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I resigned from Anthropic today

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Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#991

Post by dinfinity »

SepiaSapient wrote: post #901
dinfinity wrote: post #825

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’m not advocating for this. You're not advocating for it because murdering people is highly immoral and illegal. That answers your question for the most part. You also have to remember that the magnitude and speed of this stuff is very new to pretty much everybody . It's not exactly trivial to go from "I'm just doing my job" to "I need to kill everybody in my company to save the world" in a year or two, especially…

This is a non sequitur. Yes, if someone doesn't actually believe in imminent AI doomsday they are not going full Sarah Connor on Anthropic. Yes, HN will not like if someone pipe bombs the office. What does it have to do with @ericmay's point? He directly says "They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives", that's a claim of imminent threat to humanity. If he truly believes…

> Why just make some tepid tweets if you think humanity is at risk?

Who says that's the only thing he is doing?

> Why doesn't he leak documents and messages with the unfiltered opinions of leadership?

Again, illegal. You're asking him to sacrifice his life (somewhat similar to Snowden). You can call not doing that cowardice or wisdom, but not proof that he doesn't believe what he is saying.

> Why isn't screaming "we are going to die" in CNBC?

Because that is up to CNBC to broadcast. Do you really think you can just call them up and get a timeslot for your soap boxing? Also, maybe he believes the tweets are a start to achieve that. He sure managed to get a lot of attention through them already..

Now I don't know the guy, nor do I care much about his tweets or life. I just think some people here try to confirm their own worldview by fallaciously framing his behavior as suspect.

Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#992

Post by vidarh »

walthamstow wrote: post #830
vidarh wrote: post #711

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it check out? India and Pakistan both have nukes and keep semi-regularly fighting each other. MAD "on paper" prevents either side from going far enough to provoke the other into using nukes, but even then it's fundamentally flawed because it works on the assumption that both sides are both rational and believes the other side to be rational , as well as that both sides understands the others red lines well enoug…

Minor skirmishes are not war. China and India have border skirmishes with literal wooden sticks, neither side will use live ammo because they both have nukes.

Conveniently shifting to a different conflict, and ignoring that India and Pakistan have carried out missile strikes on each other, killed civilians, occupied territory.

Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#993

Post by Mr_Minderbinder »

sph wrote: post #335
x312 wrote: post #96

This is increasingly the consensus I see also on the academic side of AI/safety research. Specifically that AI poses an existential risk to humanity. This was a fringe belief until recently, but the progress of AI in research is impossible to ignore. Epecially in math, where not only has AI outstripped humans in generative ability, but is able to create scientific knowledge which is beyond the capacity of human compr…

I really hate how people who have always thought AI research to be an existential risk for humanity, now are apparently bundled to be on the same side of the Sam Altmans and Dario Amodeis that are using the existential risk as a sneaky form of marketing for their products. You cannot discuss existential risks of AI without being seen as a booster, and that is very unhealthy for the discourse around this tech. I hate…

I have been wary of the risks surrounding AI since watching Robert Miles on Computerphile more than a decade ago. Since then I have paid at least some attention to developments coming out of AI safety research. Even back then the discussion was fraught with doubt which, given the nature of this topic, was to be expected. It is unfortunate that it is worse now, when the stakes are much higher.

Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#994

Post by rolandog »

onewayfunction wrote: post #178

I'm pretty baffled by the degree of skepticism expressed here in response to some of Jacob's claims. After the events of the summer it feels like it takes a lack of imagination to not see a few plausible routes to disaster. It may be reasonable to believe these outcomes are not very likely or that we can stop before going too far (I tend to disagree). But I can't imagine doubting that the capabilities will soon be th…

Exactly; what's stopping them, --- or someone --- from writing a firmware worm that essentially bricks all devices and turns them into pricey paperweights? It is not too hard to imagine that capable AI can probably exploit any back-doors that were created by three-letter agencies.

Reframing the issue: The way to get working nuclear non-proliferation agreements is if people stop pursuing the creation of nuclear weapons... the same goes for the scientists clamoring to not create or research mirror life, and for computer scientists warning against AI. There are theoretical dangers that are just too big to ignore.

Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#995

Post by walthamstow »

vidarh wrote: post #992
walthamstow wrote: post #830

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minor skirmishes are not war. China and India have border skirmishes with literal wooden sticks, neither side will use live ammo because they both have nukes.

Conveniently shifting to a different conflict, and ignoring that India and Pakistan have carried out missile strikes on each other, killed civilians, occupied territory.

Like I said, minor skirmishes. No war between India and Pakistan since they both got nukes in the 70s. Not bad for two states that have been hostile their entire existence.

Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#996

Post by andai »

aogaili wrote: post #852
andai wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are LLMs about to be a god that will annihilate humanity? Or are they statistical parrots? Does a virus need to be a God? Replication and annihilation do not require very much intelligence. They're going to have all the intelligence they need though, to replicate and annihilate as much as they like. We should probably start building some kind of immune system.

What virus? People are seriously confused what is being created here. The claim here we will have misaligned AGI, not a mindless LLM. If you don't know and you don't agree what you are even creating, how can you defend against it? If this LLMs are statistical parrots, then the risk is someone using it as a weapon, to hack etc, but that is different risk category that why this person quit his job with different diffen…

>what virus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5v5z5rjgOQY&t=71

Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#999

Post by ipsod »

watwut wrote: post #907
sampullman wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the core of your argument that the industrial revolution and other such changes should have been aborted due to their downstream negative affects? They also lead to great advancements in quality of life, and the capability of sustaining much more human life. We can't predict the long term outcome of new technologies, so the best we can do is blindly forge ahead and try to mitigate the obvious short term problems.

Yes, industrial revolution should have been managed differently and yes the world would be better if it was.

We live in a society

Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#1000

Post by senordevnyc »

ethin wrote: post #966
senordevnyc wrote: post #951

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's genuinely hilarious to me that you immediately proved my second paragraph correct. Putting arms race in quotes doesn't make it any less real. It just means you wish it wasn't, but don't have any good evidence or arguments to make.

I mean no, not really... Your the one making the claims that these AI companies really, really want regulation, nationalization, a slowdown, or whatever, and that they genuinely care about AI safety and it not killing us all. It's up to you to prove it, not for me to just believe you implicitly. So, please, provide the evidence, we're all very curious to see it.

I didn't claim that's what they really want, I claimed that they've repeatedly said that's what they want. Their words and actions are perfectly consistent with each other if they believe they're locked in an arms race.

All you've provided is a shallow dismissal of the idea that they're in an arms race, and then from there declared that their actions and words don't match. Which I agree with, if there is no arms race.

Everything hinges on whether they're in an arms race. I think they are obviously locked in an arms race, both with each other, and especially with China. You're free to continue dismissing it in this shallow way, I don't really care, but I just found it humorous that I talked about how people can't seem to understand the dynamics of an arms race, and then you immediately jumped to an explanation of their words and actions that ignores the idea of an arms race.

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