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Statement on AI Risk

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Re: Statement on AI Risk

#421

Post by mitthrowaway2 »

goolulusaurs wrote: post #388

Throughout history there have been hundreds, if not thousands of examples of people and groups who thought the end of the world was imminent. So far, 100% of those people have been wrong. The prior should be that the people who believe in AI doomsday scenarios are wrong also, unless and until there is very strong evidence to the contrary. Vague theoretical arguments are not sufficient, as there are many organizations…

Many people seem to believe that the world is dangerous, and there are things like car accidents, illnesses, or homicides, which might somehow kill them. And yet, all of these people with such worries today have never been killed, not even once! How could they believe that anything fatal could ever happen to them?

Perhaps because they have read stories of such things happening to other people, and with a little reasoning, maybe the similarities between our circumstances and their circumstances are enough to seem worrying, that maybe we could end up in their shoes if we aren't careful.

The human species has never gone extinct, not even once! How could anyone ever believe that it would? And yet, it has happened to many other species...

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#422

Post by holmesworcester »

kalkin wrote: post #211
b3nji wrote: post #77

Nonsense, the industry giants are just trying to scare the law makers to license the technology. Effectively, cutting out everyone else. Remember the Google note circulating saying "they have no moat", this is their moat. They have to protect their investment, we don't want people running this willy nilly for next to no cost on their own devices, God forbid!

This could be Google's motivation (although note that Google is not actually the market leader right now) but the risk could still be real. Most of the signatories are academics, for one thing, including two who won Turing awards for ML work and another who is the co-author of the standard AI textbook (at least when I was in school). You can be cynical about corporate motives and still worried. I personally am worrie…

> But even cynicism doesn't seem to me to give much reason to worry about regulation of "next to no cost" open source models, though. There's only any chance of regulation being practical if models stay very expensive to make, requiring specialized hardware with a supply chain chokepoint. If personal devices do catch up to the state of the art, then for better or worse regulation is not going to prevent people from using them.

This is a really good point. I wonder if some of the antipathy to the joint statement is coming from people who are worried about open source models or small startups being interfered with by the regulations the statement calls for.

I agree with you that this cat is out of the bag and regulation of the tech we're seeing now is super unlikely.

We might see regulations for startups and individuals on explicitly exploring some class of self-improving approach that experts widely agree are dangerous, but there's no way we'll see broad bans on messing with open source AI/ML tools in the US at least. That fight is very winnable.

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#423

Post by dopidopHN »

boringuser2 wrote: post #413

A lot of people in this thread seem to be suffering from a lack of compute. The idea that an AI can't be dangerous because it is a incorporeal entity trapped in electricity is particularly dumb. This is literally how your brain works. You didn't build your house. You farmed the work out using leverage to people with the skills and materials. Your leverage was meager wealth generated by a loan. The leverage of a super…

I struggle to find description of how that would look like in non fiction sources.

But your take and analogies are the best strain of ideas I heard so far…

How would that would look ?

An AGI hidding it’s state, and effect on the real world thought the internet. It’s not like we did not build thousand of venues for that thought various API. Or just task rabbits.

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#424

Post by snickerbockers »

TheCaptain4815 wrote: post #365
api wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's too early to say definitively but it's possible that the atomic bomb dramatically reduced the number of people killed in war by making great power conflicts too damaging to undertake: https://kagi.com/proxy/battle_deaths_chart.png?c=qmSKsRSwhgA... The USA and USSR would almost certainly have fought a conventional WWIII without the bomb. Can you imagine the casualty rates for that...

I'd actually guess those casualties would be quite less than WW2. As tech advanced, more sophisticated targeting systems also advanced. No need to waste shells and missiles on civilian buildings, plus food and healthcare tech would continue to advance. Meanwhile, a single nuclear bomb hitting a major city could cause more casualties' than all American deaths in ww2 (400k).

That's really only true for the Americans, the Russians still don't seem to care about limiting collateral damage and undoubtedly the Americans wouldn't either if their cities were getting carpet bombed by soviet aircraft.

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#425

Post by mrtranscendence »

riku_iki wrote: post #250
seydor wrote: post #246

> Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war. I don't care about the future of the human species as long as my mind can be reliably transferred into an AI. In fact i wouldn't mind living forever as a pet of some superior AI , it's still better than dying a cruel death because cells are unable to maintain themselves. Why…

> my mind can be reliably transferred into an AI your mind can be copied, not transferred. Original mind will die with your body.

No no no, I played Soma. All you have to do is commit suicide as soon as your mind is scanned!

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#426

Post by olalonde »

mrtranscendence wrote: post #411
olalonde wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no issue with her choice of pronouns. I just find it odd that she states them when ~100% of the population would infer them correctly from her name Emily (and picture). My guess is she put them there for ideological signaling.

This is unnecessarily cynical. Why should people who are androgynous or trans be the only ones who state pronouns? By creating a norm around it we can improve their comfort at extremely minimal cost to ourselves.

I disagree, but HN is probably not the right place for this kind of debate. Also, it seems that you don't follow your own recommendation (on HN at least).

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#427

Post by oytis »

jjoonathan wrote: post #309
oytis wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Are the 4 million truck/taxi drivers in the US white collar? Janitors? Fast food workers? Automation is relentless and not everyone can be a plumber. 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 comf…

I am not hating anyone, being a white collar worker myself. My point is that a whole lot of people already live like that, without having much power from their labour, and the sky is not falling. More people might be joining them, and the illusion of meritocracy might be harder to maintain in the future, but extreme poverty, hunger etc. is something we will likely be able to avoid

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#428

Post by timmytokyo »

acjohnson55 wrote: post #304
that_guy_iain wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Right now, he's openly calling for regulation. That's a verifiable fact. 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.

He's not saying "please regulate me!" He's saying "Please regulate my competitors!"

I see no reason to assume benign motives on his part. In fact there is every reason to believe the opposite.

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#429

Post by snickerbockers »

sebzim4500 wrote: post #310
pphysch wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What makes you think that an AI caused extinction event will somehow leave AI researchers alive?

There's a good chance that it wouldn't, but since they're the ones (initially, at least) in control of the AI they stand the best chance of not being targeted by it.

These hypothetical AI extinction events don't have to be caused by the AI deciding to eliminate humanity for its own sake like in Terminator, they could also be driven by a human in control of a not-entirely-sentient AI.

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#430

Post by esafak »

holoduke wrote: post #403
holmesworcester wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As others have pointed out, there are many on this list (Bruce Schneier, for example) who do not stand to benefit from AI marketing or regulatory capture. Anyone upvoting this comment should take a long look at the names on this letter and realize that many are not conflicted. Many signers of this letter are more politically sophisticated than the average HN commenter, also. So sure, maybe they're getting rolled by m…

No. Its pretty obvious what is happening. The openai statements are pure self interest based. Nothing ethical. They lost that not a long time ago. And Sam Altman? He sold his soul to the devil. He is a lying sob.

This is not an OpenAI statement.
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