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Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability

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Re: Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability

#91

Post by sarchertech »

brigadier132 wrote: post #80
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sam Altman is merely another "Tech Executive" out for himself But it couldn't have started that way surely? - why put in place a corporate structure, board, and profit cap that would limit that. I'm sure OpenAI could have got funding as a for profit concern that wouldn't have resulted in the current mess. I wonder if the board - which presumably are still working under that "AI for humanity" principles could just s…

> let the 550 unhappy employees Maybe you didn't get the memo, it's 715 / 770 unhappy employees.

There’s a tipping point, where not signing is dangerous. I suspect that the number of employees who would actually follow through is a good bit lower than 700.

Re: Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability

#92

Post by rashkov »

chx wrote: post #48
danielbln wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may be gaslighting yourself if you can't see the actual, tractable, current practical applications of this tech (and that includes local models you can run yourself).

That's the thing: there is no actual and tractable use of this tech. It's probabilistic so every answer it can give can only resemble the real one and only accidentally be the real one so you need to fact check it anyways and then why bother? Do consider the AI written mushroom hunting guides being sold on Amazon. Would you trust these literally with your life?

> It's probabilistic so every answer it can give can only resemble the real one and only accidentally be the real one so you need to fact check it anyways and then why bother

In the case of code or other computer knowledge, it’s easy enough to check that it works.

Your same criticisms also apply to stack overflow, or any webpage you find through a search engine. Why bother when the content might be wrong or made up? What makes you trust those websites more than GPT?

Re: Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability

#93

Post by calf »

vouaobrasil wrote: post #84
KingOfCoders wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"against AI safety" You speak against AI and against AI safety? In what way? Wouldn't be speaking against AI enough? Or would AI safety mean laws to prevent AI existence? Like in the Algebraist? (though it is funny in that book how the powerful use AI when it suits them).

I speak out against both. I am strongly against AI. But I am also against AI safety in general because I think AI safety is: (1) A false amelioration that cannot prevent the dangers of AI (2) A false promise to people that AI can be made safe (3) A weak on-the-fence position to take of people who think they can have their cake and eat it too.

But is it impossible to study AI safety (or "safety") scientifically? What about all the papers like AI watermarking or AI racial bias and so for?

Do you argue that academics working on those questions are doing illegitimate science?

Re: Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability

#94

Post by Merrill »

Any sufficiently advanced technology results in an academic/media establishment opposed to it.

For example, nuclear energy, vaccines, hydrocarbon extraction, pesticides, food additives, artificial intelligence, ...

Openai's fundamental flaw was putting representatives of the opposition on the board and then allowing board membership to shrink until they were in control.

Re: Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability

#95

Post by matheusmoreira »

vouaobrasil wrote: post #45
loveparade wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people have yet to realize that this whole AI Safety thing is complete BS. It's just another veil, like Effective Altruism, to get good PR and build a career around. The only people who truly believe this AI safety stuff are those with no technical knowledge or expertise.

Then it should be a fundamental mission of people who DO have technical knowledge to spread the word on both the negative and positive effects of AI. If WE have the knowledge, WE have the responsibility to go out there and let people know. But as far as I know, most technical people are happy to discuss it amongst themselves and not even say one word to people who have no technical knowledge. Not one word. We need mo…

There should be no need for us to spread the word about anything. Technology needs to be built and the chips need to fall where they may. If society changes as a result, so be it.

I'm seriously tired of these vested interests destroying perfectly good technology just because it would endanger their precious business models. Computers should have put an end to silly things like copyright but they would rather destroy our computing freedom than allow that to happen. Now we have these awesome language models and AIs and they're desperately trying to limit and control it.

It's a tragedy in of itself that we even need to fight these political battles at all.

Re: Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability

#96

Post by rapnie »

chronofar wrote: post #79
loveparade wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people have yet to realize that this whole AI Safety thing is complete BS. It's just another veil, like Effective Altruism, to get good PR and build a career around. The only people who truly believe this AI safety stuff are those with no technical knowledge or expertise.

Babies and bathwater. The philosophical underpinnings of AI Safety and Effective Altruism absolutely have merit and warrant consideration. Of course as with most things human group/tribal tendencies can tend to overwhelm such underpinnings rather quickly, and it should be no surprise when it turns out individuals who broadcasted belonging to x or y group turned out to be less than trustworthy (or merely incorrect/mis…

The danger of those broad terms when they become trendy is how effective they are as a facade for all kinds of malpractices to hide behind and fester. A term popular some time ago was "Microfinancing". On TV you witnessed celebrities proudly micro-investing directly in people with few financial means. But for ruthless types it was also a way to put naive people in severe debt with extortionary loans. "UBI" is another such term, with a lot of well-meaning proponents. And sometimes advocates one wouldn't expect. For UBI I wonder if the abuse may lie in how it can lull people to sleep, while pervasive use of AI eats into the low(er)-skilled labor markets.

Re: Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability

#97

Post by vouaobrasil »

bsenftner wrote: post #88
vouaobrasil wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then it should be a fundamental mission of people who DO have technical knowledge to spread the word on both the negative and positive effects of AI. If WE have the knowledge, WE have the responsibility to go out there and let people know. But as far as I know, most technical people are happy to discuss it amongst themselves and not even say one word to people who have no technical knowledge. Not one word. We need mo…

The problem with AI has never been the technology that composes AI, the problem has always and will forever be the immature yet powerful humans that take advantage of less advantaged humans using whatever means they have, which today can include AI. The issue is not a technology issue, it's a human psychology and sociology issue, it's our immature humans in society that is the issue. Technologists cannot speak about…

I absolutely disagree. Technologists understand the true nature of AI and can thus predict its uses. Moreover, if technologists realize this problem of how AI will inevitably be used, their voice will be a powerful message that even those who enjoy math and science are fearful of AI.

Re: Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability

#98

Post by martindbp »

KingOfCoders wrote: post #73
martindbp wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be interested in the real reason Dario et al left to form Anthropic, it must clearly have been a misalignment with Altman's ambition. It seems likely that Altman is more of a Steve Jobs type, perhaps even better at politics, maneuvering and fund raising. He managed to get rid of Musk and turn a non-profit into a $90 billion company, very impressive indeed.

"He managed to get rid of Musk" Any source for that? The timeline of the board shared here some days ago said Musk was leaving because he wanted to do AI on his own.

"A feud over the direction of OpenAI led Musk to step down from the board in 2018"

So, voluntary departure, but it's clear that Sam won some kind of battle over the future of OpenAI. Not sure what their differences were, but Musk has repeatedly commented how not open OpenAI has become.

Re: Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability

#99

Post by donkeyd »

jacquesm wrote: post #16
donkeyd wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the CEO who arranged that now working for Microsoft? Interesting turn of events.

The timeline is a bit murky about what happened when but it looks to me as if Altman was working for OpenAI until he got fired after which he took a job with OpenAI's major partner that he helped bring on board. That doesn't 100% rule out that there was more to this but the optics are mostly ok. It still doesn't resolve the problem that you probably don't want either Sam Altman or Microsoft to have an army of people…

For some reason the thought of Microsoft AGI brought my brain to the concept of a literal Blue Screen of Death.

Re: Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability

#100

Post by shunyaekam »

Can someone explain to me why AI could potentially destroy to humans? What is the scenario(s) people are thinking about?

Unlike another big question such as whether God exists, we ought to be able to reason our way to the answer here. Since, after all, we're talking about an intelligence.

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