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FTC investigating ChatGPT over potential consumer harm

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Re: FTC investigating ChatGPT over potential consumer harm

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not both? I think true AGI super intelligence (a lot smarter than us) does have the potential to destroy humanity, and as the current leader, Open AI seems closest to achieving that. Of course superintelligence might be far away or just unachievable, but we don't know that. And I agree Altman's statement also builds OAI's moat, but that doesn't make his statement false.

But isn’t it closer in the same way that I’m closer to Japan than my dog who is sitting 1 meter to the east of me is? We are still both 10,000 km away

This technology (transformer language models) was invented about 6 years ago. For it to be far away means that at some point the exponential has to stop and we have an AI winter. That’s possible but doesn’t look likely at this point.

It’s more likely that we will see superintelligence in our lifetime. And if the rate of progress does not slow it will be sooner rather than later.

My current estimate is parity by 2030 and superintelligence by 2035. Evidence from specialist AIs, e.g. Go, indicates that super AIs tend to occur soon after parity is reached. E.g. AlphaGo (parity) March 2016; Master (super) December 2016.

Re: FTC investigating ChatGPT over potential consumer harm

#52

Sam Altman himself sat in front of the top levels of government and freaked them out by telling them his company was putting in place the groundwork to possibly end humanity. A really strange thing to do, I remain puzzled as to why any CEO would stir up the government like this. Having panicked regulators with science fiction, I hope he's not surprised when they take action.

I think he just wanted to enact restrictions on further training of data models (maybe) and make it so that no one could compete with his company, can't see another explanation.

Re: FTC investigating ChatGPT over potential consumer harm

#53
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We as a population need to be exposed to misinformation to build up immunity against it. We tried this in the 1930s in Europe and it didn’t seem to go very well. See also it’s lasting legacy in the current Italian prime minister, Marine Le Pen’s popularity in France, and AfD’s electoral successes in Germany.

Am I correct in my understanding that your comment is equating Nazi Germany and current popular right-wing politicians?

To paraphrase Mike Godwin himself, "Go for it, by all means. Fair game."

The Beer Hall Putsch of 1923 was about as effective as the January 16 assault, and just as comically incompetent. But there was a lot of sympathy for the far-right terrorists among the German judiciary, just as there is today in the US. The prosecutors and judges who could have stopped the movement in its tracks instead chose to take it easy on the perpetrators, just like today.

Now we get to wait ten years to see where, or if, these two convergent timelines diverge.

Re: FTC investigating ChatGPT over potential consumer harm

#54
Sam Altman has put a target on every AI company/researchers back with his constant fearmongering when he has spoken directly to the government.

In his selfish efforts to build the ultimate moat around his company, Altman's attempt to get government regulation to stifle future competition might backfire.

Whilst I'd normally say it would be satisfying to see Sam fail due to his selfishness unfortunately this laser focus from the gov might bring the rest of the industry down with him.

Re: FTC investigating ChatGPT over potential consumer harm

#55

Sam Altman has put a target on every AI company/researchers back with his constant fearmongering when he has spoken directly to the government. In his selfish efforts to build the ultimate moat around his company, Altman's attempt to get government regulation to stifle future competition might backfire. Whilst I'd normally say it would be satisfying to see Sam fail due to his selfishness unfortunately this laser focu…

I hope he succeeds, and stifles AI development. AI is too advanced for humans to use properly and it probably will end humanity. If the rest of the industry is brought down, I for one will be happy.

Re: FTC investigating ChatGPT over potential consumer harm

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This conspiracy theory is myopic. Altman has been cognizant[1][2] of the very-not-scifi danger of machine intelligence since before OpenAI was even founded. I believe he has dangerous levels of hubris but I don't see him being profit motivated. From his statements in the past and his regrets today[3] of bringing the current tech into existence, I'm confident his motivator is simply the desire to not die. >WHY YOU SHO…

Lots of retrospectively-good predictions in there, but this was the one I undervalued the extent of: > We also have a bad habit of changing the definition of machine intelligence when a program gets really good to claim that the problem wasn’t really that hard in the first place We've done this so much recently that I'm now seeing rewritten definitions of "real" intelligence that most humans do not meet.

There's quite a rationale justification for the ever 'shifting goalposts.' When humans describe some milestone in the future as finally being "real AI", they're not really just describing that milestone, but the many adjacent capabilities that they expect that milestone to entail. But we're quite clever, and like any old metric needing to be juked, we invariably find ways to achieve the milestone while sidestepping all the capabilities it's supposed to entail.

Chess is the obvious example. A machine capable of playing chess at a human level was supposed to indicate the advent of genuine artificial intelligence at one time. It wasn't that playing chess well means one is intelligent, but rather it was assumed it'd entail abstract planning, strategic thought, intuition, and creativity. Of course now we have software which can crush even a world champion, but none of those adjacent capabilities emerged at all.

And so I think it's also increasingly obvious that this is the same thing with chatbots. Many of us thought those 'surrounding capabilities' were finally here, even more so with OpenAI regularly demonstrating exceptional competence on a wide array of distinct metrics, such as performance on the Bar exam. But once you use the system for a while it becomes clear that its knowledge base is absolutely and unbelievably immense, but its 'understanding' of that knowledge is literally zero. It will arbitrarily create e.g. API calls that do not exist, mix up utterly simple concepts, and fail to learn from its mistakes in any meaningful way whatsoever.

I'm sure if you've used ChatGPT for anything you've run into the utterly annoying scenario of:

- "How do I [x]?"

- "Sure! That's easy, just do [A]."

- "No, you're hallucinating."

- "Oh sorry, thanks. You're right you actually need to do [B]!"

- "No, you're still hallucinating."

- "Oh sorry, you're right. You just need to do [A].

If a human, even a stupid human, acted in this way - you'd assume they were trolling you, especially one gifted with the ability for infinite perfect and complete recall.

Re: FTC investigating ChatGPT over potential consumer harm

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But isn’t it closer in the same way that I’m closer to Japan than my dog who is sitting 1 meter to the east of me is? We are still both 10,000 km away

This technology (transformer language models) was invented about 6 years ago. For it to be far away means that at some point the exponential has to stop and we have an AI winter. That’s possible but doesn’t look likely at this point. It’s more likely that we will see superintelligence in our lifetime. And if the rate of progress does not slow it will be sooner rather than later. My current estimate is parity by 2030…

Intelectual parity to an average human by 2030? Would you be willing to bet on this?

Re: FTC investigating ChatGPT over potential consumer harm

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But isn’t it closer in the same way that I’m closer to Japan than my dog who is sitting 1 meter to the east of me is? We are still both 10,000 km away

This technology (transformer language models) was invented about 6 years ago. For it to be far away means that at some point the exponential has to stop and we have an AI winter. That’s possible but doesn’t look likely at this point. It’s more likely that we will see superintelligence in our lifetime. And if the rate of progress does not slow it will be sooner rather than later. My current estimate is parity by 2030…

This seems reasonable since we have intelligence in 2023 that can pass both the U.S. bar exam and the MKSAP. Yann LeCunn posted a powerpoint last summer about the path to AGI, and a model for achieving it. Given the pace of progress, 2035 seems reasonable.

Re: FTC investigating ChatGPT over potential consumer harm

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But isn’t it closer in the same way that I’m closer to Japan than my dog who is sitting 1 meter to the east of me is? We are still both 10,000 km away

This technology (transformer language models) was invented about 6 years ago. For it to be far away means that at some point the exponential has to stop and we have an AI winter. That’s possible but doesn’t look likely at this point. It’s more likely that we will see superintelligence in our lifetime. And if the rate of progress does not slow it will be sooner rather than later. My current estimate is parity by 2030…

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