301–310 of 964 posts
If only we would fight for the real issues like climate change, instead of fantasies that would be great.
Why not believe them now, assuming you believed them when they were calling out for action on climate change decades ago?
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> 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…
Nuclear missiles present an obvious danger to the human body. AI is an application of math. It is not clear how that can be used directly to harm a body. The assumption seems to be that said math will be coupled with something like a nuclear missile, but in that case the nuclear missile is still the threat. Any use of AI is just an implementation detail.
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I don't think that's a fair assessment. He favors government oversight and licensing. Arguably, that would entrench companies with deep pockets, but it's also a totally reasonable idea.
> He favors government oversight and licensing. No, he favors thing that benefit him > "The current draft of the EU AI Act would be over-regulating, but we have heard it's going to get pulled back," he told Reuters. "They are still talking about it." And really, what we'll see is the current EU AI Act as-is is probably not strong enough and we'll almost certainly see the need for more in the future.
It's very possible that when specific proposals are on the table, that we'll see Altman become uncooperative with respect to things that don't fit into his self-interest. But until that happens, you're just speculating.
I'm not sure they can keep claiming this without becoming concrete about it. Nuclear weapons are not nebulous, vague threats of diffuse nature. They literally burn the living flesh right off the face of the earth and they do it dramatically. There is very little to argue about except "how" are we going to contain it, not "why". In this case I truly don't know "why". What fundamental risks are there? Dramatic, loud, l…
If we're arguing about whether you can beat Stockfish, I will not be able to tell you the exact moves it will play but I am entirely justified in predicting that you will lose.
Obviously we can imagine concrete ways a superintelligence might kill us all (engineer a virus, hack nuclear weapons, misinformation campaign to start WW3 etc.) but given we aren't a superintelligence we don't know what it would actually do in practice.
If only we would fight for the real issues like climate change, instead of fantasies that would be great.
But since I see these kinds of snarky responses often – we obviously do worry about climate change and various other issues. Continued advancements in AI is just one of many issues that face us which humanity should be concerned about. Few concerned about AI would argue it comes at the expense of other issues, but in addition to them.
If you're saying it's a matter of priorities and that currently humanity is dedicating too much of its collective resource to AI safety I think you're probably over estimating current amount of funding and research going into AI safety.
If you're saying that AI safety is a non-issue then you're probably not well informed on the topic.
I find it quite extraordinary how many on here are dismissing that there is any risk at all. I also find statements like Yann LeCunn's that "The most common reaction by AI researchers to these prophecies of doom is face palming." to be lacking in awareness. "Experts disagree on risk of extinction" isn't quite as reassuring as he thinks it is. The reality is, despite the opinions of the armchair quarterbacks commentin…
The fear over AI is a displaced fear of unaccountable social structures with extinction-power that currently exist and we allow to continually exist. Without these structures AI is harmless to the species, even superintelligence.
Your (reasonable) counter-argument might be that somebody (like, say, my dumb self) accidentally mixes their computers just right and creates an intelligence that escapes into the wild. The plot of Ex Machina is a reasonable stand-in for such an event. I am also going to assume the intelligence would desire to kill all humans. Either the AI would have to find already existing extinction-power in society, or it would need to build it. In either case the argument is against building extinction-power in the first place.
My (admittedly cynical) take about this round of regulation is about several first-movers in AI to write legislation that is favorable to them and prevents any meaningful competition.
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Ok, enough cynicism. Lets talk some solutions. Nuclear weapons are an instructive case of both handling (or not) of extinction-power and the international diplomacy the world can engage to manage such a power.
One example is the Outer Space Weapons Ban treaty - we can have a similar ban of AI in militaries. Politically one can reap benefits of deescalation and peaceful development, while logistically it prevents single-points-of-failure in a combat situation. Those points-of-failures sure are juicy targets for the opponent!
As a consequence of these bans and treaties, institutions arose that monitor and regulate trans-national nuclear programs. AI can likewise have similar institutions. The promotion and sharing of information would prevent any country from gaining an advantage, and the inspections would deter their military application.
This is only what I could come up with off the top of my head, but I hope it shows a window into the possibilities of meaningful political commitments towards AI.
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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.
Is AI going to replace the lowest paid jobs though? I imagine, it rather has potential to move the white collar workers down the social ladder, which is unfortunate, but wouldn't cause extreme poverty.
Zoom out. It's a big problem that most people derive their social power from labor while the demand for labor is clearly on a long term downward trend. Even if progress slows way down, even if the next wave of progress only dispossesses people who you hate and feel comfortable farming for schadenfreude, we will have to deal with this eventually. Defaulting means our society will look like (insert cyberpunk nightmare world here).
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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…
Nuclear engineers are in the line of fire, of course they would care about safety. It's their safety more than almost anyone else. Needless to say, this does not hold for AI researchers.