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Yann LeCun: AI one-percenters seizing power forever is real doomsday scenario

businessinsider.com

11–20 of 873 posts

Re: Yann LeCun: AI one-percenters seizing power forever is real doomsday scenario

#11
post #6
post #4

It's too late for monopolizing large language models. The technology for making them is known and the cost keeps coming down. There are things to worry about, but this doesn't seem to be one of them.

> It's too late for monopolizing large language models. The technology for making them is known and the cost keeps coming down. Not so sure non-institutional folks can catch up. OpenAI is trying to regulatory capture LLMs to prevent the Amazons and the well-funded unicorns from following. Everyone left in the lurch after these players crystalize is SOL. You, average HN reader, cannot possibly compete with OpenAI. The…

Amazon excels at regulatory compliance. This isn’t a moat against Amazon. It’s a moat against you.

Re: Yann LeCun: AI one-percenters seizing power forever is real doomsday scenario

#12
post #2

some speculators say we'll enter an age of abundance and money wont matter nearly as much (or at all) but if thats the case, how do businesses transition from their current state of profit over everything into money is not important? I see it as much more likely that things become monopolized instead

Eh, the strong market for virtual goods and the existence of significant virtual economies[1] like those found in Roblox and Second Life lead me to believe that markets can and will always exist, regardless of how far we progress into and beyond post-scarcity (assuming humanity persists in its current form and consumption preferences remain stable). I'm less certain about the capitalist model in particular, but it too may continue to exist, although maybe just for fun.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_economy

Re: Yann LeCun: AI one-percenters seizing power forever is real doomsday scenario

#13
post #2

some speculators say we'll enter an age of abundance and money wont matter nearly as much (or at all) but if thats the case, how do businesses transition from their current state of profit over everything into money is not important? I see it as much more likely that things become monopolized instead

Bankruptcy. Regulation. Trust busting. Saboteurs.

Re: Yann LeCun: AI one-percenters seizing power forever is real doomsday scenario

#14
post #8

The problem isn't seizing power. The problem is going to be that AI is creating an Eternal September by poisoning the well of training data. Anybody who has a data or a model prior to the poisoning is going to have a defensible moat that is not accessible to those who come after.

First of all, “pre-poisoned” data sets are freely available in archives such as common crawl. Secondly, I doubt the usefulness of that data in the long run. A model trained on only that old data will forever be stuck in the past. It’ll be like the stereotypical senile grandpa who only talks about the old days and doesn’t know anything about current events.

Re: Yann LeCun: AI one-percenters seizing power forever is real doomsday scenario

#15
post #8

The problem isn't seizing power. The problem is going to be that AI is creating an Eternal September by poisoning the well of training data. Anybody who has a data or a model prior to the poisoning is going to have a defensible moat that is not accessible to those who come after.

Data will become stale

Re: Yann LeCun: AI one-percenters seizing power forever is real doomsday scenario

#16
post #9

Is true because if one company creates something more powerful than what military can achieve, why would it not wan to overtake its powers?

I wouldn't worry about that. I'm sure the military can unplug some computers.

Re: Yann LeCun: AI one-percenters seizing power forever is real doomsday scenario

#17
post #2

some speculators say we'll enter an age of abundance and money wont matter nearly as much (or at all) but if thats the case, how do businesses transition from their current state of profit over everything into money is not important? I see it as much more likely that things become monopolized instead

Abundance for who? Our entire specie could live comfortably with goodies the last roman emperor wouldn't even have dreamed of, just with our current means of production. Yet we still have people not able to feed their children, dying of exhaustion at work or killing each other for land.

Re: Yann LeCun: AI one-percenters seizing power forever is real doomsday scenario

#18
post #4

It's too late for monopolizing large language models. The technology for making them is known and the cost keeps coming down. There are things to worry about, but this doesn't seem to be one of them.

Training is still very expensive.. and if it becomes cheaper, then a next-gen model with better performance will be expensive again.

It may be very hard to train cutting edge models if you only have consumer hardware

Re: Yann LeCun: AI one-percenters seizing power forever is real doomsday scenario

#19
The power of selfless development on open source AI will become so crucial to avoiding this scenario. I do think that even today, open AIs are capable of filling in a lot of the gaps you'd have if you didn't want to use OpenAI's work.

Re: Yann LeCun: AI one-percenters seizing power forever is real doomsday scenario

#20
The moat he describes the one-percenters might aquire is government regulation. Creating an environment where only an exclusive club of companies is able to work on AI.

Is that possible? Has that happened in any other industry?

I can imagine it happening in a single country. But wouldn't research route around that country then? How is the situation in Europe, China, India, Canada, Japan ... ?

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