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Yann LeCun: AI one-percenters seizing power forever is real doomsday scenario

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Re: Yann LeCun: AI one-percenters seizing power forever is real doomsday scenario

#311

Post by strken »

00strw wrote: post #116
logicchains wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I can't recall a time where the general populace was this vulnerable, ill-informed, traumatized and submissive. I don't know why you think this is the case; the general populace seems less submissive now than ever before. Consider how much opposition there is to Israel's bombing of Gaza among the western populace, even though almost all the elites support it. Or how the uptake rate for the latest covid vaccine boost…

A lot less than there was to the invasion of Iraq. People forget that the largest antiwar marches happened and were not covered by the media of the time: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_the_Iraq_Wa... It was surreal watching the news spend 5 minutes on a protest that went on all day in front of their offices. By comparison is there a million man march against Israel today?

I don't think you can draw inferences from comparing an anti-Iraq-war march with an anti-Israel-bombing-Gaza march. Protesting to convince your own government to stop an invasion is a much more direct and tangible thing than marching to stop it supporting another government, such an invasion inflicts a direct cost in lives and materiel paid by your own country, and citizens feel a stronger moral involvement.

Re: Yann LeCun: AI one-percenters seizing power forever is real doomsday scenario

#312

Post by TeMPOraL »

belter wrote: post #306
TeMPOraL wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With threat of military intervention. People have been talking about curtailing carbon emissions for 50 years, but they haven't been serious about it. Being serious doesn't look like saying "oh shoot, we said we will... try to keep emissions down, but we didn't... even try; sorry...". Being serous looks like "stop now, or we will eminent domain your data centre from under you via an emergency court order, or failing…

So the next War will be the Good AI against the Bad AI and humans as collateral damage?

No, that's the best outcome of the bad scenario that the above is meant to avoid.

How do people jump from "we need an actual international ban on this" to "oh so this is arguing for an arms race"? It's like the polar opposite of what's being said.

Re: Yann LeCun: AI one-percenters seizing power forever is real doomsday scenario

#313

Post by devnonymous »

toth wrote: post #276
zimpenfish wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He's pretty sure that human civilization will be extinct this century. If they are, it'll almost certainly[1] be climate change or nuclear war, it won't be AI. [1] leaving some wiggle room for pandemics, asteroids, etc.

There is no scenario where climate change leads to human extinction. Worst case scenario is global population goes down by a single digit percentage. Horrible, horrible stuff, but not extinction. And most likely scenarios are not nearly that bad. Nuclear war, if the worst nuclear winter predictions are correct, could be a lot worse but there would still be some survivors. Unaligned ASI though, could actually make us…

Climate change has compounding effects (eg: water scarcity, leading to political conflict, leading to displacement, leading to pandemics ...and that's just one vector). Real world is real real messy. COViD should have taught people that. Unfortunately, it didn't.

Re: Yann LeCun: AI one-percenters seizing power forever is real doomsday scenario

#314

Post by sgt101 »

ben_w wrote: post #283
sgt101 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And there it is. The full agenda. Blood and empire.

Only in exactly the same way that the police have the same agenda as the mafia. International bans need treaties, with agreed standards for intervention in order to not escalate to war. The argument is that if you're not willing to go all the way with enforcement, then you were never serious in the first place. Saying you won't go that far even if necessary to enforce the treaty is analogous to "sure murder is illega…

I don't agree.

The police enforce civil order by consent expressed through democracy. There is no analogy in international affairs. Who is it that is going to get bombed? I am thinking it will not be the NSA data centre's in Utah, or any data centres owned by nuclear armed states.

Re: Yann LeCun: AI one-percenters seizing power forever is real doomsday scenario

#315

Post by M95D »

toth wrote: post #276
zimpenfish wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He's pretty sure that human civilization will be extinct this century. If they are, it'll almost certainly[1] be climate change or nuclear war, it won't be AI. [1] leaving some wiggle room for pandemics, asteroids, etc.

There is no scenario where climate change leads to human extinction. Worst case scenario is global population goes down by a single digit percentage. Horrible, horrible stuff, but not extinction. And most likely scenarios are not nearly that bad. Nuclear war, if the worst nuclear winter predictions are correct, could be a lot worse but there would still be some survivors. Unaligned ASI though, could actually make us…

> He's pretty sure that human civilization will be extinct this century.

> There is no scenario where climate change leads to human extinction.

He was talking about the human CIVILIZATION...

Re: Yann LeCun: AI one-percenters seizing power forever is real doomsday scenario

#316

Post by sebastianz »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #307
sebastianz wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With threat of military intervention. I assume you are american, right? Cause that sounds pretty american. Although I suppose you might also be chinese or russian, they also like that solution a lot. Whichever of those you are, I'm sure your side is definitely the one with all the right answers, and will be a valiant and correct ruler of the world, blessing us all with your great values.

I'm Polish. My country is the one whose highest distinction on the international level was being marked by the US for preemptive glassing, to make it more difficult for the Soviets to drive their tanks west. Which is completely irrelevant to the topic at hand anyway.

> Which is completely irrelevant to the topic at hand anyway.

It's not irrelevant. I was implying that you did not specify who is doing this military intervention that you see as a solution. What are their values, who decides the rules that the rest of the world will have to follow, with what authority, and who (and how) will the policing be done.

Re: Yann LeCun: AI one-percenters seizing power forever is real doomsday scenario

#317

Post by RandomLensman »

concordDance wrote: post #304
RandomLensman wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I meant could also that there are other things that could also make the risk not materialise. I'd think they are quite independent. Not sure I have any odds on those individually, other than I consider the overall risk really really low. The way I see it, there are a few things working against the risk from pure intelligence to start with (as it is with humans btw., the Nazis were not all intellectual giants, for exa…

To me it seems that the odds of us making something(s) "smarter" (better planning and modelling) than a human in the next 50 years is a coin toss. The odds of us being able to ensure its desires/goals align with what we would like are probably around 30%. And the odds of a "smarter than human" things ending up conquering or killing the humans if they desire to do so being around 90%. This naturally gives a probably o…

I don't even think we need alignment, just containment.

The probabilities are really just too shaky for me to estimate. Not sure I would put a high probability of intelligent thing being dangerous by itself, for example.

Re: Yann LeCun: AI one-percenters seizing power forever is real doomsday scenario

#318

Post by varjag »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #287
jeffparsons wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can't be the only card left to play. There are so many others. They may be weak, but they still have to be better than one that is guaranteed to be absolutely useless. Example of a weak, but at least _better_ option: convince _one_ government (e.g. USA) that it is in their interest to massively fund an effort to (1) develop an AI that is compliant to our wishes and can dominate all other AIs, and (2) actively sabo…

> Example of a weak, but at least _better_ option: convince _one_ government (e.g. USA) that it is in their interest to massively fund an effort to (1) develop an AI that is compliant to our wishes and can dominate all other AIs, and (2) actively sabotage competing efforts. I'd reconsider your revision of your estimate of Yudkowsky, as you seem to be dropping it for not proposing the very ideas he spent the last 20+…

Threat of war is always the final argument in international affairs, and you can tell how serious a treaty is by how directly it acknowledges that fact.

Montreal Protocol have worked despite no threats of violence, on a not entirely dissimilar problem. Tho I share the skepticism on solution to alignment problem.

Re: Yann LeCun: AI one-percenters seizing power forever is real doomsday scenario

#319

Post by lampington »

zimpenfish wrote: post #260
concordDance wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He actually doesn't think it's viable, but thinks its the only card left to play. He's pretty sure that human civilization will be extinct this century.

> He's pretty sure that human civilization will be extinct this century. If they are, it'll almost certainly[1] be climate change or nuclear war, it won't be AI. [1] leaving some wiggle room for pandemics, asteroids, etc.

> If they are

Am I the only one slightly disturbed by the use of "they" in that sentence? I know that the HN commentariat is broad-based, but I didn't realise we already had non-human members ;-)

Re: Yann LeCun: AI one-percenters seizing power forever is real doomsday scenario

#320

Post by lewhoo »

dnissley wrote: post #305
lewhoo wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no expert but I actually think we are pretty good at genetically modifying organisms and that manifests itself in crops for instance with enough research to support the benefits.

Plants are one thing we do it well enough on. As far as I'm aware we have yet to do it (at scale) on livestock, or even pets.

There is: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Enviropig or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AquAdvantage_salmon

or things to the likes of https://www.avma.org/news/genetically-modified-cattle-may-be...

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