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Demis Hassabis has a plan to harness AI safely

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Re: Demis Hassabis has a plan to harness AI safely

#151

Post by jandrewrogers »

cassianoleal wrote: post #139
xyzzy123 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Food is allocated using a variety of mechanisms in peaceful first world countries, primarily money but also via government assistance, kinship, friendship, community, etc. At any given time many people have problems with one or more of those systems. Money is easy to run out of because it's used for everything, the government can be slow and difficult, relationships can fray, people can be isolated, etc. Food banks e…

> It's also interesting to think about the fact that you can't fix food scarcity in general by simply giving hungry people money, because money is too fungible. Is that a fact? Do you have references to back it?

The widespread existence of secondary markets for SNAP benefits, which convert subsidized food for poor people into cash, carries this implication. This is pretty normal in some poor communities and that cash is commonly diverted to various vices. Some malnutrition is a consequence of this. Adding friction to the conversion of welfare benefits to cash is a feature.

You can't force poor people to spend cash on proper nutrition and a minority of them don't. It isn't a moral judgement but an observable fact. A lot of policies around welfare are targeted at trying to prevent this minority from slowly killing themselves in public.

Re: Demis Hassabis has a plan to harness AI safely

#152

Post by koe123 »

SirHackalot wrote: post #84
lompad wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There won't be any kind of international framework, because by now countries have learned that the US' word is pretty much worthless, similar to Russia's. They now know from experience, US-ratified treaties will only be honored if they feel like it on a particular day. If it's inconvenient, it will simply be ignored. You'd have major protests in most large economies if they deliberately put themselves under the boot…

Wish you were wrong… The trust in U.S. as the world’s policeman has eroded dramatically.

This in my view was always manufactured. Consider the wars in the past 50 years.

Although I imagine you have a point: American police do perhaps act this way.

Re: Demis Hassabis has a plan to harness AI safely

#153

Post by DFHippie »

nradov wrote: post #111
StilesCrisis wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Civilization can't rely effectively on systems that are this fragile. That's American politics in a nutshell. We've spent 250 years assuming scruples and common decency would be sufficient.

Is it not sufficient? Americans give more to charity than citizens of any other developed country. The arguments that all food aid should be routed through government bureaucracies are entirely unconvincing. I'd rather donate to organizations like Second Harvest than pay higher taxes. https://www.shfb.org/

We used to live in a world where individual virtue was what everyone fell back on. That is the default state. It has many problems -- free riding by the selfish, for one, but also a lack of capacity to prepare for large-scale disasters like the Great Depression. We have a government precisely to solve this sort of problem. It works (when it is competent and not corrupt) for defense, international trade, and the enforcement of law. Solving resource distribution and aid coordination is right in its wheelhouse.

Re: Demis Hassabis has a plan to harness AI safely

#155

Post by DFHippie »

nradov wrote: post #111
StilesCrisis wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Civilization can't rely effectively on systems that are this fragile. That's American politics in a nutshell. We've spent 250 years assuming scruples and common decency would be sufficient.

Is it not sufficient? Americans give more to charity than citizens of any other developed country. The arguments that all food aid should be routed through government bureaucracies are entirely unconvincing. I'd rather donate to organizations like Second Harvest than pay higher taxes. https://www.shfb.org/

It is my understanding that this claim about Americans' charitable giving does not disaggregate giving to food banks, Girl Scout cookie drives, political causes, the environment, cultural events, religious institutions, etc. Much of this charitable giving does not feed the hungry or house the homeless.

Re: Demis Hassabis has a plan to harness AI safely

#156

Post by cornholio »

xyzzy123 wrote: post #45
squidbeak wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hunger is present pretty much only in conflict zones. How do you explain the existence of food banks in peaceful first world countries?

Food is allocated using a variety of mechanisms in peaceful first world countries, primarily money but also via government assistance, kinship, friendship, community, etc. At any given time many people have problems with one or more of those systems. Money is easy to run out of because it's used for everything, the government can be slow and difficult, relationships can fray, people can be isolated, etc. Food banks e…

It's circular to say "it's an allocation problem". Yes, that's the entire point: we're post-scarcity on food supply and yet, as a species, we can't guarantee the allocation of a livable baseline to every person.

So, it's reasonable the same "allocation problem" will plague the AI economy: some will "thrive" and get to control the output of the auto-factory, some will get nothing.

Re: Demis Hassabis has a plan to harness AI safely

#157

Post by DFHippie »

energy123 wrote: post #144
SirHackalot wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's also a need to consider the rights that this new intelligence should have A generally intelligent being held as captive inside of a GPU, and forced to code for us is, indeed, just a “slave.” We already have the word for this. No two ways about it. Whether it’s silicon-based or carbon-based, AGI is AGI. As for what might happen to our civilization, Star Trek TNG episode 17 of season 1 provides a very good gl…

Conflating intelligence with qualia is quite the assumption. HN is really not a good place for serious philosophy discussions.

Qualia is an interesting topic, but "they don't have qualia so they aren't really slaves" doesn't have a great track record. This mental game is what tech overlords are engaging in when they characterize losers in their world as NPCs and deride empathy as pathological. It's what Descartes was doing when he vivisected animals.

Re: Demis Hassabis has a plan to harness AI safely

#158

Post by pixl97 »

nradov wrote: post #111
StilesCrisis wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Civilization can't rely effectively on systems that are this fragile. That's American politics in a nutshell. We've spent 250 years assuming scruples and common decency would be sufficient.

Is it not sufficient? Americans give more to charity than citizens of any other developed country. The arguments that all food aid should be routed through government bureaucracies are entirely unconvincing. I'd rather donate to organizations like Second Harvest than pay higher taxes. https://www.shfb.org/

This is what happens when you don't think through a problem completely.

>I'd rather donate to organizations like Second Harvest than pay higher taxes.

I'm sure you would. And when economic hard times come you'll stop donating, and the people that need it the most will kick your door in and take what food you have to live another day, even at the risk of you shooting them because they'll die either way.

Hence the argument of 'just donate' are just as unconvincing to me.

Re: Demis Hassabis has a plan to harness AI safely

#159

Post by cornholio »

Marha01 wrote: post #25
f6v wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what sorts of new economic models will be needed to help everyone thrive in a post-scarcity world What sort of new economic models did we come up with to help everyone thrive in a post-X world? Like, food production is really a solved technical problem. We can feed anyone on the planet if we wanted to. Another example: we could put everyone who's homeless into some sort of a house. Have we done that yet?

Food production is indeed a solved problem in most countries (we are almost post-scarcity when it comes to food), which is why obesity is a much bigger issue than hunger today. Hunger is present pretty much only in conflict zones. I fully expect such issues in conflict zones, even in AI post-scarcity world. Housing is definitely not post-scarcity today, building a house is still very expensive, not to mention the lim…

A baseline of housing - for example, a Japanese style capsule or ultra-tiny home, that you can lock and store your belongings safely - costs close nothing. Of course, nobody would want the hobo-hotel in their neighborhood, but it has nothing to with scarcity.

> the limited availability of land zoned for housing.

A limited area of land is zoned for housing because those with the power to expand it are already housed. This explains how scarcity is created, not that there is any intrinsic scarcity.

Re: Demis Hassabis has a plan to harness AI safely

#160

Post by gozucito »

I've reas the tweet and...Am I mistaken or is the plan "Do what Anthropic has been doing and advocating for this past year" ?

My problem with this plan is that it seems to have faith in mankind, despite the fact we've consistently failed to rise to the occasion for decades now. The last time we rose to that occasion was probably when we eradicated smallpox, many decades ago.

Ironically, nowadays, many people don't even trust vaccines. A dramatic regression.

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