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OpenAI drops ban on military tools to partner with The Pentagon

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Re: OpenAI drops ban on military tools to partner with The Pentagon

#281

Post by ethbr1 »

amrocha wrote: post #129
andrewstuart wrote: post #116

I was brought up in a household that was anti military. Only as an adult was I able to form my own opinion. Without a strong military in the past we would certainly not be here today and without a strong military now, who knows what other nation might decide to attack our sovereignty. It's childish to be anti military - it shows you do not understand the interconnectedness of our society - good and bad.

I could make literally the opposite argument. Other countries antagonize the US because of its military interventionism. If the US had lower military spending, other countries wouldn't feel the need to be aggressive. It's childish to be pro military. It shows you think arbitrary lines on a map determine who's good or bad.

> If the US had lower military spending, other countries wouldn't feel the need to be aggressive.

Russia and China and North Korea would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

I think it's fair to say there are two types of countries: those with territorial ambitions and those without.

Military power in the hands of the former is terrifying.

Re: OpenAI drops ban on military tools to partner with The Pentagon

#282

Post by mopsi »

amrocha wrote: post #251
Tommstein wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Ok? What's so bad about speaking Russian? English isn't my first language, I have no attachment to it. If Russian had become the lingua franca of the world I'd have learned that instead.

> What's so bad about speaking Russian?

Forcing Russian language and culture upon conquered nations was and remains one of the main methods of extermination of conquered peoples. There's even a word for it, Russification.

Your question is the same as asking what was so bad about "speaking English" in the context of American native population and European settlers. Most of modern-day Russia is a land conquered from natives the same way European settlers conquered the Americas and wiped out native population using a wide range of tools from direct massacres to forced cultural assimilation.

The question is culturally as insensitive and uneducated as asking a black person in the Americas what's so bad about working on a plantation, or why they're not happy with sitting at the back of the bus - does it rock too much there or what's the problem?

Re: OpenAI drops ban on military tools to partner with The Pentagon

#283

Post by rvnx »

jacquesm wrote: post #272
campl3r wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As it is happening anyways, I would be happy if the US is at the forefront instead of China or worse.

The US will be at the forefront for just as long as it will take to smuggle a couple of USB sticks out of OpenAI and I figure the chances of Chinese plants at OpenAI to be roughly 100%.

It's maybe also that US population tends to underestimate how other people are smart (US-centrism really does exist).

Chinese people are very smart, and there is technically more of them, so I am not surprised that they are releasing amazing open models.

China has no problems to push their own models for free, and this is a real strategic advantage.

These models are aligned with Chinese values, but well, American models are aligned with American beliefs and values as well, right ?

Re: OpenAI drops ban on military tools to partner with The Pentagon

#284

Post by Aeolun »

halJordan wrote: post #155
Aeolun wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you want your sons and daughters to fight a fair fight? I don’t want them to fight at all. But more importantly, I don’t want anyone friend or “foe” to die from faulty AI decisions. I can sort of reconcile some human bomber pilot making a mistake and hitting a family home, but if AI does the same thing it’s just wrong.

Nobody wants to fight. Like the op said, it's the presupposition that "ofc they're sociopaths, of course they want pain, death, and suffering" You dont have the monopoly on abhorring human suffering. It's been decided US policy since Bush to deter rather than defeat US enemies and as much as you hem and haw about the word enemy, they do consider themselves enemies of the US.

Of course they don’t “want” pain, death and suffering, because nobody will admit that to himself.

Sometimes the ends just justify the means. Like how it’s fine to kill 100k people in some desert on the other side of the world to potentially prevent a few deaths on your side.

Re: OpenAI drops ban on military tools to partner with The Pentagon

#286

Post by Alpha3031 »

jonnybgood wrote: post #151
amrocha wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could make literally the opposite argument. Other countries antagonize the US because of its military interventionism. If the US had lower military spending, other countries wouldn't feel the need to be aggressive. It's childish to be pro military. It shows you think arbitrary lines on a map determine who's good or bad.

I don’t think that opposite argument works given the current geopolitical situation which has nothing to do with the US being aggressive. Russia would have very likely completed its conquest of Ukraine by now and moved on to the Baltic states (NATO relies on US military spending to compensate for lack of spending of other NATO members). Taiwan would belong to China yesterday, along with the rest of the Indo-Pacific.

The EU and European countries in general have in total provided more aid to Ukraine than the US, it's just divided across multiple countries, not that it's a competition. I'm not sure a military budget 200 billion vs 600 billion is going to make such huge a difference if the goal of your military is actually defence instead of force projection, it's not like they're giving Ukraine the fancy pants expensive stuff and both the US and Europe probably both ran out of (or significantly depleted at least) their stocks of regular old dumb artillery ammunition, rocket launchers, etc, and that stuff is what's used and actually useful.

Re: OpenAI drops ban on military tools to partner with The Pentagon

#288

Post by 8note »

esafak wrote: post #217
jacquesm wrote: post #204

Utterly predictable. AI will be weaponized and anybody working on it is going to have to live with that knowledge. Consider yourselves part of the MIC from now on, no more bs about doing this for the betterment of humanity. And to add to that: once any party figures out how to do this it is a matter of time before the rest does too, there is no such thing as a secret. The atomic bomb leaked and so will the recipe for…

At least Ilya's crew was working on alignment ( https://openai.com/blog/introducing-superalignment ). If only the rank-and-file had been more vocally supportive of that, instead of enthusiastically boarding the Altman train. Look where that train is headed...

What's the benefit of a military ai that's more aligned to the military's goals?

If you're against ai military, wouldn't you want the alignment to be poor?

Re: OpenAI drops ban on military tools to partner with The Pentagon

#289

Post by 8note »

ericmay wrote: post #117
zug_zug wrote: post #103

Slightly off-topic, but it's absolutely shocking to me how quickly OpenAI has managed to do a meteoric PR nosedive. I think within 6 months they've gone from one of the most exciting (yet controversial) non-profits in the world to mistrusted company that it seems most people are rooting against.

I personally welcome cooperation with the Pentagon for OpenAI and other American companies. The disdain that seems to infest so many when it comes to working with our national defense organizations is both annoying and bewilderingly naive and that's even when we take into consideration all of the bad things that happen. Strengthening partnerships with our government certainly doesn't make me mistrust OpenAI.

I think the Pentagon cooperation with Boeing is the real cause of Boeing's rot, so this is a partnership that is bad for openAI's engineering and science over a longer term.

The incentives switch from making good and useful stuff to getting more military contracts

Re: OpenAI drops ban on military tools to partner with The Pentagon

#290

Post by jacquesm »

rvnx wrote: post #283
jacquesm wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US will be at the forefront for just as long as it will take to smuggle a couple of USB sticks out of OpenAI and I figure the chances of Chinese plants at OpenAI to be roughly 100%.

It's maybe also that US population tends to underestimate how other people are smart (US-centrism really does exist). Chinese people are very smart, and there is technically more of them, so I am not surprised that they are releasing amazing open models. China has no problems to push their own models for free, and this is a real strategic advantage. These models are aligned with Chinese values, but well, American mod…

> It's maybe also that US population tends to underestimate how other people are smart (US-centrism really does exist).

They do.

> Chinese people are very smart, and there is technically more of them, so I am not surprised that they are releasing amazing open models.

They also have an educational system that wastes less talent and have fewer - if any - roadblocks to the will of the party bosses. In a war a dictatorship can move in ways that a democracy is ill equipped to follow simply because there is no dissent. That's why it took half the world to take on three relatively little countries in WWII.

> China has no problems to push their own models for free, and this is a real strategic advantage.

It is, but I for one wouldn't use them.

> These models are aligned with Chinese values, but well, American models are aligned with American beliefs and values as well, right ?

Yes, but I'm far less concerned with the present day models than I am with the advent of AGI which is what OpenAI and various international competitors are aiming for and if one shows it can be done before you can blink this crap will be all over the world. After that point all bets are off.

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