Safe for whom or what? Who are we protecting from AI again? Are they aiming to protect the interests of the many, or the interest of a few?
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Sam and Greg's response to OpenAI Safety researcher claims
131–140 of 508 posts
Re: Sam and Greg's response to OpenAI Safety researcher claims
#132What harms, in the real world, have GPTs produced? If few or none, does that not indicate that OpenAI has done a good job at safety? If so, should that not buy the company some credibility looking forward? It’s fashionable, for reasons I am unaware, to hate on Sam Altman and OpenAI. Seems to be mostly the doomer crowd and it’s Blake Lemoine types (boy do his claims look ridiculous only 2 years on). To my thinking the…
> If few or none, does that not indicate that OpenAI has done a good job at safety?
I have a rock that keeps lions away. I know it works, because I haven't seen any lions.
Re: Sam and Greg's response to OpenAI Safety researcher claims
#133In any sufficiently large tech company, the "risk mitigation" leadership (legal, procurement, IT, etc) have to operate in a kind of Overton window that balance the risks they are hired to protect the corp from vs. the need or desire of the senior leadership to play fast and loose when they want or feel they need to. Either the risk-mitigator 'falls in line' after repeatedly seeing their increasingly strident exhortat…
> In any sufficiently large tech company, the "risk mitigation" leadership (legal, procurement, IT, etc) have to operate in a kind of Overton window that balance the risks they are hired to protect the corp from vs. the need or desire of the senior leadership to play fast and loose when they want or feel they need to.
We have recently seen what happens when companies err heavily on the side of risk mitigation for LLMs. Google recently launched AI products that were so heavily sanitized and over protected that they would incorrectly misinterpret simple tasks as possibly having dangerous or offensive implications.
They let the safety team run the show and the resulting product was universally hated for it. It's interesting now to see a company producing what is by most measures a class-leading product, only to have the tech community also hate them for not letting the safety team dominate product development.
Re: Sam and Greg's response to OpenAI Safety researcher claims
#134Interesting that OpenAI has completely destroyed their reputation over the last year. For me, they've gone from an admirable company to cringe-worthy. I really think that the best outcome here is for OpenAI to collapse and get absorbed by Microsoft, where adults can continue some of the good work that is being overshadowed by ego and cult-like vibes.
I’m not getting how OpenAIs reputation is being tarnished from all of basically amounting to nothing but theatrical stuff that amounts to people saying Sam is out to destroy the world, none of which is even close to happening, with every entity in earth developing the same tech.
I remember early in the days of COVID when the authorities reassured us by telling us there was "no evidence of community spread in the United States".
Sometimes it pays to look at the fundamentals. https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/ai-alignment-intro-materials
Re: Sam and Greg's response to OpenAI Safety researcher claims
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I no longer agree that the "safety" people want the same things we do. I suspect after the bard debacle a bit back that "safety" looks a lot more like 1984. AI Safety will inevitably look a lot like DEI programs. They're trying to thread a needle with two fundamentally opposed ideas, and with a bit of time it turns into little more than a combination of Cover Your Ass policies. The ridiculous thing is that we actua…
Have you actually talked to any AI safety people? They despise the DEI-flavored AI ethics "make sure it generates enough black people" stuff just as much as you do, and I think you're lumping the two of them together just based on your own dislike, without checking whether that's actually reflective of the reality on the ground.
If most people think the lobotomized and sanitized commercial model behavior is the product of "safety" and "alignment" and that isn't really the case, then the "AI safety people" have done an extremely poor job of communicating exactly what their actual goals are.
Re: Sam and Greg's response to OpenAI Safety researcher claims
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
The difference here is that these aren't standard-issue HR/legal issues. The technology they're working on poses the gravest of dangers. This is uncharted territory, not just for the tech sector, but period. Whether the recent public back-and-forth is just internal drama/politics spilling out, or there really is a lack of gravitas around the handling of these issues within the company-- neither is good. Others have s…
Text continuation poses "the greatest of dangers"?
While we're being overly reductionist: it's just moving bits around, what harm could that possibly do?
Re: Sam and Greg's response to OpenAI Safety researcher claims
#137What harms, in the real world, have GPTs produced? If few or none, does that not indicate that OpenAI has done a good job at safety? If so, should that not buy the company some credibility looking forward? It’s fashionable, for reasons I am unaware, to hate on Sam Altman and OpenAI. Seems to be mostly the doomer crowd and it’s Blake Lemoine types (boy do his claims look ridiculous only 2 years on). To my thinking the…
> If few or none, does that not indicate that OpenAI has done a good job at safety? No. It only indicates that OpenAI is less technically capable than it claims. To judge OpenAI's competence at safety, you have to look at the ethics of their behavior, since building the right ethics into an AI before it gets powerful enough to do serious harm to humans is the essence of AI safety. And the ethics of OpenAI's behavior,…
Ok, what actions have they taken that are unethical?
Re: Sam and Greg's response to OpenAI Safety researcher claims
#138What harms, in the real world, have GPTs produced? If few or none, does that not indicate that OpenAI has done a good job at safety? If so, should that not buy the company some credibility looking forward? It’s fashionable, for reasons I am unaware, to hate on Sam Altman and OpenAI. Seems to be mostly the doomer crowd and it’s Blake Lemoine types (boy do his claims look ridiculous only 2 years on). To my thinking the…
>It’s fashionable, for reasons I am unaware, to hate on Sam Altman and OpenAI
Perhaps because he's a slimy used-car salesman who got rich doing things that are illegal for you and me (ripping off copyrighted works en masse) and he pulled a bait and switch as far as for-/non-profit is concerned.
He's everything wrong with Silicon Valley/Venture Capital/faux meritocratic culture rolled into one.
Re: Sam and Greg's response to OpenAI Safety researcher claims
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
The difference here is that these aren't standard-issue HR/legal issues. The technology they're working on poses the gravest of dangers. This is uncharted territory, not just for the tech sector, but period. Whether the recent public back-and-forth is just internal drama/politics spilling out, or there really is a lack of gravitas around the handling of these issues within the company-- neither is good. Others have s…
Text continuation poses "the greatest of dangers"?
Yes. The pen is mightier than the sword after all.