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AI 2040: Plan A

ai-2040.com

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Re: AI 2040: Plan A

#441

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

27183 wrote: post #336
davemp wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a vast gulf between theoretically possible and technologically feasible. If you can’t provide a realistic path to achieve something, you’re asking people to believe in science fiction. You could tell me that a rock’s molecules are comprised of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Blood is also entirely protons, neutrons, and electrons; so theoretically, one could rearrange stone into blood. But without an actua…

I used the example of 1G constant acceleration space flight in another thread which got downvoted to oblivion, but I think it's a good one. That's a technology we know how to build. We just need superconducting electronics and miniaturized fusion reactors, or a ship which is built like Project Orion to use nuclear bombs for propulsion. Now write down a blueprint for superintelligence. So I've given you two impossible…

In this very thread I am being told that Fable is nothing but a bit of scale and refinement on well-known neural network techniques. And next I am told that we can't even imagine how to build superintelligence. Which is it folks?

Re: AI 2040: Plan A

#442

Post by mekael »

derektank wrote: post #380
gcr wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But in the public image, the EA community is synonymous with doubling down on AI / AGI to the exclusion of the other projects. OpenPhil changing its name to Coefficient Giving, 80000 hours and bluedot and (to a lesser extent) CFAR dropping other initiatives and switching to AGI promotion… to my knowledge GiveWell is the only other big name that continues to advance other initiatives. Then look at figureheads like SBF…

>My critique of the EA community is that it’s myopic and unregularized. If you really think AGI is make-or-break for civilization, it’s completely rational to deprioritize side bets. I’d be curious to hear you expand on this. What binds the EA community together, from the shrimp welfare enthusiasts and wild animal initiative, to the longtermist lightcone obsessive, to the people funding vitamin A supplementation, is…

As a society we already know how to make the lives of everyone better:

1. Stable housing

2. Access to safe drinking water

3. Access to food

4. Access to healthcare

5. Access to education

6. Stable governments

The EA community has so many "ideas" about what would help, when all they need to do is focus on those six and the world would be as close to a utopia as you or I could hope to see in our lifetimes.

I legitimately thought you were kidding about the shrimp welfare initiative, but after looking it up I was more infuriated about EA than I normally am when it comes up. I can think of several causes which would be better served with 3 million USD, and all of them take care of human beings. Living, breathing, intelligent human beings. These people should not be in any position of power or taken seriously ever.

Re: AI 2040: Plan A

#443

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

27183 wrote: post #342
throw310822 wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jesus... This morning while I was drinking coffee and staring at the screen (it's Saturday) an agent did the equivalent of days of my work, reading code, understanding, hypothesizing, comparing, using tools, writing scripts, launching compilers and running tests, identifying problems and proposing solutions, and more. Only someone who hasn't spent a second reflecting about what it means to think and to be intelligent…

> reading code, understanding, hypothesizing, comparing, ...identifying problems and proposing solutions, and more Except it did none of those things, really, because that's not how it works. This might help, it's a good writeup: https://www.0xkato.xyz/how-llms-actually-work/ We know how these machines work, it's not mysterious, there's nothing "extra" happening.

Just a few comments ago you argued that we don't know how to build superintelligence. Now you're saying we know how the (unevenly superintelligent) Fable system works.

It doesn't seem like you're being consistent here. I'm concerned there might be some motivated cognition going on.

"What is true is already so. Owning up to it doesn't make it worse. Not being open about it doesn't make it go away. And because it's true, it is what is there to be interacted with. Anything untrue isn't there to be lived. People can stand what is true, for they are already enduring it."

Re: AI 2040: Plan A

#444

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

hollerith wrote: post #21
joshstrange wrote: post #6

I'm sure some people will have issue with my phrasing but, honest question: Are there examples of where we have collective decided not to pursue knowledge? Successfully? I guess nuclear weapons might be the best example though research doesn't seem have to actually "stopped" as much as gone underground and we still have country trying to climb that ladder. But I don't know how relevant that is to LLMs/AI. It almost f…

Yes, there are examples of where we have collective decided not to pursue a particular technology tree. For one, Japan banned guns for a few centuries. (Its warrior class was politically powerful and judged that guns would disrupt class relations too much.) And there have been successful world-wide bans. For example, following the invention of recombinant DNA technology, scientists convened the Asilomar Conference in…

> "For one, Japan banned guns for a few centuries. (Its warrior class was politically powerful and judged that guns would disrupt class relations too much.)"

That example works against the argument since that policy was rendered moot when Commodore Perry arrived at Japan in 1853 with a squadron of American warships and demanded opening of trade and diplomatic relations at gunpoint.

Re: AI 2040: Plan A

#445

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

grey-area wrote: post #419
fwipsy wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember thinking exactly the same thing around 5-7 years ago, in the GPT-2/GPT-3 era. "Oh sure they can produce semi-coherent output, but truly intelligent behavior is still far away. This isn't science fiction, they're just falling prey to Pascal's Mugging same as my religious friends did." Now I'm not so sure. I give the AI safety subculture as a whole a lot of credit for putting it on my radar back when it was…

Effective altruism is also very attractive to manipulative sociopaths who want to maximise their power over others whilst appearing virtuous and hoarding wealth and power. Poster boy for this movement is the convicted fraudster SBF. I believe Altman is also a fan. As to a better world or super intelligence, I’ll believe it may be possible when I see some signs of intelligence from what people are calling AI, instead…

>I believe Altman is also a fan.

Altman says he thinks it is an "incredibly flawed movement"

https://x.com/sama/status/1593046526284410880

The dislike is mutual. Here's a long video takedown of Sam from a major EA org:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eYTkvZqbnQ

Re: AI 2040: Plan A

#446

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

romanhounds wrote: post #368
MichaelDickens wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would rather see you engage with the substance of the article rather than skipping right to insulting the authors. I don't think this sort of comment is up to the standard I have come to expect from HN.

> I intend to donate (at least) 20% of my lifetime income to effective charities. I publish my donations on my Donations page. From your bio I suspect you're already in the cult.

"I see your objection to ad hominem arguments, and raise you a further ad hominem argument"

Re: AI 2040: Plan A

#447

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

pibaker wrote: post #312
taurath wrote: post #267

This is religious fervor folks, as AI 2027 was. I grew up in evangelical christianity, and to them the end of the world is just around the corner, the same way it has been since I was a small child and likely will be when we are all gone. This isn't science. This isn't hypothesis experiment record results. This is very expensive astrology, shiny rock collecting, ritualistic meaning-making and self-justification. Yall…

When I learned that this website is by the same people who gave us AI 2027, I immediately thought about the Wikipedia page on doomsday predictions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_ap... Notice the many times when a prediction failed and the so called prophet would come back in a few years and give you a new date. And they would tell you, well, this time it's real. I do find it ironic that ma…

"Doomsday predictions have occurred since time immemorial. Ergo, the Cuban Missile Crisis is nothing to worry about."

You actually have to look at the substance of the prediction. Sorry.

Re: AI 2040: Plan A

#448

Post by defgeneric »

themgt wrote: post #339
davemp wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a vast gulf between theoretically possible and technologically feasible. If you can’t provide a realistic path to achieve something, you’re asking people to believe in science fiction. You could tell me that a rock’s molecules are comprised of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Blood is also entirely protons, neutrons, and electrons; so theoretically, one could rearrange stone into blood. But without an actua…

What's strange to me about these comments is they're timeless. They could have been written in 2026 or 2016 or 1966. Like, afaict, for many on HN going from ELIZA->Fable 5 just didn't cause any update to priors regarding this whole philosophical question. The argument against has remained unchanged. I don't see any point in arguing about it, I just find it very strange.

It's a form of denial. We're getting another "de-thronement of man" on the order of Copernicus and Darwin. Some get excited, others turn away in horror. Negation is the outward expression of the desire to keep human intelligence wrapped in its mystical veil.

One popular idea is that these systems will asymptotically approximate human intelligence because they're trained on mostly human-written texts. Not only is that untrue, it's also directly contradicted by our experience with previous RL-systems, where they seem to breeze right by human ability without even the slightest hiccup.

Re: AI 2040: Plan A

#449

Post by ctoth »

pibaker wrote: post #312
taurath wrote: post #267

This is religious fervor folks, as AI 2027 was. I grew up in evangelical christianity, and to them the end of the world is just around the corner, the same way it has been since I was a small child and likely will be when we are all gone. This isn't science. This isn't hypothesis experiment record results. This is very expensive astrology, shiny rock collecting, ritualistic meaning-making and self-justification. Yall…

When I learned that this website is by the same people who gave us AI 2027, I immediately thought about the Wikipedia page on doomsday predictions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_ap... Notice the many times when a prediction failed and the so called prophet would come back in a few years and give you a new date. And they would tell you, well, this time it's real. I do find it ironic that ma…

> When I learned that this website is by the same people who gave us AI 2027, I immediately thought about the Wikipedia page on doomsday predictions.

Then, you opened the page and read it and realized that this prediction was contingent? You know what a conditional is (I would assume) if this, than that?

Then you realized that the only reason you were posting this comment was as a sort of silly gotcha "Oh look at the guys who keep increasing the number" instead of talking about the differences between the scenarios?

Then what happened?

Re: AI 2040: Plan A

#450

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

monegator wrote: post #246
aarondong wrote: post #212

I would not like to be dismissive, but to me this article feels like an exercise in creative writing rather than a report to be taken seriously. The entire experience feels like a choose your own adventure game, seems like their stylistic intent. I am not sure if alternative reality fiction is the best way to approach real and serious AI risks. I am also not sure, with the amount of emdashes and the style of prose, t…

> to me this article feels like an exercise in creative writing rather because it is. Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43571851 / https://ai-2027.com/

Hasn't the AI 2027 "creative writing exercise" held up not-so-bad thus far?
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