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Sam and Greg's response to OpenAI Safety researcher claims
451–460 of 508 posts
Re: Sam and Greg's response to OpenAI Safety researcher claims
#452Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel we may be disagreeing about one or both of "very" and "powerful", because otherwise that question makes no sense? Some random member of the, say, Australian parliament, someone I've never heard of, is (relatively speaking) much more powerful than 99% of the planet. A journalist who has an audience of millions, likewise. A software developer whose work is economically valuable either through a broad audience or…
Very powerful would mean someone can effect a lot of change if they so desire (change what a lot of people do, have a new and material law put in, change large financial flows, ...). Not sure I agree with the 99% of planet. Even if a single member of the Australian parliament could command all of Australia, it would still only amount to commanding 0.3% the global population (or maybe 2% of NATO plus Japan). Maybe wit…
> Not sure I agree with the 99% of planet. Even if a single member of the Australian parliament could command all of Australia, it would still only amount to commanding 0.3% the global population (or maybe 2% of NATO plus Japan). Maybe within Australia the individual member's power is more than 99% of population?
I think that's the wrong way to calculate the value?
OK, so, how to phrase this…
Imagine we were talking about money rather than power (because money can be quantified more easily, and is an imperfect token of power).
I believe the base salary for Australian MPs is AU$211,250/year, which is ~ USD 140,700/year. This means they earn more than 99% of the world precisely because:
> Most individuals just don't hold much power.
Still works when substituting in "money" for "power".
Saying that each random MP has more power than 99% of the world population, is very different than saying that each of them individually controls 99% of the power, which would be tautologically impossible.
Re: Sam and Greg's response to OpenAI Safety researcher claims
#453Earlier quoted context omitted.
We don't have a clear, agreed upon definition of AGI, a way to test for it, or a way to predict whether a new model will meet those criteria. The definition OpenAI uses for AGI is being more economically valuable than most humans at most things. That definition is entirely backwards looking. They'll keep releasing new models and occasionally check in to see how each model compared to humans economically. If that isn'…
> The definition OpenAI uses for AGI is being more economically valuable than most humans at most things. Then were already there. The web, amazon is already more valuable than sears and roebuck was as a paper catalog. All those people who took calls or opened envelopes, all the manual tracking of inventory and orders... we replaced all that years ago.
I don't think anyone would consider a paper catalog as a candidate for any form of intelligence.
It is a good example of how poor the OpenAI definition is, but confusing any human invention with intelligence is a bit of a stretch.
Re: Sam and Greg's response to OpenAI Safety researcher claims
#454The talk of AI exterminating us via paperclips is an annoying one to me that detracts from the real dangers that are currently unfolding: - scammers are having the time of their lives, and their capabilities are only going to get better and easier - people are actively getting dumber as they trust the hallucinated outputs blindly - regular communication is starting to break down because you can't trust that people ar…
I sort of cover that in "SkyNet is not coming to kill you": https://renegadeotter.com/2024/04/22/artificial-intelligence... AI can generate a lot of automated output, that is true, but my argument is that it's almost always mediocre at best. There is a LOT to be said about the dangers of AI coming from the people running and funding it - not the AI itself. That stuff is complete bullshit.
The AI apocalypse isn't about killing you. It's about leaving you to die. Subtle difference.
Re: Sam and Greg's response to OpenAI Safety researcher claims
#455Earlier quoted context omitted.
Very powerful would mean someone can effect a lot of change if they so desire (change what a lot of people do, have a new and material law put in, change large financial flows, ...). Not sure I agree with the 99% of planet. Even if a single member of the Australian parliament could command all of Australia, it would still only amount to commanding 0.3% the global population (or maybe 2% of NATO plus Japan). Maybe wit…
> Not sure I agree with the 99% of planet. Even if a single member of the Australian parliament could command all of Australia, it would still only amount to commanding 0.3% the global population (or maybe 2% of NATO plus Japan). Maybe within Australia the individual member's power is more than 99% of population? I think that's the wrong way to calculate the value? OK, so, how to phrase this… Imagine we were talking…
Earning in the top 1% globally doesn't mean that the power is more then someone in top 1-2% percentile. That just doesn't translates that well across the globe. I'd also say it needs to be done in wealth terms, not income and then locally (because ability for some Austrilian member of parliament to reach far around the globe is limited).
Re: Sam and Greg's response to OpenAI Safety researcher claims
#456Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m a bit of an AI skeptic and find the way people talk vaguely about the “dangers” of AI weird and maybe just more hype (or efforts for regulatory capture) rather than actual cause for concern. Still, to me, it seems like the two big scary things that might fall out of recent developments in generative AI are: 1. It might vacuum up an enormous number of jobs very quickly; enough jobs and quickly enough to cause seri…
For the #1, when I saw the demo of GPT-4o talk to an other AI in a somewhat convincing scenario, I felt like it was the first time I could saw AI as a real threat to thousands of customer service companies. A majority of those jobs is scripted and the employee doesn’t have a deep enough knowledge to be helpful in any other way. I worked at places where the customer service support wrote all those processes and the te…
This is easy to refute.
Say a fraudster rips off 90% of what is in your checking account right now, you contact the bank and a language model tells you everything will be resolved shortly.
There is no reality now or in the future that this is good enough. Customer service is not just about getting the problem resolved, it is about having someone to blame when the resolution doesn't work.
If anything, I can picture a future that most knowledge work has some form of customer service involved, because that is exactly what can't be automated. A human that takes the blame/responsibility.
Re: Sam and Greg's response to OpenAI Safety researcher claims
#457Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Not sure I agree with the 99% of planet. Even if a single member of the Australian parliament could command all of Australia, it would still only amount to commanding 0.3% the global population (or maybe 2% of NATO plus Japan). Maybe within Australia the individual member's power is more than 99% of population? I think that's the wrong way to calculate the value? OK, so, how to phrase this… Imagine we were talking…
Earning in the top 1% globally doesn't mean that the power is more then someone in top 1-2% percentile. That just doesn't translates that well across the globe. I'd also say it needs to be done in wealth terms, not income and then locally (because ability for some Austrilian member of parliament to reach far around the globe is limited).
> Earning … doesn't mean that the power …
It's an analogy to explain the point.
I'm saying the ranked list of people by power, random* MPs are in the 99th percentile.
I mean, is there even a single politician in the world who represents less than 99 people? (There used to be**, but any current examples?)
* OK, so that doesn't work over literally all polities — a Tuvalu MP might not have as much power as the parking attendant nearest to the Australian parliament building — but hopefully this at least helps clarify? Perhaps?
Re: Sam and Greg's response to OpenAI Safety researcher claims
#458The talk of AI exterminating us via paperclips is an annoying one to me that detracts from the real dangers that are currently unfolding: - scammers are having the time of their lives, and their capabilities are only going to get better and easier - people are actively getting dumber as they trust the hallucinated outputs blindly - regular communication is starting to break down because you can't trust that people ar…
> I do believe it's going to replace every single person's job…
Some may try to make that so, but since LLMs perform badly with anything that has to be ground in facts and actual reality, the hype wave will die down soon enough. When the point of a job is to generate the most amount of bullshit as quickly as possible, LLMs will excel.
Re: Sam and Greg's response to OpenAI Safety researcher claims
#459Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would say at the very least that the empire of Japan clearly evaluated them differently when it surrendered unconditionally directly after being attacked with this new technology. You are saying magnitudes don't influence the identity of something, this is obviously not true. I don't literally attract other objects, the Sun does. The difference is mostly magnitude of mass.
>I would say at the very least that the empire of Japan clearly evaluated them differently when it surrendered unconditionally directly after being attacked with this new technology. The atomic bombs certainly played a part in Japan surrendering, but it wasn't the only one. They were also facing a land invasion from the Soviets, had an utterly depleted military, waning support from the public, and a potentially devas…
OK, perhaps we should go back to your first statement:
> If "AI" is actually intelligent, then it's no worse a threat than any living being known to man.
Combined with:
> I am putting aside emotional pressures and processes and only considering the results which are ultimately all that matters.
Imagine a super-intelligent being that can invent a biological agent that is incurable to current science, spreads rapidly through aerosols, and causes 100% guaranteed death if not cured. That superintelligence can furthermore list a recipe of this biological agent using household items that may be available to anyone who has contact with it, allowing an untrained individual to create the agent after receiving instructions from the super intelligent being. This being you would classify as "no worse a threat" than any living being known to man? Is that "putting aside emotional pressures and considering the results"?
Or are you saying that an intelligence, no matter how advanced, can never do the above?
A hypothetical magnitude difference of intelligence obviously poses a threat to us, what other explanation is there for the mass extinction of most animals after the Anthropocene started.
Re: Sam and Greg's response to OpenAI Safety researcher claims
#460Earlier quoted context omitted.
Earning in the top 1% globally doesn't mean that the power is more then someone in top 1-2% percentile. That just doesn't translates that well across the globe. I'd also say it needs to be done in wealth terms, not income and then locally (because ability for some Austrilian member of parliament to reach far around the globe is limited).
> Earning … doesn't mean that the power … It's an analogy to explain the point. I'm saying the ranked list of people by power, random* MPs are in the 99th percentile. I mean, is there even a single politician in the world who represents less than 99 people? (There used to be**, but any current examples?) * OK, so that doesn't work over literally all polities — a Tuvalu MP might not have as much power as the parking a…
If you count simple representation as power and disregard other representations of the same people for different things or by different people (basically, everone will be represented mulitple times), then 99 is enough. Otherwise might need quite a few more.