Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Statement on AI Risk

safe.ai

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 964 posts

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#291

Post by transcriptase »

sebzim4500 wrote: post #98
dns_snek wrote: post #82

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?

He’s making a statement alongside those who certainly aren’t championing these things for altruistic reasons.

Nobody develops a groundbreaking technology and then says “we should probably be regulated”, unless they actually mean “everyone after us should probably be regulated by laws that we would be more than happy to help you write in a way that we keep our advantage, which we also have infinite resources to work both within and around”.

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#292

Post by AlotOfReading »

duvenaud wrote: post #231
Infernal wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Humans are going to be outcompeted by AI” is the concrete bit as best I can tell. Historically humans are not outcompeted by new tools, but humans using old tools are outcompeted by humans using new tools. It’s not “all humans vs the new tool”, as the tool has no agency. If you meant “humans using old tools get outcompeted by humans using AI”, then I agree but I don’t see it any differently than previous efficiency…

I see what you mean - for a while, the best chess was played by humans aided by chess engines. But that era has passed, and now having a human trying to aid the best chess engines just results in worse chess (or the same, if the human does nothing). But whether there a few humans in the loop doesn't change the likely outcomes, if their actions are constrained by competition. What abilities do humans have that AIs wil…

Chess is just a game, with rigidly defined rules and win conditions. Real life is a fuzzy mix of ambiguous rules that may not apply and can be changed at any point, without any permanent win conditions.

I'm not convinced that it's impossible for computer to get there, but I don't see how they could be universally competitive with humans without either handicapping the humans into a constrained environment or having generalized AI, which we don't seem particularly close to.

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#293

Post by qt31415926 »

AlanYx wrote: post #256
ChatGTP wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

She's the first author of the stochastic parrots paper, and she's fairly representative of the group of "AI safety" researchers who view the field from a statistical perspective linked to social justice issues. That's distinct from the group of "AI safety" researchers who focus on the "might destroy humanity" perspective. There are other groups too obviously -- the field seems to cluster into ideological perspectives…

Current topic aside, I feel like that stochastic parrots paper aged really poorly in its criticisms of LLMs, and reading it felt like political propaganda with its exaggerated rhetoric and its anemic amount of scientific substance e.g.

> Text generated by an LM is not grounded in communicative intent, any model of the world, or any model of the reader’s state of mind. It can’t have been, because the training data never included sharing thoughts with a listener, nor does the machine have the ability to do that.

I'm surprised its cited so much given how many of its claims fell flat 1.5 years later

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#294

Post by habosa »

But yet, it’s full steam ahead. Many if not all of the signatories are going to do their part to advance AI even as they truly believe it may destroy us.

I’ve never seen such destructive curiosity. The desire to make cool new toys (and yes, money) is enough for them to risk everything.

If you work on AI: maybe just … stop?

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#295

Post by Tumblewood »

silverlake wrote: post #131
wongarsu wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This doesn’t work either. The consequence of extinction is infinity (to humans). Likelihood * infinity = infinity. So by hand-waving at a catastrophic sci-fi scenario they can demand we heed their demands, whatever that is.

This line of reasoning refutes pie-in-the-sky doomsday narratives that are extremely unlikely, but the case for AI extinction risk justifies a relatively high likelihood of extinction. Maybe a 0.0000000001% chance is worth ignoring but that's not what we're dealing with. See this survey for the probabilities cutting-edge AI researchers actually put on existential risk: https://aiimpacts.org/2022-expert-survey-on-progress-in-ai/#...

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#296

Post by ericb »

max_ wrote: post #260
tasubotadas wrote: post #236

If only we would fight for the real issues like climate change, instead of fantasies that would be great.

Things like extreme poverty already kill many people today. The risk of individuals suddenly falling into extreme poverty is a very real one. But none wants to talk about how to mitigate that problem.

If there's no humanity, presumably those people would be worse off, no?

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#297

Post by acjohnson55 »

endisneigh wrote: post #44
acjohnson55 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extinction would probably require an AI system taking human extinction on as an explicit goal and manipulating other real world systems to carry out that goal. Some mechanisms for this might include: - Taking control of robotic systems - Manipulating humans into actions that advance its goal - Exploiting and manipulating other computer systems for greater leverage - Interaction with other technologies that have globa…

everything you're describing has been possible since 2010 and been done already. AI isn't even necessary. simply scale and some nefarious meat bags.

I don't disagree. But I believe AI is a significant multiplier of these risks, both from a standpoint of being able to drive individual risks and also as a technology that increases the ways in which risks interact and become difficult to analyze.

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#298

Post by Al0neStar »

rcpt wrote: post #251
olalonde wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A good person to follow on real AI safety is Emily M. Bender (professor of computer linguistics at University of Washington): https://mstdn.social/@emilymbender@dair-community.social - Pronouns - "AI bros" - "mansplaining" - "extinction from capitalism" - "white supremacy" - "one old white guy" (referring to Geoffrey Hinton) Yeah... I think I will pass.

I think "pronouns" is ok but, yeah, "AI bros" is enough to get a pass from me to. Holier-than-thou name calling is still name calling.

There are a lot of AI-bros on twitter.

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#299

Post by qt31415926 »

Planktonne wrote: post #106
ChatGTP wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

She's a professor of computer linguistics; it's literally her field that's being discussed. The list of signatories includes people with far less relevant qualifications, and significantly greater profit motive. She's an informed party who doesn't stand to profit; we should listen to her a lot more readily than others.

Her field has also taken the largest hit from the success of LLMs and her research topics and her department are probably no longer prioritized by research grants. Given how many articles she's written that have criticized LLMs it's not surprising she has incentives.

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#300

Post by DoneWithAllThat »

tasubotadas wrote: post #236

If only we would fight for the real issues like climate change, instead of fantasies that would be great.

The response to climate change in recent years, even the most recent decade, is massive and global. This dumb trope that we’re not doing anything about is rooted in no amount of progress here will be accepted as sufficient. It’s a religion at this point.
Post reply on HN