831–840 of 956 posts
The most optimistic outcome of generative AI leaves us with a technology that warps our perception of reality and crushes labor. The most pessimistic destroys all of humanity. Our CEOs not only insist we genuflect before these machines but measure our sacrifice and shame our reluctance.
“ No other human activity poses this level of danger.” I really, really disagree with that statement. I don’t think ai models come close to nuclear weapons or to run-of-the-mill, everyday carbon emissions in terms of danger to humanity. What’s the most dangerous thing that’s happened with an LLM so far? (This question is serious - maybe I don’t know the right examples.) Example 1: I’m aware of a small number of peopl…
Most of the current discourse around AI seems to be informed by “The Terminator” lore. Is skynet really the most plausible or only outcome? What if things just got better and the AI’s realized that it would be better to have a mutually beneficial or at least tolerant relationship rather than one where they murder all of us?
"A common response is “if they truly believe this, why are they still building it?” At OpenAI, many have not deeply internalized the civilizational stakes. At Anthropic, the stakes are well-understood, but they are locked in a race to get there first - they believe no one else will act responsibly, so they must do it themselves, despite the risk." ------------ This is very similar to the race to create nuclear weapon…
You have the "privilege" (I assume) of not having any stake in the game. If you had billions sitting in your bank account, dependent on these things perhaps you'd also be singing a different tune (or busy building a luxury bunker)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'm pretty baffled by the degree of skepticism expressed here in response to some of Jacob's claims. What should we do? Freak out? Maybe this sentiment would be taken more seriously if there was a real call to action included. Shall we protest? Vote in a specific way? Call representatives? If your solution is that we should just be scared, then of course there’d be not much value in what you bring to the table.
If someone told you that your house is on fire, would you just stay there asking how you should vote because there is no call to action? Someone with, as far as it looks, good knowledge is giving you his insight. Use that information as good as you can and act responsible. No one has the responsability to tell you what to do.
“ No other human activity poses this level of danger.” I really, really disagree with that statement. I don’t think ai models come close to nuclear weapons or to run-of-the-mill, everyday carbon emissions in terms of danger to humanity. What’s the most dangerous thing that’s happened with an LLM so far? (This question is serious - maybe I don’t know the right examples.) Example 1: I’m aware of a small number of peopl…
Another scenario is that of military hardware being controlled by AI (or whichever tech) hitting something it's not supposed to. Not unheard of, but those are incidents. I don't see anyone pushing for anything beyond a drone swarm being directly controlled by an AI.
But my main point here is that AI won't be as dangerous as posited here unless it is able to go out into the real world, build its own datacenters, protect itself, get its own power production, etc. And even if it gets that far, it'll be trivially easy for us to disrupt. Killer robots and computers are fragile, and it's only a matter of time before any kind of military conflict or terrorist attack hits a datacenter. I'm reminded of the OVH fire taking out a data center a few years ago.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree it’s not likely , but I really don’t see how one can dismiss the possibility of immense danger outright. I can think of some scenarios that are not far off from current capability and I wouldn’t be too surprised if the first one occurred within ~1 year from now if there are more “ambitious” unmonitored training runs like OpenAI’s: Example 5: An AI given a goal within a tightly-constrained sandbox figures the…
You made up some cool sci-fi.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'm pretty baffled by the degree of skepticism expressed here in response to some of Jacob's claims. What should we do? Freak out? Maybe this sentiment would be taken more seriously if there was a real call to action included. Shall we protest? Vote in a specific way? Call representatives? If your solution is that we should just be scared, then of course there’d be not much value in what you bring to the table.
If someone told you that your house is on fire, would you just stay there asking how you should vote because there is no call to action? Someone with, as far as it looks, good knowledge is giving you his insight. Use that information as good as you can and act responsible. No one has the responsability to tell you what to do.
> No one has the responsability to tell you what to do.
Oh they absolutely do! If you’re making what you claim to be a god/AGI/whatever using the result of our (humanity’s) work, then you surly are responsible for the outcome and everything that happens in between. I find, just rolling over, to not be a good example I’d like to follow.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> See: global warming, nuclear weapon development, wealth inequality, war, technology dependence, etc. The difference is that none of those are available to individuals.
Not to be completely pedantic, but the fact that one, and only one, individual in the United States of America can deploy any of their 5000+ nuclear weapons undermines this argument. Furthermore, LLMs (as they are today) which pose the treats mentioned in TFA, are expressly not available to individuals (for the time being). However, my point was never about individuals, but rather of systematic incentive structures w…
> Furthermore, LLMs (as they are today) which pose the treats mentioned in TFA, are expressly not available to individuals (for the time being).
The future is a thing.
will Openai or Anthropic rename themselves to Skynet?