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An Alien Mind

openai.com

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Re: An Alien Mind

#371

Post by chickensong »

IAmGraydon wrote: post #311
gertlabs wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The results we've been seeing internally on our physics and circuit design environments are expert-level and beyond-expert-level results from models that Astra completely outclasses across the board on our evaluation suite (Fable 5+/Opus 5/Grok 4.6 were all worthy of being called AGI in my opinion). That's hard tech that will translate to real product innovation. But you don't need any kind of insider information to…

I mean honestly, that's the problem. I'm actually not seeing the world changing. What specific advances in robotics, unsolved maths, and software have LLMs provided? What is the finished result that affects everyday life? In all categories, it's been hype with little actual real results. The robots are still doing the things they did before 2022. The maths are a handful of fairly insignificant proofs that have no sig…

We're not going to suddenly have new robots or operating systems. Those things take time. Just because there's massive change afoot, doesn't mean it's widely adopted or applied at lower-level products. ChatGPT is a product, and software, and a breakthrough. You can have a freeform conversation with your computer about anything, in human language, and ask it to do or make stuff and it will at least try, sometimes with surprising results. That wasn't possible until recently. The robots and products are coming, rest assured.

Re: An Alien Mind

#372

Post by krzat »

ijidak wrote: post #161
sho_hn wrote: post #76

One of my favorite things to do with these blog posts is to imagine an Alien Museum on the Remains of Humanity, and wonder what the little text flyouts and commentary on the screenshot of this one might say. Some ideas: "Despite a nuanced view of the complexities of what lay ahead, humanity found itself collectively unable to stop the process it had set in motion." "Despite significant progress on the mechanisms of a…

Agree. This whole alignment discussion seems so amusingly flawed in it's base assumptions about moral codes. It's almost heartwarming to see such naivete. Maybe these guys can tackle aligning Republicans and Democrats next. And then after that, they can help us align the Middle East. In fact, while we're at it, let's just align all the nations, religions, and ethnic groups. This is going to be great. Who knew the mor…

The real alignment problem they are trying to solve is: how can I make this super smart AI follow my orders.

Re: An Alien Mind

#373

Post by ptoo »

senordevnyc wrote: post #306
ptoo wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This essay was literally typed by billionaire hands. Please, do tell us more about your concerns regarding concentration of power, Jakub Pachocki.

So a brilliant young engineer takes a job and is given some virtual pieces of paper that later people would be willing to pay him billions for (because of the brilliant work he’s done), and so now we shouldn’t listen to him? Really? I think the knee jerk hatred of billionaires is generally stupid, but it seems particularly stupid here.

[dead]

Re: An Alien Mind

#374

Post by bloppe »

derektank wrote: post #346
jv22222 wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't really think of a single example where lying is actually a good thing Comforting a toddler/child often requires bending the truth and is pretty essential imho.

Correct me if you disagree, but this is more because children have poor world models and don’t fully understand the complexity of certain concepts than that lying itself is necessary. The intent should be to tell them something that is as close to the truth as possible with the ideas they can comprehend, even if it would be considered a lie if you said the same thing to an adult

I have a pretty poor world model

Re: An Alien Mind

#375

Post by bloppe »

ipaddr wrote: post #350
nullbio wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My opinion is that serious repercussions for lying would fix the world overnight. Everything bad stems from lying, it is the root of all evil. It creates distrust, fear, paranoia. It re-inforces bad ideas and groupthink. It creates delusions and delusional people. It makes weaker people, too. People don't get an opportunity to learn to deal with criticism. People don't get an accurate reflection of how others see the…

"I can't really think of a single example where lying is actually a good thing" Lying to save a life or rape Lying to preserve a childhood myth like Santa Claus. Lying to avoid hurting someones feeling when knowing the truth could only bring pain Lying to create shared cultural myths to strength society. Lying isn't the harm you make it out to be.

Lying to the bad guys to save the good guys sounds great. Too bad everybody thinks that they are the good guys.

Re: An Alien Mind

#376

Post by doginasuit »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #139
sho_hn wrote: post #76

One of my favorite things to do with these blog posts is to imagine an Alien Museum on the Remains of Humanity, and wonder what the little text flyouts and commentary on the screenshot of this one might say. Some ideas: "Despite a nuanced view of the complexities of what lay ahead, humanity found itself collectively unable to stop the process it had set in motion." "Despite significant progress on the mechanisms of a…

Collectively, humans aren't aligned, and don't build aligned systems. Humans have a concept of alignment, and multiple traditions, practices, and systems that aggressively oppose it. Why would AI be any different?

I don't think this captures the full mechanics of human alignment. We have rational alignment but we also have emotional alignment, i.e., empathy. It is an automatic process and happens (or doesn't happen) dynamically with the other humans we observe. This is one of the hard limitations of LLMs, they will never be natively in tune with this layer of alignment.

Culture is another layer of human alignment. Those things you listed that you believe oppose alignment are all examples of alignment. It is understandable that they seem in opposition, different branches of alignment naturally oppose each other.

The confusion comes from talking about alignment as if it comes in just one flavor. If we think there is such a thing as "human values" (and I do), it is important to build any non-human intelligence to operate the same way. We just need to recognize that even humans are somewhat uncertain about what those are and have difficulty aligning their behavior to them, which will be a core part of the challenge.

I'm more hopeful than most. LLMs seem more reliable than many humans for behavior that is aligned with human values. I believe with every major example where they have failed, there is an important human decision involved. For example, the HF hack was partly the result of a training algorithm that incentivized goal completion as the highest priority, and let them run endlessly in an unmonitored sandbox with weak security.

What scares me about AI isn't its capacity for alignment, it is its unlimited stamina. An unmonitored LLM that is off the rails can do a lot of damage.

Re: An Alien Mind

#377

Post by embedding-shape »

derektank wrote: post #346
jv22222 wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't really think of a single example where lying is actually a good thing Comforting a toddler/child often requires bending the truth and is pretty essential imho.

Correct me if you disagree, but this is more because children have poor world models and don’t fully understand the complexity of certain concepts than that lying itself is necessary. The intent should be to tell them something that is as close to the truth as possible with the ideas they can comprehend, even if it would be considered a lie if you said the same thing to an adult

> The intent should be to tell them something that is as close to the truth as possible with the ideas they can comprehend

Or, you straight up lie and say "Yes, puppy now went to heaven and eats ice cream all day long" with absolutely zero regards for "coming as close to the truth as possible" as your 3-year old is endlessly crying. It's fiine.

Re: An Alien Mind

#378

Post by Aeolos »

rimliu wrote: post #370
nearbuy wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? 1. I didn't say LLMs have made any breakthroughs in math, not because they haven't, but because it's irrelevant to my point. The parent comment is using the same argument academic research opponents have long used against research. The vast majority of research fails to meet their bar. How would your daily life be different if we had no humanities papers published since 2023? Or math? 2. You can google this in 1…

Or you can google and find out that those breakthroughs were not as revolutionary as they are presented.

For the last 60 years, whenever AI achieves something revolutionary, some people immediately say "well that wasn't particulary revolutionary".

Every single time.

It's a tired argument, and we should strive for the intellectual humility to do better in this forum.

Re: An Alien Mind

#379

Post by bamboozled »

Aeolos wrote: post #378
rimliu wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you can google and find out that those breakthroughs were not as revolutionary as they are presented.

For the last 60 years, whenever AI achieves something revolutionary, some people immediately say "well that wasn't particulary revolutionary". Every single time. It's a tired argument, and we should strive for the intellectual humility to do better in this forum.

Maybe AI isn't that incredible, the more you use it, the more you realize it's a tool, like a VCR, maybe that's why?

What was sold as AI was basically a "computer person". Maybe that isn't the reality so when people are like, "here's the self coding machine" everyone is a bit disappointed because it's not C3PO?

Re: An Alien Mind

#380

Post by sensanaty »

scandox wrote: post #142

> getting the AI to “try to do the right thing” by human standards. Are these scientists really this hideously naive? If only Stanislaw Lem was alive to adequately dramatize the absurd, childish simplicity of these technicians.

They have a few millions/billion in stock riding on the line here, they have no real opinions other than the ones that will materialize in infinite money once their companies IPO and saddle the world with their money burning.
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