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Geoffrey Hinton leaves Google and warns of danger ahead

nytimes.com

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Re: Geoffrey Hinton leaves Google and warns of danger ahead

#51

Post by ben_w »

saynay wrote: post #10
ramraj07 wrote: post #2

What little consolation I had that maybe the experts of AI who continued to insist we needn’t worry too much know better, evaporates with this news. I am reminded that even a year back the experts were absolutely confident (as is mentioned in this article, including Hinton) that really intelligent AI is 30 years ahead. Anyone still trying to argue that we needn’t worry about AI, better have a mathematical proof of th…

Most still believe that "really intelligent AI" is still a long way off, from what I have seen. Many have started to believe there can be a lot of harm caused by the systems well before then, however.

It depends what you mean by "intelligence". For any given definition so far, when the AI can do that, we have changed our minds about if that counts.

So, when I was a kid, "intelligence" meant being good at chess and maths, having a good memory, knowing a lot of trivia, and being able to speak a second language.

On all of these things except language, a raspberry pi and a cheap memory card beats essentially all humans.

For language, even a dictionary lookup — where "hydraulic ram" might become "water sheep" — will beat many, but I'm not sure it would be a majority.

But that's ok, we've changed what we meant by "intelligent" since then.

Re: Geoffrey Hinton leaves Google and warns of danger ahead

#52

Post by Lutger »

nologic01 wrote: post #4

> the average person will not be able to know what is true anymore We barely held things together as society without AI unleashing cognitive noise at industrial scale. Somehow we must find ways to re-channel the potential of digital technology for the betterment of society, not its annihilation.

Between Social Media, Cambridge Analytica, the Climate Crisis, Pandemic and (mostly) Russian disinfo, etc, it is already the case that most people have a really hard time knowing what is true.

I don't claim to have much foresight, but an online world where truly and obviously nothing can be trusted might be a good thing. Because when AI generated content looks and feels the same as real content, nothing is to be trusted anymore by anyone. This makes misinfo and disinfo authored by humans even less impactful, because they are parasitic upon true and reliable information.

We will need new devices of trust, which are robust enough to protect against widespread use of generative AI, and as a byproduct disinfo won't have such an easy time to grift on our naivety.

Re: Geoffrey Hinton leaves Google and warns of danger ahead

#53

Post by seydor »

nologic01 wrote: post #4

> the average person will not be able to know what is true anymore We barely held things together as society without AI unleashing cognitive noise at industrial scale. Somehow we must find ways to re-channel the potential of digital technology for the betterment of society, not its annihilation.

The average person never knew, it heard. In this new world people have to learn to get out of their apartments

Re: Geoffrey Hinton leaves Google and warns of danger ahead

#54

Post by vbezhenar »

archerx wrote: post #36

There is part of me that thinks that this A.I. fear-mongering is some kind of tactic by Google to get everybody to pause training their A.I.s so they can secretly catch up in the background. If I was to do some quick game theory in my mind this would be the result. Imagine being Google, leading the way in A.I. for years, create the frameworks (tensorflow), create custom hardware for A.I. (TPUs), fund a ton of researc…

The fear is from people who can extrapolate. Who can remember state of AI 20/10/5 years ago. And compare it to 2023.

Whether that extrapolation makes sense, nobody knows. But fear is understandable.

Re: Geoffrey Hinton leaves Google and warns of danger ahead

#55

Post by vbezhenar »

lancesells wrote: post #22
nologic01 wrote: post #4

> the average person will not be able to know what is true anymore We barely held things together as society without AI unleashing cognitive noise at industrial scale. Somehow we must find ways to re-channel the potential of digital technology for the betterment of society, not its annihilation.

Ending the internet would probably do it. Noise goes way down when you only have x amount of news sources and outlets. We could still have things like maps, messages, etc. that are all very beneficial.

I used FIDO over telephone line. It didn't differ much from modern Internet other than scale.

If there're messages, there'll be Internet built on top of it. Unless there will be aggressive censors hunting for every sign of "unapproved" communication.

Re: Geoffrey Hinton leaves Google and warns of danger ahead

#56

Post by Jon_Lowtek »

williamcotton wrote: post #11

The first step is state-issued public-key cryptographic identification cards. I have been making this argument for years with regards to human actors but perhaps with enough fear of the machines sentiment coursing through society the argument will now be considered. Authentically Human in a World of ChatGPT https://www.williamcotton.com/articles/authentically-human-i... And the article from years ago: The Tyranny of…

Where i live gambling is tightly controlled and requires government id due to money laundering laws. A sad side effect is a scheme were poor people sell their identity to organisations "gambling" on their behalf, trading an intangible future risk for hard present cash.

Even today most chatgpt answers aren't posted by chatgpt on the social networks, but echoed by humans. Considering how much access people are willing to grant any bullshit app, your whole concept of using a government PKI for social networks would just lead to more people getting their id stolen, while running a bot on their profile.

But you probably consider these prolls acceptable losses, as long as technology is implemented that allows the ministry of truth a tight control over party members who actually matter. Because the Orwell comparison is not a false dichotomy, as you claim, communication technology is a key battlefield in the tug of war between totalitarianism and liberalism. You keep repeating that you are not in favor of outlawing non-government-certified speech, but you fail to understand that, even if not outlawed, it would be marginalised. Take note how the totalitarians keep repeating their proposals to break all encryption and listen to all communication. Even if you may not want it, they do.

The path to hell is paved with good intentions and yours isn't even good.

I also notice how you hope "fear" does sway public opinion to favor your concepts. Are you sure you are not playing for team evil?

Re: Geoffrey Hinton leaves Google and warns of danger ahead

#57

Post by ChatGTP »

sumtechguy wrote: post #19
ramraj07 wrote: post #2

What little consolation I had that maybe the experts of AI who continued to insist we needn’t worry too much know better, evaporates with this news. I am reminded that even a year back the experts were absolutely confident (as is mentioned in this article, including Hinton) that really intelligent AI is 30 years ahead. Anyone still trying to argue that we needn’t worry about AI, better have a mathematical proof of th…

I am not worried about AI. I am more worried about those who use it and those who are building it and mostly those who control it. This is true for all technologies.

So you are worried about it?

Re: Geoffrey Hinton leaves Google and warns of danger ahead

#59

Post by 52-6F-62 »

rvz wrote: post #15
williamcotton wrote: post #11

The first step is state-issued public-key cryptographic identification cards. I have been making this argument for years with regards to human actors but perhaps with enough fear of the machines sentiment coursing through society the argument will now be considered. Authentically Human in a World of ChatGPT https://www.williamcotton.com/articles/authentically-human-i... And the article from years ago: The Tyranny of…

> The first step is state-issued public-key cryptographic identification cards. Governments totally love this antidote. I wonder who could be selling this sort of snake-oil to them whilst also being on the other side selling the poison... ...No-one else but Sam Altman's World Coin scam. [0] [0] https://worldcoin.org/blog/engineering/humanness-in-the-age-...

Wow. What’s the end game there?

Seriously, what is their actual vision for the world? I’m amazed any even moderately experienced adult thinks this is progress.

Re: Geoffrey Hinton leaves Google and warns of danger ahead

#60

Post by cbolton »

d23 wrote: post #38
orzig wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saving a click, because this basically invalidates the NYT headline: > In the NYT today, Cade Metz implies that I left Google so that I could criticize Google. Actually, I left so that I could talk about the dangers of AI without considering how this impacts Google. Google has acted very responsibly.

This seems roughly in line with the article. He left to talk about the dangers.

This tweet is not at all in line with the article. From the article:

> Dr. Hinton said he has quit his job at Google, where he has worked for more than decade and became one of the most respected voices in the field, so he can freely speak out about the risks of A.I. A part of him, he said, now regrets his life’s work.

> Dr. Hinton, often called “the Godfather of A.I.,” did not sign either of those letters and said he did not want to publicly criticize Google or other companies until he had quit his job.

As Hinton says in his tweet, this clearly implies that he left to be free to criticize Google.

And the following quote is not really consistent with the other part of Hinton's tweet, that "Google has acted very responsibly":

> Until last year, he said, Google acted as a “proper steward” for the technology, careful not to release something that might cause harm. But now that Microsoft has augmented its Bing search engine with a chatbot — challenging Google’s core business — Google is racing to deploy the same kind of technology. The tech giants are locked in a competition that might be impossible to stop, Dr. Hinton said.

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