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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

#91

Post by trgdr »

mindvirus wrote: post #89
trgdr wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I don't want to be unfair or unkind, but his responses in this article seem to reflect rather poorly on his character. The thought process seems to be something like: "There was an opportunity for someone to gain notoriety and money at a profound cost to the human race. Someone was going to do it. I don't actually feel bad about being the one to benefit, but it is fashionable to pretend to have a conscience abou…

Isn't it true of everything though? Explosives, airplanes, electricity, computers - all double edged swords that have both greatly benefited humanity and caused great harm (with the potential for a lot more of both).

It is certainly true that there are many inventions that pose some sort of threat to humanity, and that they are generally pursued by people who have some sort of personal/professional interest in their development. In that respect, this isn't particularly different.

The sentiment of "Oh by the way this stuff is super bad and dangerous so we should be careful" just rings pretty hollow from someone who is at the tail-end of a career spent in pursuit of that exact bad, dangerous thing. If he were 20 years younger or not wealthy it's hard to believe that he would be saying this out loud, even if he believed it.

Also this sentiment rings _extra_ hollow from someone who supposedly left CMU because he didn't want to accept Pentagon funds or work on things that would be used for war. That feels like either an incoherent value system or some pretty substantial half-truths to me.

Re: Geoffrey Hinton leaves Google and warns of danger ahead

#92

Post by alphabetting »

dlkf wrote: post #6
nmstoker wrote: post #3

Hinton responded on Twitter: https://twitter.com/geoffreyhinton/status/165299357072121037...

Cade Metz is the same hack who tried to smear Scott Alexander. This guy is the personification of journalistic malpractice.

I have no clue but could be more a problem of his assignments and framing from NYT editors. His book on history of AI was very good.

Re: Geoffrey Hinton leaves Google and warns of danger ahead

#93

Post by Verdex »

dan-g wrote: post #69

Full New York Times piece: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/01/technology/ai-google-chat...

Okay, so is this some grammatical style that I'm just unaware of:

> where he has worked for more than decade

I would have expected an "a" or something before decade.

Meanwhile, over at theverge they have:

> employed by Google for more than a decade

Which is what I would have thought would be the grammatically correct form.

Okay, so the overall structure of the article is "man does thing then decides he maybe should not have done the thing". It doesn't really feel like it's adding anything meaningful to the conversation. At the very least theverge has Hinton's twitter response to the nytimes article, which feels like it expands the conversation to: "man regrets choices, but thinks large corporation we're all familiar with is doing okayish". That actually feels like a bit of news.

Over the years, I've been led to believe that NYTimes is a significant entity when it comes to news. However, I've already seen coverage and discussion of the current AI environment that's 1000x better on HN, reddit, and youtube.

Re: Geoffrey Hinton leaves Google and warns of danger ahead

#95

Post by rscho »

trgdr wrote: post #87
politician wrote: post #81

After reading the NYT interview, I don’t understand why he still chose to invent, in his words, a dangerous technology and publish the results openly. Not a criticism of the man, but of the article.

Yeah I don't want to be unfair or unkind, but his responses in this article seem to reflect rather poorly on his character. The thought process seems to be something like: "There was an opportunity for someone to gain notoriety and money at a profound cost to the human race. Someone was going to do it. I don't actually feel bad about being the one to benefit, but it is fashionable to pretend to have a conscience abou…

Because it's their best shot at ensuring their kids' well-being? And if they don't have children, maybe they simply don't care.

Re: Geoffrey Hinton leaves Google and warns of danger ahead

#96

Post by berkeleyjunk »

trgdr wrote: post #87
politician wrote: post #81

After reading the NYT interview, I don’t understand why he still chose to invent, in his words, a dangerous technology and publish the results openly. Not a criticism of the man, but of the article.

Yeah I don't want to be unfair or unkind, but his responses in this article seem to reflect rather poorly on his character. The thought process seems to be something like: "There was an opportunity for someone to gain notoriety and money at a profound cost to the human race. Someone was going to do it. I don't actually feel bad about being the one to benefit, but it is fashionable to pretend to have a conscience abou…

After the war, Robert Oppenheimer remarked that the physicists involved in the Manhattan project had "known sin". Von Neumann's response was that "sometimes someone confesses a sin in order to take credit for it."

- From Norman Macrae's John von Neumann book

Re: Geoffrey Hinton leaves Google and warns of danger ahead

#97

Post by mitchdoogle »

yowzadave wrote: post #88
politician wrote: post #81

After reading the NYT interview, I don’t understand why he still chose to invent, in his words, a dangerous technology and publish the results openly. Not a criticism of the man, but of the article.

I have this same question about the (apparently many) AI researchers who believe it poses significant risks to humanity, yet still push forward developing it as fast as they can.

Just guessing, but I'm sure they get paid very well and receive promises from their companies that everything will be done ethically, nothing rushed, etc. We've seen now that OpenAI and Microsoft and Google care more about the business case rather than doing things ethically and carefully.

Re: Geoffrey Hinton leaves Google and warns of danger ahead

#99

Post by neatze »

“The idea that this stuff could actually get smarter than people — a few people believed that,” said Hinton to the NYT. “But most people thought it was way off. And I thought it was way off. I thought it was 30 to 50 years or even longer away. Obviously, I no longer think that.”

Calculators are smarter then humans in calculating, what does he mean by that?

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