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Pacing the frontier

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Re: Pacing the frontier

#111

Post by gr_norm »

bpascal wrote: post #106
gr_norm wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moving the goalposts, so to speak, is how science works! We must of course update the things we think based on an improved understanding of how the world works. Only the deeply incurious could consistently demand that one adhere dogmatically to a prior way of understanding the world in the face of changing knowledge. It's important not to treat science as a game to be won (of which 'goalposts' are evocative), but as…

what do you mean by 'general intelligence'? i definitely agree that in comparison to humans, they have some definite weaknesses. however, i think they also have definite strengths. and i don't think their current weaknesses imply that much about a potential singularity or ai risk.

Sorry, I should've used clearer language. I just mean intelligence in the sense humans possess it. Computers have always been able to exceed limited elements of human intelligence (say, at arithmetic), but the problem is to simultaneously match or exceed all of them. I specifically think that the important parts they currently lack make them a no-go for supposed existential risk.

Re: Pacing the frontier

#112

Post by alexashka »

alach11 wrote: post #26

The HN discourse on this subject is incredibly discouraging to me. It's completely nonconstructive. I take the pace of AI development seriously. All of my friends who work at AI Labs take it seriously. It's very easy to make lazy, shallow dismissals that leaders like Dario/Demis/Sam are acting purely out of self-interest. If AI does pose biological risk, or could destabilize geopolitics, or even just poses economic r…

> It's very easy to make lazy, shallow dismissals that leaders like Dario/Demis/Sam are acting purely out of self-interest

Pointing out the endless stream of lies and self serving half truths these terrible people engage in helps the younger generation understand the world they were born into.

It's constructive and helpful. It's why I'm replying to you.

You interpreting it as 'shallow dismissal' is shallow dismissal on your end. You're the shallow dismisser, not the people calling terrible people terrible.

As for your little petition. It's as good as eliminating plastic straws to save the environment.

Terrible people with power they don't deserve doing pathetic little, tiny 'good' deeds to sleep better at night needs no explaining.

Re: Pacing the frontier

#113

Post by BugsJustFindMe »

txrx0000 wrote: post #104
atleastoptimal wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So many otherwise smart engineers, overrepresented on HN, have this weird mental block where they fail to take AI progress seriously. I think it's a fear that their status-defining skill could be commodified, so they adopt a mental framework that aims to dismantle the seeming legitimacy of any genuine leap in AI progress as some sort of mirage

It's ironic that the top reply to a comment about quality of discourse on this site is an ad hominem. Most people here take AI progress very seriously judging by the number of posts on the front page about AI at any given time. And I think some engineers even explicitly want to commodify their "status-defining skill": https://nitter.net/__tinygrad__

> Most people here take AI progress very seriously

You have only an extremely weak basis for this claim and have essentially just made it up.

> judging by the number of posts on the front page

Posts reaching the front page is not a reliable way to measure what "most people here" believe.

> It's ironic that

It's not irony.

Re: Pacing the frontier

#114

Post by red_green_yell »

versteegen wrote: post #88
areoform wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This experiment has been run, and even the biological stuff is far fetched. I've written about this before, but the issue is that these people have worked with computers their entire lives, and they keep projecting outwards from there. The 20th century was dominated by mad scientists (mostly Teller) and generals (bombs away LeMay), but one thing that I respect about them is that they didn't just sit and guess about p…

Thank you for taking this seriously enough to write this, and anyone else likewise. But this is attacking a strawman, amateur bioterrorists. AI is a force multiplier in the hands of an expert. If it took a team before, maybe a single malicious actor can accomplish it now that AI can fill in the parts they aren't well-versed in. And that dramatically increases the chance of it happening. Being at risk of killing yours…

It sounds like your claim is "AI is a force multiplier, therefore it is dangerous and must be regulated." Not trying to strawman - I read your comment twice and I think that's what you're saying.

By that logic Excel, the internet, calculators, and air conditioning are all force multipliers in that all of the make it easier for an expert who can make bioweapons able to do so more quickly / comfortably / easily. Obviously it wouldn't make sense to "pace" any of these technologies. Even social media or email could be considered force multiplier in that they could literally allow you to increase the number of collaborators working on supposed bioweapon. Credit cards and modern logistics force multiply your ability to purchase precursors.

Also it would be a force multiplier on the prevention/mitigation side as well. Police armed with AI to scan for suspicious precursor purchases or review security camera footage after the fact would be far more effective than before. It's not obvious that the force multiplication is greater to the bad actor or to those who oppose them.

Re: Pacing the frontier

#115

Post by intorio »

ajyoon wrote: post #109
intorio wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is how do you enforce coordination? This isn't like nuclear testing that can be detected around the world on seismographs or from satellites in space. AI research happens in benign looking buildings that could be doing a hundred different non-AI workloads, much of it things that industry or governments would not want 3rd parties prying into. There is too much to potentially gain to trust coordination.

There is a lot of research out there with answers to your questions. GPU supply chains are extremely constrained, making it a surprisingly tractable problem at least for now.

How do you tell the difference between inference and training workloads from outside? The same GPUs can be used for both and the pacing suggested here relates to training and not inference as far as I can tell.

Re: Pacing the frontier

#116

Post by red_green_yell »

ascorbic wrote: post #107
dmarcos wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of the previous concerns were true and nothing indicates current ones are. It’s extrapolation, hypothetical apocalyptic imagined scenarios and piles of assumptions on how the technology could evolve. What makes even less credible in the AI case is that there’s financial / power to be gained by those making the claims. And to your point. Don Quixote, the first modern and greatest novel of all times, is about a gu…

None of the previous concerns were true, largely because they came from laypeople who didn't understand the technology. A prominent exception is nuclear weapons, where their creators did worry their creations could end up destroying the world. I think most people would agree those concerns were justified, and it's not any lack of capability that means we're still here. The motivations aren't unique here. Restrictions…

Employees inside frontier labs have the chance to make life changing money if they can make it to an IPO before the music stops. Have you considered that might be the reason they are so eager to claim "ai dangerous - regulate ai"? The nuclear scientists at los alamos did not have generational wealth incentivizing them to raise "concerns" to the public.

If your only evidence that the claim "ai dangerous - regulate ai" is true is "insiders who stand to make billions if they can regulate away the competition" told me so, that is pretty weak evidence indeed.

If a group of concerned scientists (without $$$ in stock options) demonstrated that anyone with one year of HS chemistry, an Amazon account, and a ChatGPT max plan could build a bioweapon 10x more lethal than an AR15 mass shooting or driving a truck into a crowd (because it is certainly more than 10x harder to make a bioweapon than either of these things, even with a theoretical AGI), then that would be worrisome. This is really not that high of an evidence bar but even it has not been met, but oh no we should start regulating yesterday.

Re: Pacing the frontier

#117

Post by Nition »

fidotron wrote: post #25
alach11 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We make binding rules all the time. We didn't fix the ozone layer by encouraging people to quit their jobs producing CFCs. We lobbied for international regulation to ban them.

In your example there is nothing to be gained by not complying. Failing to comply with what is in reality arms control is a widespread occurence. It's notable the only historical way to handle this (Schelling covered it at length) is tolerance of mutual espionage on a level that would simply not be tolerable to any of the groups involved. I should add one of Schelling's other pet subjects was "time to weapon being vi…

The Montreal Protocol has not been perfectly adhered to either. China started emitting quite a lot of banned CFCs again from around 2012[1], which didn't get noticed until 2018! By 2020 it had finally stopped[2].

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0106-2

[2] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00360-0

Re: Pacing the frontier

#118

Post by NitpickLawyer »

alach11 wrote: post #26

The HN discourse on this subject is incredibly discouraging to me. It's completely nonconstructive. I take the pace of AI development seriously. All of my friends who work at AI Labs take it seriously. It's very easy to make lazy, shallow dismissals that leaders like Dario/Demis/Sam are acting purely out of self-interest. If AI does pose biological risk, or could destabilize geopolitics, or even just poses economic r…

> We should want the AI Labs to make binding agreements to proceed safely and slower

That's a red herring, IMO. Once the cat is out of the bag, there's no "slowing down", only "slowing up". What's even more egregious is that the people behind the "slowing down" camp are also the people who've had 10s of billions invested in their companies. It smells of "we got ours, now you can't follow". It reeks of regulatory capture, which is a proven net downside for everyone else. The thropics, and the oais, and the googs have billions to make it look like they comply (and just make it look like it), while the rest are ... what? Waiting for them to give us the privilege of prompting a thing, and maybe get a result? If we're good kids and eat our supper?

The moment they started adding "nucular" to the acronyms of "safety alignment" you could tell this is just kabuki at best. There's absolutely nothing that a chatbot will tell you that will get you closer to anything nuclear. It's a joke.

Meanwhile, companies hit by real-world attacks get guardrails. How's that for being safe?

Re: Pacing the frontier

#120

Post by throwaway0123_5 »

areoform wrote: post #57
alach11 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We were incredibly lucky that computing and nuclear weapons led to a stable geopolitical equilibrium (mutually assured destruction). There were certainly a few scary points where we were still settling into that equilibrium during the Cold War. I don't have a strong opinion either way, but it seems very hard to predict. Why do you think AI advancements will lead to a stable equilibrium?

Equilibrium for whom? Equilibrium for what? Here's what I know. Every day, I read a 5 to 10 incoming emails from young people in rural Africa, Asia, Europe and (heck) the US. People who have had no other resources and options, but are tremendously gifted and somehow got their hands on an internet connected device (usually a very cheap smartphone and/or cheap old computer). These people, who are usually teenagers, end…

The outcome that you're describing of AIs facilitating education for disadvantaged people is great, but isn't AI simultaneously significantly devaluing education (excluding of course education pursued for intrinsic reasons, which I'm sure many people will always pursue) and removing the need for educated people? Or at least intended to be doing so, even if it isn't accomplishing it yet?

Your examples seem to be of humans educating themselves so as to contribute to the world intellectually, but the promise of AI (and what most frontier lab employees seem to be saying) is that it will soon eclipse human intellect in almost all ways. If such a world is what we end up with, I don't see humans meaningfully contributing to "groundbreaking research" and a golden age for humanity seems to be mostly contingent on whether or not we take political actions to ensure that AI benefits everyone.

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