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Why do we tell ourselves scary stories about AI?

quantamagazine.org

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Re: Why do we tell ourselves scary stories about AI?

#111

Post by benj111 »

GolfPopper wrote: post #28

Why does the uncanny valley[1] exist? (If it truly does.) What in our evolutionary history gave us a reflexive rejection of things that seem human but aren't? 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley

Interesting question.

Perhaps it's down to the fact that a lot of communication is contextual/ group bonding? You are expected to behave a certain way. If you laugh at something the group doesn't find funny, you are excluded from the group. Visa versa. If something does behave quite right, it doesn't belong in the group?

I'm autistic for what it's worth. I'm not sure if that gives me better of worse insight into group dynamics.

Re: Why do we tell ourselves scary stories about AI?

#112

Post by xemdetia »

The only thing I find scary about the current AI is how many AI companies became completely untethered from basic ethical controls openly. There is no facade of decency and it seems like a lot of them are running from their own shadow. I feel like there is a middle ground that could have been taken to bring content experts in instead of looting the web the world has built.

Re: Why do we tell ourselves scary stories about AI?

#113

Post by selfhoster11 »

dsa3a wrote: post #97
ACCount37 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you don't seem to be engaging seriously with respected experts in this field who say "scaling still works, and will work for a good while longer". If your only reference points are LeCun, or, worse, some living fossils from the "symbolic AI" era, then you'll be showered in "LLMs can't progress". Often backed by "insights" that are straight up wrong, and were proven wrong empirically some time in 2023. If you trac…

That aside. Lets look at the facts. Are LLMs displacing labour? In the aggregate - not from what one can see. The aggregate statistics tell a different story e.g. the hiring of software engineers is still growing Y-o-Y. The limits of LLMs will be put in place through financial constraints. People like you seem to think there's an infinite stream of money to fund this stuff. Not really. Its the same reason why Anthrop…

LLMs are indeed displacing labour. Junior IT roles are drying up in places. Translation and art are also becoming harder to earn from.

Re: Why do we tell ourselves scary stories about AI?

#114

Post by Nasrudith »

ACCount37 wrote: post #77
saHqtr wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most humans can do more than plagiarizing text. But let's hype up the clankers before the IPOs.

"It's all just PR" is a lame excuse not to think about the implications. Of things like: AI capabilities only ever going up over the course of the past 4 years.

Past performance is no guarantee of future results. It isn't just a financial cliche - if Moore's law held we would be working with subatomic sized gates instead of fooling around with EUV gates.

https://xkcd.com/605/

Re: Why do we tell ourselves scary stories about AI?

#115

Post by Nasrudith »

dryarzeg wrote: post #67
0x4e wrote: post #14

Because we don't like uncertainty, and the AI future is uncertain. There are multiple high probability scenarios. Because we're seeing how its capabilities increase overtime. I find the rate at which I prefer to go to an AI than an UpWorker is scary. Because we——the people——are not in control of it. We're at the whims of whatever it and the tech bros want (technocracy).

> technocracy What you mentioned is not a technocracy. Technocracy is when all decisions are made by real specialists in the field, based on scientific methods (simply speaking). What you mentioned is a plutocracy, a form of oligarchy in which decisions are made by people of great wealth. I couldn’t just ignore this because, in my view, technocracy (as I’ve described it) still has some merit - for instance, appointin…

Technocracy is a myth thanks to Goodhart's Law. Whomever sets the measures just becomes the new dictator as they will continue insist on whatever doctrinal point until they retain power. Technocracy would just end being the same old 'push delusions to remain in power' government as fascism and theocracy.

Re: Why do we tell ourselves scary stories about AI?

#116

Post by mastermage »

ACCount37 wrote: post #19

It's simple. It's because AI is the scariest technology ever made. Human intelligence has proven itself capable of doing a lot of scary things. And AI research is keen on building ever more capable and more scalable intelligence. By now, the list of advantages humans still have over machines is both finite and rapidly diminishing. If that doesn't make you uneasy, you're in denial.

I think the Nuclear Bomb is still scarier. But AI is not scary for its destructive potential but for its potential to disrupt our society fundamentally, and not just in a good way.

Re: Why do we tell ourselves scary stories about AI?

#117

Post by bigbadfeline »

mastermage wrote: post #116
ACCount37 wrote: post #19

It's simple. It's because AI is the scariest technology ever made. Human intelligence has proven itself capable of doing a lot of scary things. And AI research is keen on building ever more capable and more scalable intelligence. By now, the list of advantages humans still have over machines is both finite and rapidly diminishing. If that doesn't make you uneasy, you're in denial.

I think the Nuclear Bomb is still scarier. But AI is not scary for its destructive potential but for its potential to disrupt our society fundamentally, and not just in a good way.

> I think the Nuclear Bomb is still scarier. But AI is not scary for its destructive potential

AI excels in both making weapons of all kinds and effectively targeting them, as the resent war has shown - AI is more dangerous, and can be more destructive, than all weapons taken together.

Re: Why do we tell ourselves scary stories about AI?

#118

Post by bigbadfeline »

jurgenburgen wrote: post #104
robkop wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can’t speak for the states, but in AU I clearly see a massive displacement of undergrad and junior roles (only in AI exposed domains). I say this as both someone who works with many execs, hearing their musings, and someone who no longer can justify hiring junior roles themselves. Irrespective of that; if we take this strategy of only taking action once it is visible to the layman - our scope of actions available w…

> If not then would it not be prudent to take the risk seriously? What does taking the risk seriously look like?

> What does taking the risk seriously look like?

Politics - proper guardrails, adapting the legal framework to accommodate AI and make sure it doesn't benefit only preselected few.

Something that can and should be done yesterday is to stop the capital drain out of the economy and into accelerated, war-motivated AI development - there's no need for war-AI per se but clearly it's the most likely reason for the capital drain and rush.

Once the rush and wars stop, and some capital is made available for the rest of the economy, the latter can adapt to the introduction of AI at a normal pace, that should include legislative safeguards to support competition and prevent monopolization of AI and information sources.

Re: Why do we tell ourselves scary stories about AI?

#119

Post by potsandpans »

jaredcwhite wrote: post #92
ACCount37 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It's just marketing" is just the "denial" stage wearing a flimsy disguise. Even LLMs of today routinely do the kind of tasks that would have "required human intelligence" a few years prior. The gap between "what humans can do" and "what frontier AIs can do" is shrinking every month. What makes you think that what remains of that gap can't be closed in a series of incremental upgrades? Just 4 years have passed since…

You don't seem to be engaging seriously with respected experts in this field who have been reporting for years at this point that merely scaling LLMs and so-called "agentic systems" doesn't get us anywhere close to true AGI. Also computers in the 1980s could perform many tasks that previously would have "required human intelligence". So? Are you saying computers in the 1980s were somehow intelligent?

Oh, you again. In every thread. Are you a respect expert in the field of ai? What are your qualifications?

Re: Why do we tell ourselves scary stories about AI?

#120

Post by djhn »

ACCount37 wrote: post #79
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a lot of FUD in the mainframe era about computers being called "electronic brains" and fears of them taking people's jobs because the ignorant public mistook their lighting fast arithmetic skills for intelligence. Many did lose their jobs as digital record keeping, computerized accounting/ERP, robotics on assembly lines, became cost effective, but at no time did the "electronic brain" become intelligent. Th…

Is it me making the mistake, or is it you making that very mistake in the other direction? Back in the "mainframe era", we had entire lists of tasks that even the most untrained humans would find trivial, but computers were impossibly bad at. Like following informal instructions, or telling a picture of a dog from that of a cat. We're in the "AI era" now, and what remains of those lists? What are the areas of human a…

The success rate of computers doing those tasks has gone from 0% to 70%-90%, but reaching 100% might take a very long time.
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