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Watch AI materials-science and bioscience abilities closely

lesswrong.com

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Re: Watch AI materials-science and bioscience abilities closely

#11

Post by baq »

Chance-Device wrote: post #6
A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hah, well, you must have never encountered LessWrong before. It has been like that for well over a decade, in fact it's probably approaching its second decade... One thing you've got to give them credit for is that they've been talking about AI -- about the present moment, really -- from the beginning. Nick Bostrom, who wrote "Superintelligence" about ten years ago, has always been in their orbit.

He’s right though, this post says nothing non-obvious. It boils down to “AIs that can do some difficult things might be able to do other difficult things. Also: Danger!”. There isn’t enough here for it to be interesting.

On the contrary this couple paragraphs is aimed strictly at 'normies' as in people who are riding the current exponential with little history of thinking about this moment. Most people's beliefs and knowledge needs updating and patching without hoping that 'it obviously follows from assumptions' because most people don't bother to think about the assumptions in the first place.

IOW:

> There isn’t enough here for it to be interesting.

True - for you and the dozens of folks like you, to paraphrase a meme.

Re: Watch AI materials-science and bioscience abilities closely

#12

Post by pingou »

bglazer wrote: post #7

Has anyone in the rationalist, doomer community actually seriously engaged the real biology/virology of a “virus that wipes out humanity”? Playing Plague Inc doesn’t count. I mean, we’re talking about real physical things, not first principles thought experiments here. Thus, they have limits imposed by physics and biology. Limits on transmission rate, lethality, particle size, evolutionary change rates, and so on. Al…

But a virus's "goal" would not be to wipe out a species, that would be a dead end. Nature has explored flight on an unimaginable scale, yet our machines fly better (at least in most aspects) than birds, some even go to space.

Re: Watch AI materials-science and bioscience abilities closely

#14

Post by Chance-Device »

baq wrote: post #11
Chance-Device wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He’s right though, this post says nothing non-obvious. It boils down to “AIs that can do some difficult things might be able to do other difficult things. Also: Danger!”. There isn’t enough here for it to be interesting.

On the contrary this couple paragraphs is aimed strictly at 'normies' as in people who are riding the current exponential with little history of thinking about this moment. Most people's beliefs and knowledge needs updating and patching without hoping that 'it obviously follows from assumptions' because most people don't bother to think about the assumptions in the first place. IOW: > There isn’t enough here for it t…

I don’t think it’s good at doing that either.

Re: Watch AI materials-science and bioscience abilities closely

#15

Post by dmboyd »

bglazer wrote: post #7

Has anyone in the rationalist, doomer community actually seriously engaged the real biology/virology of a “virus that wipes out humanity”? Playing Plague Inc doesn’t count. I mean, we’re talking about real physical things, not first principles thought experiments here. Thus, they have limits imposed by physics and biology. Limits on transmission rate, lethality, particle size, evolutionary change rates, and so on. Al…

Same idiots think folks are at risk from firearms printed from a desktop PLA 3d printer

Re: Watch AI materials-science and bioscience abilities closely

#16

Post by gerikson »

reedf1 wrote: post #10
bglazer wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I currently work in a chemical biology lab and I don’t think one disgruntled postdoc could wipe out humanity. Also disgruntled is more or less unnecessary when combined with postdoc. Sort of goes without saying.

.

Are you asking for humanity to be wiped out so you can win an argument on the internet?

Re: Watch AI materials-science and bioscience abilities closely

#17

Post by sebzim4500 »

bglazer wrote: post #7

Has anyone in the rationalist, doomer community actually seriously engaged the real biology/virology of a “virus that wipes out humanity”? Playing Plague Inc doesn’t count. I mean, we’re talking about real physical things, not first principles thought experiments here. Thus, they have limits imposed by physics and biology. Limits on transmission rate, lethality, particle size, evolutionary change rates, and so on. Al…

The obvious argument is that natural organisms are restricted in ways that artificial ones are not (e.g. natural viruses are not selected to kill their host too quickly, natural selection can only reach solutions which can be reached incrementally).

>EDIT: Also, in this world, couldn’t an AI just “one shot” a vaccine and an effective treatment?

This does not follow automatically. E.g. it is enormously easier to create an ICBM than to create something capable of intercepting an ICBM. Some technologies naturally benefit an attacker and some naturally benefit a defender.

Re: Watch AI materials-science and bioscience abilities closely

#18

Post by timcobb »

pingou wrote: post #12
bglazer wrote: post #7

Has anyone in the rationalist, doomer community actually seriously engaged the real biology/virology of a “virus that wipes out humanity”? Playing Plague Inc doesn’t count. I mean, we’re talking about real physical things, not first principles thought experiments here. Thus, they have limits imposed by physics and biology. Limits on transmission rate, lethality, particle size, evolutionary change rates, and so on. Al…

But a virus's "goal" would not be to wipe out a species, that would be a dead end. Nature has explored flight on an unimaginable scale, yet our machines fly better (at least in most aspects) than birds, some even go to space.

I doubt our flying machines are anywhere near as energy efficient as birds. Our flying machines combust jet fuel, birds can fly by ATP. Not to mention earth-destructing.

And going into space is pointless why would any animal ever develop such a facility :)

Re: Watch AI materials-science and bioscience abilities closely

#19

Post by reedf1 »

gerikson wrote: post #16
reedf1 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

.

Are you asking for humanity to be wiped out so you can win an argument on the internet?

I'm going to remove specific reference because I think even being directed to the right thing is dangerous. You are right.

Re: Watch AI materials-science and bioscience abilities closely

#20

Post by gilleain »

pingou wrote: post #12
bglazer wrote: post #7

Has anyone in the rationalist, doomer community actually seriously engaged the real biology/virology of a “virus that wipes out humanity”? Playing Plague Inc doesn’t count. I mean, we’re talking about real physical things, not first principles thought experiments here. Thus, they have limits imposed by physics and biology. Limits on transmission rate, lethality, particle size, evolutionary change rates, and so on. Al…

But a virus's "goal" would not be to wipe out a species, that would be a dead end. Nature has explored flight on an unimaginable scale, yet our machines fly better (at least in most aspects) than birds, some even go to space.

Yes, but also viruses do not actually have goals as such - maybe 'replicate' could be their only goal. So a virus _could_ come up with a mutation that kills all its hosts, it just dies out as well in the process. Not very reassuring for the host!

As a slight aside - since I was talking about the weakness of biological analogy on HN recently - the way humans fly is very very different to how (most) birds do. If nanomachines actually could be built by humans (non-biological nanomachines) they might be as different to virus/cells/organisms as plane wings are to bird wings.

Of course, also please do not prompt a frontier model to make nanomachines, either, thankyou.

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