it illegal is like a "thought crime" where the state is trying to prohibit carrying out certain computations. Well if I believe the government has no right to control my thoughts, then I believe it has no right to control whatever computation I do on my private computer as well. Down with these ** control freaks, so much of everything nowadays prioritizes saf…

I would kind of agree but there's zero way for this line of thought to make it into the beltway.

Re: If AI scaling is to be shut down, let it be for a coherent reason

#40

Post by seydor »

lukev wrote: post #36
computerex wrote: post #14

I read the times article, and I also watched Lex Fridman's talk with Eliezer Yudkowsky. Frankly I don't think he is qualified, and I don't understand why anyone is even giving him any credence. His argument is literally: > A mis-aligned super AGI will result in the death of humanity I ask, how . He is making reductive logical leaps that don't make sense. It's FUD.

The reasoning pattern of Yud and his ilk is fundamentally theological and eschatological in nature. There isn't any actual understanding of the technology involved. It is fundamentally an ontological argument. Because they can imagine a god-like super intelligent AI, it must be possible. And they're associating that with LLMs because that's the most powerful AI currently available, not based on any actual capabilitie…

I doubt his skills in theology either. Listening to him is full of incoherent half-assed arguments
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