> Even Sam Altman has been yelling about the need for AI regulation for a long time now. That's regulation that makes it harder for any competition to show up
So tired of seeing this line parroted everywhere without much thought given to what it actually means. Yes, regulation can add a burdensome layer, and regulatory capture can be a real thing. But regulations for things like nuclear power plants, banks, insurance companies, elevator manufacturers, etc. are real because society recognizes the grave harm that happens when there are no additional checks on the system. Nob…
Big nuclear power plants are not the ones behind regulations. Big oil and carbon-based power plants and others are the ones that lobby for nuclear power plant regulations.
Best response to the current "AI" fad driven fear I've seen so far (not my words): These AI tools cannot do things. They create text (or images or code or what-have-you) in response to prompts. And that's it! It is impressive, and it is clearly passing the Turing Test to some degree, because people are confusing the apparent intelligence behind these outputs with a combination of actual intelligence and "will." Not o…
When there's intelligence adding a will should be trivial. You just tell it to do something and give it some actuator, like a web browser. Then let it run.
Two-party iterated prisoner's dilemma is hard enough. Sensible players will coordinate with something like tit-for-tat, but that only works when both parties start off on the right foot. Regardless of initial strategy, the chances of degenerating towards the mutual-defection Nash equilibrium increase with the number of parties. The only prior example of world coordination at this level would be nuclear disarmament ac…
> Climate change mitigation, which more closely resembles AI safety in both complexity and (lack of) barriers to entry, has been sporadic, inconsistent, and only enacted to the extent... Climate change mitigation is the perfect example. Nobody is doing anything, nobody seems to care, everyone cheats with ridiculous carbon credits or carbon offset vouchers made out of thin air, etc. It's likely the planet will become…
Climate change movement has become a cult and most of the factual basis is disregarded. It's culminated into your Nike shoe boxes full of greenwashing labels.
"...The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles … hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages … And we think some plastic bags and some a…
I really dislike this sentiment. Planets can become entirely inhospitable to life. Planets themselves have lifespans. Earth herself has in the past suffered near misses, e.g. 90%+ extinction events. It took billions of years of evolution to produce us, the only species ever to exist with the ability to reason about, prevent or ameliorate large extinction events (such as those caused by asteroid impacts), effect conse…
Two-party iterated prisoner's dilemma is hard enough. Sensible players will coordinate with something like tit-for-tat, but that only works when both parties start off on the right foot. Regardless of initial strategy, the chances of degenerating towards the mutual-defection Nash equilibrium increase with the number of parties. The only prior example of world coordination at this level would be nuclear disarmament ac…
We managed it with CFCs and the hole in the ozone layer.
Tracking and enforcing compliance of refrigerant gases doesn't seem like it would be more difficult than tracking massive expenditures on high-end GPUs.
It's not easy, but we are sometimes capable of rising to meet immediate existential threats.
This is silly, unless you think the earth will turn into Venus. The majority of time earth has had no ice caps. Primates evolved when the polars where covered in trees, not ice. A warmer planet will support more biodiversity not less. https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/whats-hotte...
You're not considering timescales. True, the earth has seen all sorts of climates .. over slow-moving gradual timeframes of 100k to millions of years. And in none of those situations did human civilization exist - relying on specific climatic conditions for food, water and so on. But now, climate is changing 1000x as fast. And we have civilization of 8 billion people, many of them living on the margins in areas that…
A 2c rise in temperature is insignificant compared to seasonal variation. There is no evidence that this change would decrease biodiversity on earth. All the evidence points the other way.
Climate change will be a humanitarian issue. People claiming that it will lead to ecosystem collapse and a loss of biodiversity are just a distraction. They are taking time and resources away from the real issues.
A warmer planet will have more biodiversity, not less. It will be easier to support 8 billion humans with a warmer, more productive planet.
Two-party iterated prisoner's dilemma is hard enough. Sensible players will coordinate with something like tit-for-tat, but that only works when both parties start off on the right foot. Regardless of initial strategy, the chances of degenerating towards the mutual-defection Nash equilibrium increase with the number of parties. The only prior example of world coordination at this level would be nuclear disarmament ac…
We managed it with CFCs and the hole in the ozone layer. Tracking and enforcing compliance of refrigerant gases doesn't seem like it would be more difficult than tracking massive expenditures on high-end GPUs. It's not easy, but we are sometimes capable of rising to meet immediate existential threats.
AI Labs Closing For Our Benefit. Sure Buddy.
In yesterday’s blog, we saw another tech giant bite the dust. I concluded that planning isn’t the top concern of the fast-paced CEO in charge of culturally changing companies.
Sell the product, and deal with the repercussion after in court.
However, some tech leaders can read the writing on the wall and are willing to take a step back not only for their profession's salvation but; for humanity.
An open letter published by Future of Life, a non-profit organization working on reducing global catastrophe, urged all AI Labs with significant AI experiments to pause their work for 6-months. They have collected over 1800 signatures including the notable tech giants Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak.
The questions we asked while watching I’Robot are now the questions tech leaders are having amongst themselves with actual consequences. The open letter poses several questions that need answers before full AI integration:
“Should we let machines flood our information channels with propaganda and untruth?”
“Should we automate away all the jobs, including the fulfilling ones?”
“Should we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete, and replace us?”
“Should we risk the loss of control of our civilization?”
The letter ends with calls for an “AI Summer” break to give tech leaders that chance to engineer their systems toward a clear benefit and allow our society to adapt.
The letter also called for an independent government third party to review and regulate AI systems before releasing them to the public.
This moment reminds me of the meeting in Jekyll Island between the top bankers and treasury authorities to create the Federal Reserve. During the 19th century, there were financial panics and deep recessions across the nation with an American Bank system that could not sustain it. The industry assembled, creating a centralized plan that improved the American Bank's capabilities domestically and abroad. However, that same plan is the cause of our economic melancholy. The Federal Reserves overprinting of USD as “relief” for congressional policies is the main reason our inflation rate is so volatile. Similar conditions to the one J.P. Morgan and Senator Aldrich tried to escape from.
The moral of the story is industry risks to society can be managed but can never be eliminated, especially not by industry leaders.
Although the tech industry seems to be getting the message from Fintech, this signaling is neither genuine nor is it effective. If I was a shareholder of a tech company and I saw this letter, I would be furious. What are six months going to do? After years of massive layoffs, testing the technology, reassuring shareholders expansion is on the horizon, and seeing relative competitors unveil their new products, you want to take a “paid” 6-month vacation to plan some more. What were you doing in the beginning, was that not the agenda for the entire existence of the company, “How can our technology be a benefit to society and not damaging”, that should have been the goal before making a blueprint.
The fact the tech industry is now considering our well-being is concerning. Never trust technology or anything man-made.
Just have fun with it.
- Real
This moment reminds me of the meeting in Jekyll Island between the top bankers and treasury authorities to create the Federal Reserve. During the 19th century, there were financial panics and deep recessions across the nation with an American Bank system that could not sustain it. The industry assembled, creating a centralized plan that improved the American Bank's capabilities domestically and abroad. However, that same plan is the cause of our economic melancholy. The Federal Reserves overprinting of USD as “relief” for congressional policies is the main reason our inflation rate is so volatile. Similar conditions to the one J.P. Morgan and Senator Aldrich tried to escape from.
The moral of the story is industry risks to society can be managed but can never be eliminated, especially not by industry leaders.
-Real
Although the tech industry seems to be getting the message from Fintech, this signaling is neither genuine nor is it effective. If I was a shareholder of a tech company and I saw this letter, I would be furious. What are six months going to do? After years of massive layoffs, testing the technology, reassuring shareholders expansion is on the horizon, and seeing relative competitors unveil their new products, you want to take a “paid” 6-month vacation to plan some more. What were you doing in the beginning, was that not the agenda for the entire existence of the company, “How can our technology be a benefit to society and not damaging”, that should have been the goal before making a blueprint.
The fact the tech industry is now considering our well-being is concerning. Never trust technology or anything man-made.
Just have fun with it.