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Statement on AI Risk

safe.ai

91–100 of 964 posts

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#91

The top priority is to create awareness IMHO. AI can only be as destructive as the users let it. From my small sample size, it seems people believe in AI too much. Especially kids.

> AI can only be as destructive as the users let it.

Not really, I suppose you aren't familiar with AI alignment.

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#92

Can't take this seriously as long they still keep offering commercial AI services while improving the existing models they already have. (I'm not in favor of just stopping AI development and even if people claimed to stop, they probably wouldn't.) It's like people carrying torches warning about the risks of fire.

I agree with you that some of these people (probably Sam Altman) are likely proposing this regulation out of self interest rather than genuine concern.

But I don't think the stance is necessarily hypocritical. I know nuclear engineers who advocate for better regulation on nuclear power stations, and especially for better handling of nuclear waste.

You can believe that AI is a net positive but also that it needs to be handled with extreme care.

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#93
post #32

The issue I take with these kind of "AI safety" organizations is that they focus on the wrong aspects of AI safety. Specifically, they run this narrative that AI will make us humans go extinct. This is not a real risk today. Real risks are more in the category of systemic racism and sexism, deep fakes, over reliance on AI etc. But of course, "AI will humans extinct" is much sexier and collects clicks. Therefore, the…

You have it totally backwards. It's a much bigger catastrophe if we over-focus on "safety" as avoiding sexism and so on, and then everyone dies.

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#94
post #32

The issue I take with these kind of "AI safety" organizations is that they focus on the wrong aspects of AI safety. Specifically, they run this narrative that AI will make us humans go extinct. This is not a real risk today. Real risks are more in the category of systemic racism and sexism, deep fakes, over reliance on AI etc. But of course, "AI will humans extinct" is much sexier and collects clicks. Therefore, the…

A good way to categorize risk is look at both likelihood and severity of consequences. The most visible issues today (racism, deep fakes, over reliance) are almost certain to occur, but also for the most part have relatively minor consequences (mostly making things that are already happening worse). "Advanced AI will make humans extinct" is much less likely but has catastrophic consequences. Focusing on the catastrop…

I would put consolidating and increasing corporate and or government power on that list of potential visible very short term issues.

As AI becomes more incorporated in military applications, such as individual weapon systems, or large fleets of autonomous drones then the catastrophic consequence meter clicks up a notch in the sense that attack/defense paradigms change, much like they did in WWI with the machine gun and tanks, and in WWII with high speed military operations and airplanes. Our predictive ability on when/what will start a war lowers increasing uncertainty and potential proliferation. An in a world with nukes, higher uncertainty isn't a good thing.

Anyone that says AI can't/won't cause problems at this scale just ignores that individuals/corporations/governments are power seeking entities. Ones that are very greedy and unaligned with the well being of the individual can present huge risks. How we control these risks without creating other systems that are just as risky is going to be an interesting problem.

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#95
post #66
post #32

The issue I take with these kind of "AI safety" organizations is that they focus on the wrong aspects of AI safety. Specifically, they run this narrative that AI will make us humans go extinct. This is not a real risk today. Real risks are more in the category of systemic racism and sexism, deep fakes, over reliance on AI etc. But of course, "AI will humans extinct" is much sexier and collects clicks. Therefore, the…

If you were to take a look at the list of signatories on safe.ai, that's basically everyone who is everyone that works on building AI, what could Emily B Bender a professor of computer linguistics possibly add to the conversation and how would she be able to talk more about the "real AI safety" than any of those people? Edit: Sorry if it sounds arrogant, I don't mean Emily wouldn't have anything to add, but not sure…

[deleted]

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#96
post #66
post #32

The issue I take with these kind of "AI safety" organizations is that they focus on the wrong aspects of AI safety. Specifically, they run this narrative that AI will make us humans go extinct. This is not a real risk today. Real risks are more in the category of systemic racism and sexism, deep fakes, over reliance on AI etc. But of course, "AI will humans extinct" is much sexier and collects clicks. Therefore, the…

If you were to take a look at the list of signatories on safe.ai, that's basically everyone who is everyone that works on building AI, what could Emily B Bender a professor of computer linguistics possibly add to the conversation and how would she be able to talk more about the "real AI safety" than any of those people? Edit: Sorry if it sounds arrogant, I don't mean Emily wouldn't have anything to add, but not sure…

I think we need to be realistic and accept that people are going to pick the expert that agrees with them, even if on paper they are far less qualified.

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's curiously the standard crackpot line. "They doubted Einstein! They doubted Newton! Now they doubt me!" As if an incantation of famous names automatically makes the crackpot legitimate.

The signatories on this are not crackpots. Hinton is incredibly influential, and he quit his job at Google so he could "freely speak out about the risks of A.I."

Yet the lame rationalization was similar to that of a crackpot (previous comment).

The correct expression is as you so correctly point out: to appeal to the authority of the source.

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#98

Are we supposed to keep a straight face while reading these statements? This is Sam Bankman-Fried type of behavior, but applied to gullible AI proponents and opponents rather than "crypto bros". Let me guess, the next step is a proposed set of regulations written by OpenAI, Google and other Big Corporations who Care™ about people and just want to Do What's Best For Society™, setting aside the profit motive for the fi…

Explain to me why you think Max Tegmark wants this technology to be controlled by FAANG? Has his entire life been extremely in depth performance art?

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#99
post #58
post #17

I have yet to see a solution for “AI safety” that doesn’t involve ceding control of our most powerful models to a small handful of corporations. It’s hard to take these safety concerns seriously when the organizations blowing the whistle are simultaneously positioning themselves to capture the majority of the value.

> It’s hard to take these safety concerns seriously I don't get this mindset at all. How can it not be obvious to you that AI is an uniquely powerful and thus uniquely dangerous technology? It's like saying nuclear missiles can't possibly be dangerous and nuclear arms reduction and non-proliferation treaties were a scam, because the US, China and the Soviet Union had positioned themselves to capture the majority of t…

If you look the the world politics, basically if you hold enough nuclear weapons, you can do whatever you want to those who don't have them.

And based on the "dangers", new countries are prohibit to create them. And the countries which were quick enough to create them, holds all the power.

Their value is immeasurable especially for the Russia. Without them, they could not attack to Ukraine.

> non-proliferation treaties were a scam

And yes, they mostly are right now. Russia has backed from them. There are no real consequences if you are backing off, and you can do it in any time.

The parent commenter is most likely saying, that now the selected parties hold the power of AI, they want to prevent others to gain similar power, while maintaining all the value by themselves.

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