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Sam Altman goes before US Congress to propose licenses for building AI

reuters.com

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Re: Sam Altman goes before US Congress to propose licenses for building AI

#431

Post by variant »

brenns10 wrote: post #234

Reminds me of SBF calling for crypto regulations while running FTX. Being seen as friendly to regulations is great for optics compared to being belligerently anti-regulation. You can appear responsible and benevolent, and get more opportunity to weaken regulation by controlling more of the narrative. And hey, if you get end up getting some regulatory capture making competition harder, that's a great benefit too. Open…

> OpenAI != FTX, just meaning to say calling for regulation isn't an indication of good intentions, despite sounding like it.

I'd argue that any business advocating for regulation is largely motivated by its own pursuit of regulatory capture.

Re: Sam Altman goes before US Congress to propose licenses for building AI

#432

Post by agentofoblivion »

uh_uh wrote: post #140
chaxor wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think about the papers showing mathematical proofs that GNNs (i.e. GATs/transformers) are dynamic programmers and therefore perform algorithmic reasoning? The fact that these systems can extrapolate well beyond their training data by learning algorithms is quite different than what has come before, and anyone stating that they "simply" predict next token is severely shortsighted. Things don't have to be '…

I just don't get how the average HN commenter thinks (and gets upvoted) that they know better than e.g. Ilya Sutskever who actually, you know, built the system. I keep reading this "it just predicts words, duh" rhetoric on HN which is not at all believed by people like Ilya or Hinton. Could it be that HN commenters know better than these people?

Maybe I'm not "the average HN commenter" because I am deep in this field, but I think the overlap of what these famous experts know, and what you need to know to make the doomer claims is basically null. And in fact, for most of the technical questions, no one knows.

For example, we don't understand fundamentals like these: - "intelligence", how it relates to computing, what its connections/dependencies to interacting with the physical world are, its limits...etc. - emergence, and in particular: an understanding of how optimizing one task can lead to emergent ability on other tasks - deep learning--what the limits and capabilities are. It's not at all clear that "general intelligence" even exists in the optimization space the parameters operate in.

It's pure speculation on behalf of those like Hinton and Ilya. The only thing we really know is that LLMs have had surprising ability to perform on tasks they weren't explicitly trained for, and even this amount of "emergent ability" is under debate. Like much of deep learning, that's an empirical result, but we have no framework for really understanding it. Extrapolating to doom and gloom scenarios is outrageous.

Re: Sam Altman goes before US Congress to propose licenses for building AI

#433

Post by jameshart »

elil17 wrote: post #129

This is the message I shared with my senator (edited to remove information which could identify me). I hope others will send similar messages. Dear Senator [X], I am an engineer working for [major employer in the state]. I am extremely concerned about the message that Sam Altman is sharing with the Judiciary committee today. Altman wants to create regulatory roadblocks to developing AI. My company produces AI-enabled…

> Now, because we had the freedom to innovate, AI will be bringing new, high paying jobs to our factories in our state.

Do we really have to play this game?

If what you’re arguing for is not going to specifically advantage your state over others, and the thing you’re arguing against isn’t going to create an advantage for other states over yours, why make this about ‘your state’ in the first place?

The point of elected representatives is to represent the views of their constituents, not to obtain special advantages for their constituents.

Re: Sam Altman goes before US Congress to propose licenses for building AI

#434

Post by p_j_w »

uses wrote: post #427

"he's just doing this to hinder competition" It's true that AI regulation would, in fact, hinder OpenAI's competition. But... isn't lobbying for regulation also what Sam would do if he genuinely thought that LLMs were powerful, dangerous technology that should be regulated? If you don't think LLMs/AI research should be regulated, just say that. I don't see how Sam's motives are relevant to that question.

The proper way to regulate is to disallow certain functions in an AI. Doing it that way wouldn't kneecap the competition to OpenAI, though, where requiring a license does.

Re: Sam Altman goes before US Congress to propose licenses for building AI

#435

Post by web3-is-a-scam »

catiopatio wrote: post #404
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> regulation should focus on ensuring the safety of AIs once they are ready to be put into widespread use What would you say to a simple registration requirement? You give a point of contact and a description of training data, model, and perhaps intended use (could be binary: civilian or dual use). One page, publicly visible. This gives groundwork for future rulemaking and oversight if necessary.

[flagged]

Yet

Re: Sam Altman goes before US Congress to propose licenses for building AI

#436

Post by Pet_Ant »

jameshart wrote: post #433
elil17 wrote: post #129

This is the message I shared with my senator (edited to remove information which could identify me). I hope others will send similar messages. Dear Senator [X], I am an engineer working for [major employer in the state]. I am extremely concerned about the message that Sam Altman is sharing with the Judiciary committee today. Altman wants to create regulatory roadblocks to developing AI. My company produces AI-enabled…

> Now, because we had the freedom to innovate, AI will be bringing new, high paying jobs to our factories in our state. Do we really have to play this game? If what you’re arguing for is not going to specifically advantage your state over others, and the thing you’re arguing against isn’t going to create an advantage for other states over yours, why make this about ‘your state’ in the first place? The point of electe…

> The point of elected representatives is to represent the views of their constituents, not to obtain special advantages for their constituents.

That is painfully naive, a history of pork projects speaks otherwise.

Re: Sam Altman goes before US Congress to propose licenses for building AI

#437

Post by elil17 »

jameshart wrote: post #433
elil17 wrote: post #129

This is the message I shared with my senator (edited to remove information which could identify me). I hope others will send similar messages. Dear Senator [X], I am an engineer working for [major employer in the state]. I am extremely concerned about the message that Sam Altman is sharing with the Judiciary committee today. Altman wants to create regulatory roadblocks to developing AI. My company produces AI-enabled…

> Now, because we had the freedom to innovate, AI will be bringing new, high paying jobs to our factories in our state. Do we really have to play this game? If what you’re arguing for is not going to specifically advantage your state over others, and the thing you’re arguing against isn’t going to create an advantage for other states over yours, why make this about ‘your state’ in the first place? The point of electe…

What I was thinking in my head (although I don't think I articulated this well) is that I hope that smaller businesses who build their own AIs will be able to create some jobs, even if AI as a whole will negatively impact employment (and I think that's going to happen even if just big businesses can play at the AI game).

Re: Sam Altman goes before US Congress to propose licenses for building AI

#438

Post by macrolocal »

sva_ wrote: post #158

It seems pretty clear at this point, that OpenAI etc will lobby towards making it more difficult for new companies/entities to join the AI space, all in the name of 'safety'. They're trying to make the case that everyone should use AI through their APIs so that they can keep things in check. Conveniently this also helps them build a monopoly. It is pretty aggravating that they're bastardizing and abusing terms like '…

Nb. Altman wants lenient regulations for companies that might leverage OpenAI's foundational models.

Re: Sam Altman goes before US Congress to propose licenses for building AI

#439

Post by elil17 »

abeppu wrote: post #330
elil17 wrote: post #129

This is the message I shared with my senator (edited to remove information which could identify me). I hope others will send similar messages. Dear Senator [X], I am an engineer working for [major employer in the state]. I am extremely concerned about the message that Sam Altman is sharing with the Judiciary committee today. Altman wants to create regulatory roadblocks to developing AI. My company produces AI-enabled…

> regulation should focus on ensuring the safety of AIs once they are ready to be put into widespread use - this would allow companies and individuals to research new AIs freely while still ensuring that AI products are properly reviewed. While in general I share the view that _research_ should be unencumbered, but deployment should be regulated, I do take issue with your view that safety only matters once they are r…

I agree with you. I that's an excellent and specific proposal for how AI could be regulated. I think you should share this with your senators/representatives.

Re: Sam Altman goes before US Congress to propose licenses for building AI

#440

Post by hammyhavoc »

mola wrote: post #419
m00x wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except they don't make any money from their products. They're losing hundreds of millions per month. This isn't the same at all.

Well, this will give em time. Right now LLM have become a commodity. Everybody is got them and can research and develoo them. OpenAI is without a product, it has no advantage. But if the general public will be limited. It'll be hard to catch up to openAI. I'm sry for the cynicism, but Altman seems very much disingenuous with this.

OpenAI is currently registered as a non-profit, yet they're projecting a billion dollars in revenue in 2024, and they sell access to their APIs, which if their previous spending is anything to go by, means they'll see half a billion dollars in profit if we assume they aren't going to reinvest it all.

Some big assumptions.

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