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.
Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability
141–150 of 206 posts
Re: Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not really at all, if we were to try and reduce EA to a pithy one-liner it would be more like "if one aspires to do good (altruism), one should use evidenced based data to determine how they can do the most good with their limited resources (effective)."
I think that's one interpretation, but the perverse interpretation is: "If I am an effective altruist, and I will use my resources to produce the most possible good, then it's a moral imperative to acquire as much money and power as I can, to maximize the results I can achieve"
Well I don't think that's really an interpretation so much as it is a strategy certain people may take, and as you're alluding to a very fallible one at that. It certainly could be a reasonable strategy to amass wealth and power and wield that for altruistic reasons, such a person does indeed stand to be much more effective than most. But of course people are quite corruptible and intentions can be fuzzy, so there's no guarantees that person will follow through, or that whatever they had to do to amass that money/wealth was worth it for the ultimate good.
Again one can look at the underlying tenets of such a creed and evaluate them for their conceptual merit without blasting the entire enterprise because some people abuse them for personal gain.
Re: Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability
#143Can 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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Re: Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
A good deal lower? Because if I work at a startup and I've developed a strong sense of camaraderie with my coworkers and 400 of them leave, I'm definitely going to go along with them. From everything I read, the internal culture at OpenAI is amazing and I'd want to stick with it.
Re: Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability
#145Am I the only one who thinks that AI accountability is a fool's errand? The genie is out of the bottle and we know how to build these things now. I assume that AI will be put to every unethical/evil purpose possible (as humans often do) and it is only a matter of time. Maybe it's still worth trying?
I don't understand what you mean by "accountability", I understand the word to mean the concept of actors paying a price if they don't take reasonable actions to protect others from potential future harm and compensate those that they have already harmed. Why would Microsoft creating an AI to help local authorities identify gay people in Chechnya and releasing it as open source mean Microsoft does not need to be held…
I don't think that Microsoft would create an AI that does that. That's what I mean when I say we (the world) know how to build these AIs now. How would you prevent a world of people from creating unethical AIs? It's only a matter of time.
Re: Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability
#146Honestly there is something deeply shameful about tech workers finally organizing, uniting together in one voice, and using that voice to defend Sam Altman of all people.
> Honestly there is something deeply shameful about tech workers finally organizing, uniting together in one voice, and using that voice to defend Sam Altman of all people.
They saw the money on the horizon and that changed everything.
Re: Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability
#147The idea that he's willing to sully himself with Microsoft in order to fund a mission is what really concerns me
Are you going to fund him instead?
Re: Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not really at all, if we were to try and reduce EA to a pithy one-liner it would be more like "if one aspires to do good (altruism), one should use evidenced based data to determine how they can do the most good with their limited resources (effective)."
I think that's one interpretation, but the perverse interpretation is: "If I am an effective altruist, and I will use my resources to produce the most possible good, then it's a moral imperative to acquire as much money and power as I can, to maximize the results I can achieve"
That only works if the money and power you acquire is enough to pay somebody else to do the work instead of you.
If you don't make enough to sustain yourself and others to work on a cause more useful than a cause you could work yourself on then it doesn't make sense. Basically taking a standard 95k non-fang SWE job isn't better than taking a 50K SWE job at say Red Cross.
Also if you can get some 10M job at OpenAI but you also are certain that you could use those same skills to independent develop some drug that will say ~12M in lives/yr then you shouldn't go to OpenAI.
But there's also no true scotsman.
Re: Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability
#149This is interesting because I kind of view it the opposite way. The interesting thing about Zuckerberg, Brin & Page is that the have legal structures in place to give them control. Mark Zuckerberg doesn't need to be popular, he has the votes. He can drive Meta into a wall if he wants to - and he absolutely has taken that choice sometimes. The thing about the structure that was in place at OpenAI is that if Altman wen…
No matter what, OAI is pushing AI forward, but they aren’t the only ones pushing. Governance of one nonprofit has no bearing on the direction of the tech at large.
We are going to have to learn to live with AI advancements no matter what and probably do what we can to ensure it is regulated.
Re: Sam Altman exposes the charade of AI accountability
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think EA is at its essence "the end justify the means", but communicated in a less simple way. I do not see what is so interesting or novel about it.
Not really at all, if we were to try and reduce EA to a pithy one-liner it would be more like "if one aspires to do good (altruism), one should use evidenced based data to determine how they can do the most good with their limited resources (effective)."
And what evidence can one really collect of how to do the most good? that involves predicting the future.
I prefer the doctors approach: "first, do no harm".
"The end justifies the means" is a useful concept that has been talked about many times. I would not dismiss it. I do not think it is reducing EA. I think it is communicating it with clarity, without confusing additions. It is its essence.
Someone claims (let's say to simplify they are not lying) to want to maximize their good in the world, for that to be accomplished they need to do something that somebody does not approve of (only caring about money, being rude to you, whatever it is). That is literally "the end justifies the means", where the end is "doing good in the world according to model x".
More often than not, that is just an excuse to do something despicable under the excuse of the future good.
> Evidence-based data to determine how they can do the most good
This is a model. If the model is wrong you might cause more harm than good. So, if EA is honest to work this model needs some proof that it works. Otherwise EA is only successful in becoming popular as an idea, not in accomplishing its stated objectives.
Does earning a lot of money and donating it to charities create more good? I am not sure. Maybe earning less money and care for people in your everyday life would create more good.