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AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion

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Re: AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion

#111

Post by version_five »

olalonde wrote: post #109
version_five wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We really need some perspective here. One one side is a force capable of unleashing unfathomable amounts of energy, with all kinds of additional negative side effects, that has both been extensively demonstrated and has been used for mass destruction. On the other is a chatbot, that could what, "spew misinformation", take our jobs, someday through a mechanism not known and not related to how it works become sentient…

Talking about perspective, do you maintain your prediction[0] that no meaningful business cases will emerge from generative AI? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34197033

Yes - I'm happy you found that. I don't think it's really related to this thread, but I maintain we're firmly in the "demo" phase, and it's going to fizzle out when the rubber hits the road and companies actually try and find a way to justify their investments. Not that I'd rule out there being some crappy customer service chatbots being fielded.

Goalposts (including mine surely) will get moved around to claim successes / no successes, but the balance is going to be well towards indifference to the tech as opposed to any real changes resulting from it.

Re: AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion

#112

Post by antonvs »

olalonde wrote: post #108
antonvs wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That seems like an absurd comparison given people like LeCun are actively and intentionally working towards creating this super-human entity. There's a disconnect in that statement. The imagined superintelligence that people like the LessWrong cult speculate and worry about is not the same thing as the AI that LeCun is working towards. The cultists simply speculate, against all evidence, that they somehow could end…

Is your argument that we're far away from developing a "conscious superintelligent AI" or that it's not possible in principle ?

The answer to the former is almost certainly yes.

The answer to the latter is unknown, given that we really have no idea what the sufficient conditions for consciousness are.

Edit: to be clear about my argument: I absolutely think we should be taking the risks of AI seriously, but those risks have to do with how humans will use the technology. Unfortunately, we're collectively bad at managing those kinds of risks, because it requires managing other humans with their own ideas and agendas.

That's exactly why claiming the risk comes from the technology itself seems so appealing to some people: if the risk is purely from the technology, then all we need to do is "shut it down", to quote Eliezer Luddkowsky writing in Time Magazine recently.

Re: AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion

#113

Post by 23B1 »

moonchrome wrote: post #74
23B1 wrote: post #65

Something can go wrong (premise). Therefore, something will go wrong (invalid conclusion). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_probability Sure seems to me that the whole Lesswrong crowd has forgotten their founding principles around cognitive biases. Or maybe they're just having a bit of fun riding the hypecycle.

Something can go wrong. The outcome of the thing going wrong is literally the worst thing that can happen to the entire humanity. Therefore we should do everything in our power to avoid doing that thing untill we can eliminate the risk.

By that rather sloppy logic, we should be urgently working on capping the Yellowstone supervolcano and constructing impenetrable meteorite defense shields.

I acknowledge that it's a possibility; that's not the argument at hand.

Re: AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion

#114

Post by marginalia_nu »

23B1 wrote: post #99
marginalia_nu wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that is a generous interpretation. Substitute AI experiments with playing russian roulette or something similarly dangerous and the logic seems sound. Blowing your head off is possible, but not probable (1 in 6 chance). The magnitude of the perceived risk matters.

A 1 in 6 chance is a discrete number. The chance of annihilation due to AGI is not. You're defending an appeal to probability fallacy with a false equivalence fallacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy

Re: AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion

#115

Post by The_Colonel »

antonvs wrote: post #110
The_Colonel wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The "conscious superintelligent AI" is a scifi LARPing game that some people are getting paid to play Thinking our meat brain's consciousness is somehow special, and our intelligence can't be surpassed by a machine, sounds much more like a religion to me. AI researchers are working towards making intelligent machines. Why are we supposed to believe that - if they manage to achieve their goal - these machines won't…

> Thinking our meat brain's consciousness is somehow special, and our intelligence can't be surpassed by a machine, sounds much more like a religion to me. Lucky I didn't say anything remotely like that, then. > AI researchers are working towards making intelligent machines. Why are we supposed to believe that - if they manage to achieve their goal - these machines won't surpass our intelligence? I didn't say that th…

> Lucky I didn't say anything remotely like that, then.

Then surely AI research creating a superintelligent conscious AI is a realistic possibility and not a "scifi LARPing".

> Yet no-one is seriously concerned that GPT-4 will end the world.

I'm not concerned that GPT-4 will end the world. Maybe not even GPT-8.

LLMs doesn't seem like a very prospective way towards a strong AI. But AI research is not united on LLMs and works on different approaches, some of which could lead to a superintelligent AI.

Re: AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion

#116

Post by blast »

IIAOPSW wrote: post #53
verdverm wrote: post #2

There are a lot of religious like beliefs about things as people have moved away from traditional religions. I wonder if it is in our nature to have something bigger than ourselves to believe in based on faith in the message

For a sizeable chunk of people possibly so, but it seems not so universal. Lots of people don't find any form of "just have faith" convincing.

They're probably doing it unconsciously.

Re: AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion

#117

Post by olalonde »

version_five wrote: post #111
olalonde wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talking about perspective, do you maintain your prediction[0] that no meaningful business cases will emerge from generative AI? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34197033

Yes - I'm happy you found that. I don't think it's really related to this thread, but I maintain we're firmly in the "demo" phase, and it's going to fizzle out when the rubber hits the road and companies actually try and find a way to justify their investments. Not that I'd rule out there being some crappy customer service chatbots being fielded. Goalposts (including mine surely) will get moved around to claim succes…

Apologies for the tangent, it wasn't related to this thread. I've been in the habit of bookmarking predictions on HN to revisit them later, and your username caught my eye. I'm a bit surprised you maintain it, but the final verdict remains to be seen.

Re: AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion

#118

Post by cwmoore »

eternalban wrote: post #83
cwmoore wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That link is not at all a list of "why AI is extremely dangerous and extremely likely to kill us all". I skimmed it (there's a lot of writing assuming grave danger) but found only the following example of AI lethality, and it appears fantastical: > ...nanomachinery builds diamondoid bacteria, that replicate with solar power and atmospheric CHON, maybe aggregate into some miniature rockets or jets so they can ride the…

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35402539 mind viruses.

> The big ask from AGI alignment, the basic challenge I am saying is too difficult, is to obtain by any strategy whatsoever a significant chance of there being any survivors.

There's something more here that I think is lost in the metaconversations, the control question generally, or ceding control to learning machines. The argument is that we are hoping for the best while remaining unaware of not preparing for the worst. Actual scenarios aside, what if?

Re: AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion

#119

Post by version_five »

olalonde wrote: post #117
version_five wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes - I'm happy you found that. I don't think it's really related to this thread, but I maintain we're firmly in the "demo" phase, and it's going to fizzle out when the rubber hits the road and companies actually try and find a way to justify their investments. Not that I'd rule out there being some crappy customer service chatbots being fielded. Goalposts (including mine surely) will get moved around to claim succes…

Apologies for the tangent, it wasn't related to this thread. I've been in the habit of bookmarking predictions on HN to revisit them later, and your username caught my eye. I'm a bit surprised you maintain it, but the final verdict remains to be seen.

What have you seen since the new year that makes you surprised I'd change an opinion I had then?

Re: AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion

#120

Post by luckylion »

haswell wrote: post #100
luckylion wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm fine with humans having outcompeted the neanderthals and whatever else there was. I'm just as fine with someone else doing it to us, at least if it's someone or something that is smarter than us and not some virus or bacteria that kills us all (which would be kind of lame). If an artificial superintelligence wants to take over the flame of progress, I'm fine with that. But I'm also totally fine with considering t…

Those are not similar/comparable outcomes and I think there are two major factors that can’t be hand-waved away: 1. Consciousness. Despite advances in “intelligence”, we still have a very limited understanding of what makes us conscious, and whether or not consciousness can emerge from machines. If machines are not conscious and are all that remain, I’d argue everything that could be construed to have value by humans…

Or if consciousness is more than an illusion. Fair points. I'm not sure if you can have a general intelligence without some form of consciousness. I don't believe in gods or souls, so I lean towards us not being special.

As for the how, I agree with you. I'd prefer it to not be terminators crushing heads under their iron feet while allowing us just enough room to run and hide and live in constant terror for centuries. But I doubt it will be, the power delta will be too large. It'll be like a game of Civilization where Gandhi is advancing on you with modern tanks and fighter planes while you've barely discovered the wheel.

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