61–70 of 195 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are also many biological examples of evolution producing "anti-social" outcomes. Many creatures are not social. Most creatures are not social with respect to human goals.
Luckily, this is a discussion of humans.
The author is still grieving by watching a civilisation changing technology just passing by. Every single one of the problems they note applies to any technology that existed. The internet produced 4chan. Produced scammers. Produced fraud. Instrumental in spreading child porn. Caused suicides. Many people lost their lives due to bullying on the internet. Many develop have addictions to gaming. To anyone who has given…
If the AI tech keeps going at the direction it's going now, more and more people will start believing the world would be better if the internet and computer had never been invented.
You talk like the internet being a net positive is a given. It really isn't, especially after it's proven that it doesn't democratize power (see Arab Spring, and China, and the US, and everywhere.)
>Unlike human brains, which are biologically predisposed to acquire prosocial behavior, there is nothing intrinsic in the mathematics or hardware that ensures models are nice. How did brains acquire this predisposition if there is nothing intrinsic in the mathematics or hardware? The answer is "through evolution" which is just an alternative optimization procedure.
Large language models are not evolving in nature under natural selection. They are evolving under unnatural selection and not optimizing for human survival.
They are also not human.
Tigers, hippos and SARS-CoV-2 also developed ”through evolution”. That does not make them safe to work around.
The issue with most of these articles is that they seem to demonize the technology, and systematically use demeaning language about all of its facets. This one raises a lot of important points about LLMs, but the only real conclusion it seems to make is "LLMs are bad! We should never build them!". This is obviously unrealistic. The cat is out of the bag. And we're not _actually_ talking about nuclear weapons here. Th…
Thanks LLM!
Every one of these posts is immediately pushed to the front page, this one within 4 minutes.
It's been weirdly uneven. Sections 1, 3, and 5 did well on HN; 2, 4, and 6 sank with essentially no trace. The distribution of views is presently: 1. Introduction: 33,088 ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47689648 ) 2. Dynamics: 3,659 ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47693678 ) 3. Culture: 5,914 ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47703528 ) 4. Information Ecology: 777 ( https://news.ycombinator.com/ite…
I had never heard of you, and this article appeared very biased to me. I found the information ecology piece superior, shame that it went unnoticed; I will try to go through all of them. I admire the breadth of topics you’re covering and appreciate the many sources. They’re clearly written in your own voice and that is great to see, I guess I mostly reacted to not being fully aligned with your view.
In short, the ML industry is creating the conditions under which anyone with sufficient funds can train an unaligned model. Rather than raise the bar against malicious AI, ML companies have lowered it. This is true, and I believe that the "sufficient funds" threshold will keep dropping too. It's a relief more than a concern, because I don't trust that big models from American or Chinese labs will always be aligned wi…
Most countries have a pretty strong ban on most kinds of weapons, the US is one of the few that lets everyone run around with their rooty tooty point and shooty, but most countries have implemented bans. Some because the government doesn't want the people having them, and in others the citizens call for the bans because they don't like the idea of getting shot by their fellow citizens.
It won't be long before citizens and governments get tired of models being used for criminal activities and will eventually lay down laws around this. Models will have to be registered and safety tested, strict criminal prosecution will happen if you don't. And the big model companies will back their favorite politicians to ensure this will happen to.
Now, that in general will be helpful as there will still be more models, but it will still not be a free for all.
The author is still grieving by watching a civilisation changing technology just passing by. Every single one of the problems they note applies to any technology that existed. The internet produced 4chan. Produced scammers. Produced fraud. Instrumental in spreading child porn. Caused suicides. Many people lost their lives due to bullying on the internet. Many develop have addictions to gaming. To anyone who has given…
I think you underestimate people's grievance with technology. If you make a poll my guess is more than 50% of people will say the world was a better place pre-social media. If the AI tech keeps going at the direction it's going now, more and more people will start believing the world would be better if the internet and computer had never been invented. You talk like the internet being a net positive is a given. It re…
Ask any poor person in India what their sentiment is with tech - it is usually optimism.
> You talk like the internet being a net positive is a given. It really isn't, especially after it's proven that it doesn't democratize power (see Arab Spring, and China, and the US, and everywhere.)
The world is far more democratic now than before and I attribute it to technology because it reduces information asymmetry.
There really are only 3 options that don't involve human destruction: 1. AI becomes a highly protected technology, a totalitarian world government retains a monopoly on its powers and enforces use, and offers it to those with preexisting connections: permanent underclass outcome 2. Somehow the world agrees to stop building AI and keep tech in many fields at a permanent pre-2026 level: soft butlerian jihad 3. Futurama…
Its like listening to Christians talking about the rapture.
There really are only 3 options that don't involve human destruction: 1. AI becomes a highly protected technology, a totalitarian world government retains a monopoly on its powers and enforces use, and offers it to those with preexisting connections: permanent underclass outcome 2. Somehow the world agrees to stop building AI and keep tech in many fields at a permanent pre-2026 level: soft butlerian jihad 3. Futurama…