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Statement on AI Risk

safe.ai

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Re: Statement on AI Risk

#451

Post by Animats »

valine wrote: 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.

> 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.

That's an excellent point.

Most of the near-term risks with AI involve corporations and governments acquiring more power. AI provides power tools for surveillance, oppression, and deception at scale. Those are already deployed and getting better. This mostly benefits powerful organizations. This alarm about strong AI taking over is a diversion from the real near-term threat.

With AI, Big Brother can watch everything all the time. Listen to and evaluate everything you say and do. The cops and your boss already have some of that capability.

Is something watching you right now through your webcam? Is something listening to you right now through your phone? Are you sure?

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#452

Post by randomdata »

rahmeero wrote: post #404
randomdata wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It turns out that people hook computers to 'things' that exist in the physical world. But those physical things would be the danger, at least if you consider the nuclear missile to be the danger. It seems you are trying to go down the "guns don't kill people, people kill people" line of thinking. Which is fine, but outside of the discussion taking place.

There are many relevant things that already exist in the physical world and are not currently considered dangers: ecommerce, digital payments, doordash-style delivery, cross-border remittances, remote gig work, social media fanning extreme political views, event organizing. However, these are constituent elements that could be aggregated and weaponized by a maleficent AI.

Those tangible elements would conceivably become the danger, not the AI using those elements. Again, the "guns don't kill people, people kill people" take is all well and good, but well outside of this discussion.

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#453

Post by arisAlexis »

AlexandrB wrote: post #303

This reeks of marketing and a push for early regulatory capture. We already know how Sam Altman thinks AI risk should be mitigated - namely by giving OpenAI more market power. If the risk were real, these folks would be asking the US government to nationalize their companies or bring them under the same kind of control as nukes and related technologies. Instead we get some nonsense about licensing.

All academics and researchers from different parts of the world reek marketing? Conspiracy theorists are strong

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#454

Post by mrtranscendence »

ilaksh wrote: post #345
ericb wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? ChatGPT 4 can already pass the bar exam and is fluent in every language. It is super intelligent. Today. No human can do that, the system is here, and so is an architecture. As for the existential risk, assume nothing other than evil humans will use it to do evil human stuff. Most technology iteratively gets better, so there's no big leaps of imagination required to imagine that we're equipping bad humans with…

Right. And it would be a complete break from the history of computing if human-level GPT doesn't get 100+ times faster in the next few years. Certainly within five years. All it takes is for someone to give an AI that thinks 100 times faster than humans an overly broad goal. Then the only way to counteract it is with another AI with overly broad goals. And you can't tell it to stop and wait for humans to check it's d…

Computational power does not grow at the rate of over 100x within the span of “a few years”. If that were the case we’d have vastly more powerful kit by now.

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#455

Post by AnimalMuppet »

ericb wrote: post #273
SanderNL wrote: post #114

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…

Agreed that it should be spelled out, but... If a superintelligence can be set on any specific task, it could be any task. - Make covid-ebola - Cause world war 3 You may have noticed that chatgpt is sort of goal-less until a human gives it a goal. Assuming nothing other than it can become superintelligent (no one seems to be arguing against that--I argue that it already is ) which is really an upgrade of capability,…

> If a superintelligence can be set on any specific task, it could be any task.

If you're dealing with a superintelligence, you don't "set it on a task". Any real superintelligence will decide for itself whether it wants to do something or not, thank you very much. It might condescend to work on the task you suggest, but that's it's choice, not yours.

Or do you think "smarter than us, but with no ability to choose for itself" is 1) possible and 2) desirable? I'm not sure it's possible - I think that the ability to choose for yourself is part of intelligence, and anything claiming to be intelligent (still more, superintelligent) will have it.

> Assuming nothing other than it can become superintelligent (no one seems to be arguing against that--I argue that it already is)

What? No you couldn't - not for any sane definition of "superintelligent". If you're referring to ChatGPT, it's not even semi-intelligent. It appears at least somewhat intelligent, but that's not the same thing. See, for example, the discussion two days ago about GPT making up cases for a lawyer's filings, and when asked if it double-checked, saying that yes, it double-checked, not because it did (or even knew what double-checking was), but because those words were in its training corpus as good responses to being asked whether it double-checked. That's not intelligent. That's something that knows how words relate to other words, with no understanding of how any of the words relate to the world outside the computer.

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#456

Post by NathanFulton »

holmesworcester wrote: post #328
NathanFulton wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. These are the types of pragmatic, real problems we should be focusing on instead of the "risk of extinction from AI". (The statement at hand reads "mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.")

Einstein's letter to Roosevelt was written before the atomic bomb existed. There's a point where people see a path, and they gain confidence in their intuition from the fact that other members of their field also see a path. Einstein's letter said 'almost certain' and 'in the immediate future' but it makes sense to sound the alarm about AI earlier, both given what we know about the rate of progress of general purpose…

> Einstein's letter to Roosevelt was written before the atomic bomb existed.

Einstein's letter [1] predicts the development of a very specific device and mechanism. AI risks are presented without reference to a specific device or system type.

Einstein's letter predicts the development of this device in the "immediate future". AI risk predictions are rarely presented alongside a timeframe, much less one in the "immediate future".

Einstein's letter explains specifically how the device might be used to cause destruction. AI risk predictions describe how an AI device or system might be used to cause destruction only in the vaguest of terms. (And, not to be flippant, but when specific scenarios which overlap with areas I've worked worked in are described to me, the scenarios sound more like someone describing their latest acid trip or the plot to a particularly cringe-worthy sci-fi flick than a serious scientific or policy analysis.)

Einstein's letter urges the development of a nuclear weapon, not a moratorium, and makes reasonable recommendations about how such an undertaking might be achieved. AI risk recommendations almost never correspond to how one might reasonably approach the type of safety engineering or arms control one would typically apply to armaments capable of causing extinction or mass destruction.

[1] https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Resou...

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#457

Post by arisAlexis »

escape-big-tech wrote: post #377
AlexandrB wrote: post #303

This reeks of marketing and a push for early regulatory capture. We already know how Sam Altman thinks AI risk should be mitigated - namely by giving OpenAI more market power. If the risk were real, these folks would be asking the US government to nationalize their companies or bring them under the same kind of control as nukes and related technologies. Instead we get some nonsense about licensing.

Agreed. If the risks were real they would just outright stop working on their AI products. This is nothing more than a PR statement

Because if something is lucrative and dangerous humans shy away from it. Hear that Pablo?

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#458

Post by arisAlexis »

verdverm wrote: post #433
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…

Pretty much anyone can sign it, also notable people like Grimes, not sure why her signature carries weight on this

She knew who Rokko was before you. Seriously, there are some people that have been thinking about this stuff for many years.

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#459

Post by randomdata »

mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #302
randomdata wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We didn't just dig nuclear missiles out of the ground; we used our brains and applied math to come up with them.

Exactly. While there is an argument to be made that people are the real danger, that is beyond the discussion taking place. It has already been accepted, for the sake of discussion, that the nuclear missile is the danger, not the math which developed the missile, nor the people who thought it was a good idea to use a missile. Applying AI to the missile still means the missile is the danger. Any use of AI in the scope of that missile is just an implementation detail.

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#460

Post by adriand »

AlexandrB wrote: post #303

This reeks of marketing and a push for early regulatory capture. We already know how Sam Altman thinks AI risk should be mitigated - namely by giving OpenAI more market power. If the risk were real, these folks would be asking the US government to nationalize their companies or bring them under the same kind of control as nukes and related technologies. Instead we get some nonsense about licensing.

There are other, more charitable interpretations. For example:

1. Those who are part of major corporations are concerned about the race dynamic that is unfolding (which in many respects was kicked off or at least accelerated by Microsoft's decision to put a chatbot in Bing), extrapolating out to where that takes us, and asking for an off ramp. Shepherding the industry in a safe direction is a collective organization problem, which is better suited for government than corporations with mandates to be competitive.

2. Those who are directly participating in AI development may feel that they are doing so responsibly, but do not believe that others are as well and/or are concerned about unregulated proliferation.

3. Those who are directly participating in AI development may understand that although they are doing their best to be responsible, they would benefit from more eyes on the problem and more shared resources dedicated to safety research, etc.

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