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FTC investigating ChatGPT over potential consumer harm

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Re: FTC investigating ChatGPT over potential consumer harm

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This technology (transformer language models) was invented about 6 years ago. For it to be far away means that at some point the exponential has to stop and we have an AI winter. That’s possible but doesn’t look likely at this point. It’s more likely that we will see superintelligence in our lifetime. And if the rate of progress does not slow it will be sooner rather than later. My current estimate is parity by 2030…

I don’t know much about AI but this: > That’s possible but doesn’t look likely at this point. Why doesn’t it seem likely? We’ve been trying to do great things with AI for decades. We don’t seem to have an excellent grasp on why certain things work well or if the strategies we’re using can ultimately yield much better intelligence. My impression is that we really don’t have a lot of control over progress and we could…

I can think of two situations that might lead to an AI winter:

1. We are wildly underestimating the computation requirements.

2. There are theoretical roadblocks coming up such that even a very large number of smart people being paid to solve the problem won’t find a key sequence of ideas. Think Riemann Hypothesis, or Fermat’s Last Theorem, etc.

The counter-argument to (1) is that available computational resources are very high given the billions of dollars available. The one system we know to possess human-parity intelligence (the human brain) uses 12 watts and is not exactly a data center.

The counter-argument to (2) is that we’ve made faster than expected progress since the discovery of transformers, and we seem to be quite close already given the capabilities of GPT-4. Of course you don’t know that you’ve hit a roadblock until you hit it, but so far it’s been smooth sailing.

Re: FTC investigating ChatGPT over potential consumer harm

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For it to be far away means that at some point the exponential has to stop Not if we are on the wrong path, going in the wrong direction, which I think was at least partly the point of the comment to which you are responding. There is a school of thought that something fundamental is being missed by modern AI and the (amazing) success of GPT3+ ironically risks directing us further down that wrong path at an accelerat…

I'm pretty sure AGI will not be one model. But a collection of models, with some kind of vector databases(or something more efficient than that), being orchestrated by one or multiple master models. A large LLM that knows pretty much everything there is to know about the world, seems like a good building block for an AGI, no matter how the rest is built. LLM's could be like the Broca's and Wernicke's area of an AGI b…

Or LLMs aren’t involved at all. After all LLMs work at the level of word tokens … how fundamental really are words to AGI level intelligence; the human brain doesn’t operate on the level of words, words are something we picked up, that a more fundamental mechanism at play deals with.

Re: FTC investigating ChatGPT over potential consumer harm

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure AGI will not be one model. But a collection of models, with some kind of vector databases(or something more efficient than that), being orchestrated by one or multiple master models. A large LLM that knows pretty much everything there is to know about the world, seems like a good building block for an AGI, no matter how the rest is built. LLM's could be like the Broca's and Wernicke's area of an AGI b…

Or LLMs aren’t involved at all. After all LLMs work at the level of word tokens … how fundamental really are words to AGI level intelligence; the human brain doesn’t operate on the level of words, words are something we picked up, that a more fundamental mechanism at play deals with.

Humanity wasn't doing anything significant before words.

Re: FTC investigating ChatGPT over potential consumer harm

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quacks like a duck, etc. NSDAP were in power for over a decade before the first concentration camp was ever built. Their rhetoric in the 30s was not as direct and violent as their later actions, that doesn't mean they weren't still Nazis.

>NSDAP were in power for over a decade before the first concentration camp was ever built. The first concentration camp, Nohra, opened in 1933, the year the Nazis took power. The more well known Dachau was also opened that year.

I think GP was mixing up concentration camps (Konzentrationslager), an umbrella term for both work/prison camps (never really secret, killing prisoners was a side effect but not the ostensible purpose, initially targeted German citizens with leftish politics who were vocal against the new regime) with extermination camps (subtype of concentration camp, not publicized, engineered for mass murder, where most of the Jews and a lot of the Roma/Sinti in Nazi-occupied Europe still there by 1942 were sent)

Dachau was a concentration camp located in a Munich suburb that a large number of prisoners survived (but a lot did not) and were even sometimes (but not often) released from. Really bad, but nothing that awful governments hadn’t done before - in fact, was being done by our eventual allies to the East at the same time.

Auschwitz was an extermination camp (Vernichtungslager), located in a distant corner of Poland that only a tiny fraction of people sent there survived. These camps and system were a new horror for the world, and the center of the Nuremberg war crimes trials. Those were planned at the beginning of 1941 (Wannsee Conference), so yes, put into operation about a decade after the Nazis came to power.

Some places that were initially set up as work (to death) camps were later turned into outright extermination camps.

Re: FTC investigating ChatGPT over potential consumer harm

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or LLMs aren’t involved at all. After all LLMs work at the level of word tokens … how fundamental really are words to AGI level intelligence; the human brain doesn’t operate on the level of words, words are something we picked up, that a more fundamental mechanism at play deals with.

Humanity wasn't doing anything significant before words.

Kids workout how to manipulate parents well before they can speak?

Re: FTC investigating ChatGPT over potential consumer harm

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe he's just a CEO doing the ethically responsible thing and not the purely self-serving thing for the sake of shareholders? (though as humans, the shareholders have some stake in humanity too)

I can't imagine a valid ethical justification for not releasing the model training details which they withheld. I'd speculate that they did it only to slow their competitors, but I don't have to because "the competitive landscape" was the reason given right there in their paper. There is (IMHO) no good reason to let OpenAI argue simultaneously for "this technology is too dangerous to be replicated" and for "... but i…

Here here

Re: FTC investigating ChatGPT over potential consumer harm

#107

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It was a gambit to try to secure OAI's moat. It failed, and while competitors are catching up (still a while to go yet), he put a target on OAI's back.

This conspiracy theory is myopic. Altman has been cognizant[1][2] of the very-not-scifi danger of machine intelligence since before OpenAI was even founded. I believe he has dangerous levels of hubris but I don't see him being profit motivated. From his statements in the past and his regrets today[3] of bringing the current tech into existence, I'm confident his motivator is simply the desire to not die. >WHY YOU SHO…

> I believe he has dangerous levels of hubris but I don't see him being profit motivated

Altman peddles crypto. Keep that in mind when giving him the benefit of doubt on integrity and profit motivation.

Re: FTC investigating ChatGPT over potential consumer harm

#108
post #82

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…see: nuclear weapons

Yeah, what about them? Sounds like you're placing all your hope in apathy, good luck with that.

> what about them?

Are nuclear weapons not "harmful or a risk to humanity"?

Re: FTC investigating ChatGPT over potential consumer harm

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think something that's increasingly clear is that OpenAI's only moat is time. Every other company, and even completely independent models, are rapidly catching up. And this is happening at the same time that OpenAI is already making claims that they're hitting diminishing returns on model size [1], as happens in literally every single neural net based field. If Sam's Gambit succeeded, OpenAI could have potentially…

>Every other company, and even completely independent models, are rapidly catching up. I see the HN headlines like "new model approaches GPT4 in benchmarks!" but they turn out to suck when I try them. What can I use today that comes close to GPT4? Certainly not Bard. I generally run 2 tests to gauge: 1. Write me a Python script that blah blah blah 2. Write me the lyrics to a song about blah blah blah Only GPT4 has gi…

> Only GPT4 has given me impressive results

OpenAI is durable only if GPT is middlingly differentiated. If it's uncompetitive, they lose. If it's vital, they face regulation and state-sponsored competition. (I personally advocate for a Heavy Press Program [1] for training American and allied AIs.)

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

Re: FTC investigating ChatGPT over potential consumer harm

#110
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, what about them? Sounds like you're placing all your hope in apathy, good luck with that.

> what about them? Are nuclear weapons not "harmful or a risk to humanity"?

I think it's an over simplification an unwise comparison.

Everyone keeps bringing up Russia and China...they like nuclear weapons because they give them power. AI can take it away, especially if a super intelligent AI was to come into being.

Have you ever noticed how dictators like to be in control? If they actually are aware there is little chance they'd be able to control these things, they're much less likely to want them to exist.

It's just not the same type of problem. The only thing we have in common here is they can both be dangerous and cause a lot of harm, but so can fire.

This same line of reasoning is why Hinton thinks we might be able to slow things down with an international agreement, because no one wants to see things spiral into chaos. No one wins that, maybe not even the AIs.

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