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Why are you so sure I'll lose?

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Re: Why are you so sure I'll lose?

#41

Why do we think AI will have motivations like a greedy human might? Why do we think AI will have motivations at all? Why do we think such AI is a pressing threat?

I don’t know if AI is a pressing threat but the slow march towards general intelligence is actually pretty incredible to witness. A year ago I would have found it hard to believe something like chatGPT could exist in my lifetime, now it’s rather easy to visualize what it’s doing in that “word predictor” as something very close to abstractions similar to what humans do. It feels like all that needs to happen at this p…

While I agree that ChatGPT is surprisingly impressive, I think you might be underestimating what's still missing. For starters, what you describe as "the spontaneous eruption of a meta hypervisor that would “think” " is such a hard problem that they literally call it the "Hard problem of consciousness" and is debatably a much harder problem than what we've already solved. Secondly, it is very much an open question whether having this "conscience" would solve the arbitrary problem/context/environment abstraction generation, since it doesn't seem to me that that is the way our own brains/conscience work. I(my conscious mind) don't generate the abstractions that allow me to solve problems, I look at problems and the "right way to look at the problem to better solve it" just kind of "clicks"/pops into my head as an idea, so it is most likely being handled by some algorithm in the background I'm not aware off. And that's not even mentioning that as far as I am aware(someone who is more uptodate with the most recent AI advancements correct me if I'm wrong) but I don't think learning on-the-go processing new input data as it comes along without screwing up/forgetting/overffiting your previous learning is a solved a problem. ChatGPT still needed to be explicitly and manually trained from a large dataset right? It isn't continuously learning, right?

Re: Why are you so sure I'll lose?

#43
post #6

A nice allegory about strong AI.

If only chess were a nice allegory for life.

I find that most fun games are "cartoons" of life.

In any cartoon you choose which features to keep and emphasize and which features to leave out.

Chess is a game of perfect potential knowledge - where the only limit to seeing is your own ability.

What's nice about chess is the "if-I-do-this,-what-happens-in response" kind of thinking it instills.

Re: Why are you so sure I'll lose?

#44
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the AI controlled by humans is a tool, a technology, that can be used in various ways. Are you worried about knives in general or are you worried about a knife in the hands of a particular person in a particular moment?

Okay, but that assumes that control of AI is as trivially easy as controlling a knife. Given that this is one of the key unknowns, assuming that the AI never does anything that its controller doesn't intend is begging the question. That aside, I can also think of many cases where I would feel less safe around a machine that had nobody in control of it, than one being adeptly controlled by an operator.

One important thing is that nobody has shown an actual existing AI to be not controllable, nor a way to create one. Until then it's an imaginary, non-existing risk. Of course as a fear and anxiety-based society we can also worry about those, but I think we should worry more about existing risks.

Re: Why are you so sure I'll lose?

#45
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the 1980's there have been chess computers with levels that you could set that would handily defeat most club level chess players. The Stockfish software from TFA is a very far removed descendant from those early dedicated chess computers and usually you can set the level of your opponent by limiting the depth of search to a certain number of ply. That alone is a powerful switch to control how well it plays.

More so than limiting the depth of search, the "level" knob in Stockfish makes it select suboptimal moves with some probability.

Hehe, that's an interesting approach! Presumably because even at its lamest setting it still has too much of an advantage.

Re: Why are you so sure I'll lose?

#46
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not worried about the AI, I'm worried about the people and companies that have it.

The above sentiment is posted many times on every such thread, it would be greatly enriched with am explanation of why you're not worried about the AI. Because worrying about B is not a rationale for not worrying about A.

AI doesn't act by itself and worst case you could unplug the bloody thing (SF notwithstanding). But the guys with the guns are the same guys with the guns that have been in charge for as long as there are guns (with some rare exceptions) and I really don't think the existence of AI will change human nature.

So AI will be used as a weapon long before it will be a standalone threat. And I like to focus on the things that are more immediate because that's where the threat is most likely to materialize and have effect on me.

Re: Why are you so sure I'll lose?

#47
post #7

So, the solution is not to play on a battlefield where the AI has an advantage. Instead play with humans and have fun. Meanwhile all battlefields will one-by-one become battlefields where the AI has the advantage. Because in the end almost every contest between humans is either one based on strength or on speed and the AI will always be able to match us for speed. And strength has long been the domain of machines, co…

> And strength has long been the domain of machines, couple machines with AI and you lose all of these as well and you lose them faster. I don't think rock climbers need to worry about Stockfish. We're going to lose to specialized machines every time while putting to shame any general purpose machines of our own creation. At least for a while yet no machine is going to match the breadth of our capabilities and our se…

Rock climbing = personal entertainment. That's why rock climbers don't need to worry about Stockfish. But competitive chess players do have to worry about Stockfish.

Re: Why are you so sure I'll lose?

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The above sentiment is posted many times on every such thread, it would be greatly enriched with am explanation of why you're not worried about the AI. Because worrying about B is not a rationale for not worrying about A.

AI doesn't act by itself and worst case you could unplug the bloody thing (SF notwithstanding). But the guys with the guns are the same guys with the guns that have been in charge for as long as there are guns (with some rare exceptions) and I really don't think the existence of AI will change human nature. So AI will be used as a weapon long before it will be a standalone threat. And I like to focus on the things th…

> AI doesn't act by itself

It can be made to quite easily.

> and worst case you could unplug the bloody thing

Not necessarily.

> But the guys with the guns are the same guys with the guns

Well, unless they are autonomous AI drones with guns (or missiles), in which case they are different “guys” with guns.

Re: Why are you so sure I'll lose?

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI doesn't act by itself and worst case you could unplug the bloody thing (SF notwithstanding). But the guys with the guns are the same guys with the guns that have been in charge for as long as there are guns (with some rare exceptions) and I really don't think the existence of AI will change human nature. So AI will be used as a weapon long before it will be a standalone threat. And I like to focus on the things th…

> AI doesn't act by itself It can be made to quite easily. > and worst case you could unplug the bloody thing Not necessarily. > But the guys with the guns are the same guys with the guns Well, unless they are autonomous AI drones with guns (or missiles), in which case they are different “guys” with guns.

Sure, I've seen those movies. But today it's the guys with the guns/drones/grenades/missiles.

I'm worried about stable dictatorships far more than I am about AGI taking over the world and offing humanity because stable dictatorships are already using every weapon they can lay their hands on to control the population and AGI might just tip the scale to the point where they become eternal. And regular AI (the kind that we have today, because AGI is simply not yet a thing that has been achieved afaik) is more than dangerous enough in that context.

Re: Why are you so sure I'll lose?

#50
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More so than limiting the depth of search, the "level" knob in Stockfish makes it select suboptimal moves with some probability.

Hehe, that's an interesting approach! Presumably because even at its lamest setting it still has too much of an advantage.

My assumption would be that it's because it wouldn't make for a great game, it would be "quite good generally, with some huge obvious blunders here and there", but I don't know for sure.
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