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Sam Altman’s leap of faith

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Re: Sam Altman’s leap of faith

#121

Post by ElFitz »

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #66

This whole premise that one can generate profits out of AGI is ridiculous. If AGI comes to fruition, it won’t be working to make profits for anyone. The idea that we would end up with a Friendly AGI that would prostrate itself to the destructive Super Apex Predator of this planet is laughable. That AGI would work diligently to pay investors off 100x is..well..a lame duck that won’t take off...it cant even barely limp…

AGI implies neither consciousness, nor will (free or otherwise).

The only essential part of an AGI's definition is the ability to make (efficient / "intelligent") decisions in vastly different domains irrespective of previous training.

Re: Sam Altman’s leap of faith

#122

Post by CptFribble »

ngrilly wrote: post #89

In the recorded interview, Sam Altman says climate change is such a hard problem that we need strong AI first to solve it. I have doubts about this for several reasons: - Human psychology is one of the biggest obstacles (maybe the biggest) in solving climate change, and I'm not sure how a strong AI is supposed to fix that. - Building carbon-neutral energy sources is a hard problem, but most experts are optimistic abo…

> I'm not sure how a strong AI is supposed to fix that.

presumably a sufficiently advanced AI could find or create a technical solution that perfectly solves the problem with no downsides, or at least so little downside or cost that even those who "don't believe" in climate change couldn't refuse trying it out.

Re: Sam Altman’s leap of faith

#123

Post by eli_gottlieb »

NhanH wrote: post #83
tristanm wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. This is in the scenario where the benefits are widely distributed. But in that case the value of the entire planet goes up; You would not necessarily need to make an investment in OpenAI in order to reap benefits. Unless you think that scenario is more likely to happen with OpenAI and not via the usual academic research + shared industry research (which I don't see why that would be the case).

Something along this line: Google increases the entire value of the whole internet by a lot, but you also benefit more by investing in it in the early day.

So you're saying that OpenAI is producing a public good in which the whole of society has a stake?

Re: Sam Altman’s leap of faith

#124

Post by ElFitz »

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #106
marcosdumay wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "artificial" part on the name is there to indicate that it will want to do whatever it was designed to want to do. If it is designed to make its creators rich, it will try to do exactly that. Maybe with disastrous consequences, even to its creators, but all for the objective it's given, not for some random human feelings.

Intelligence..by definition...will ‘learn’ automatically and will slip beyond the constraints of human generated code.

Doesn't mean the original constraints would even make it possible for consciousness or free will to appear.

I have a hard time seeing a generalist version of what we have today ever being even remotely capable of anything approaching consciousness.

Re: Sam Altman’s leap of faith

#125

Post by tehlike »

rdlecler1 wrote: post #99

I feel that most of the people that are truly bullish on AI have never actually programmed it to understand how far we have to go and how primitive the solutions actually are. I see some powerful statistical tools for categorization and optimization under finely crafted conditions but nothing else. We have a long way to go.

I am fairly familiar with the sota, but you dont need to go all the way to agi to reap profits.

Re: Sam Altman’s leap of faith

#126

Post by pgt »

> "Once we build a generally intelligent system, that basically we will ask it to figure out a way to make an investment return for you.'” When the crowd erupted with laughter (it wasn’t immediately obvious that he was serious), Altman himself offered that it sounds like an episode of “Silicon Valley,” but he added, “You can laugh. It’s all right. But it really is what I actually believe.”

How will @sama deal with a guaranteed-return, but immoral path laid out by the AI? E.g. "Here, assassinate X so you can mine this oil in the following ways." What if it isn't obvious that the "Golden Path" has serious flaws?

The only way I can think of is to run adversarial agentswho can simulate, but not act (i.e. under duress) against the mastermind to kill of "dark roads" that end in bad situations, and force the mastermind to obey them (somehow).

Re: Sam Altman’s leap of faith

#127

Post by whyenot »

chrischen wrote: post #96
ngrilly wrote: post #89

In the recorded interview, Sam Altman says climate change is such a hard problem that we need strong AI first to solve it. I have doubts about this for several reasons: - Human psychology is one of the biggest obstacles (maybe the biggest) in solving climate change, and I'm not sure how a strong AI is supposed to fix that. - Building carbon-neutral energy sources is a hard problem, but most experts are optimistic abo…

The AI’s solution to global warming that humans cannot solve is to kill all humans.

Donald Trump could "solve" global warming in less than 30 minutes with a call to the military. Vladimir Putin has a similar option. Depopulation and nuclear winter would do the trick.

Of course I am being glib, but we are living in a world where two people have the power to end civilization any time they want to. Something that I think is important to remember when talking about risks of AI.

Re: Sam Altman’s leap of faith

#128

Post by ngrilly »

FailMore wrote: post #115
ngrilly wrote: post #89

In the recorded interview, Sam Altman says climate change is such a hard problem that we need strong AI first to solve it. I have doubts about this for several reasons: - Human psychology is one of the biggest obstacles (maybe the biggest) in solving climate change, and I'm not sure how a strong AI is supposed to fix that. - Building carbon-neutral energy sources is a hard problem, but most experts are optimistic abo…

We need to price the cost of environment into the cost of goods. There needs to be room for the economics of environmentally friendly companies to outperform the economics of environmentally damaging companies. This will result in investment into environmental improvement and not rely on individuals having to tread on ‘environmental egg shells’ in a world of environmentally damaging products. Demand Environmental Eco…

Agreed. We need more laws and regulations to include externalities in the price of the goods and services we buy.

Re: Sam Altman’s leap of faith

#129

Post by scandox »

duncancarroll wrote: post #102

"the opportunity with artificial general intelligence is so incomprehensibly enormous that if OpenAI manages to crack this particular nut, it could “maybe capture the light cone of all future value in the universe" This feels a bit too Kurzweilian to me. I still don't understand how we go from General AI --> ??? --> Infinite $$$

To me it's strange how he can apparently think at an almost cosmic scale about the future of computation but at the same time can only imagine a financial and social future more or less grounded by the status quo. That's weird.

Re: Sam Altman’s leap of faith

#130

Post by jacquesm »

whyenot wrote: post #127
chrischen wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The AI’s solution to global warming that humans cannot solve is to kill all humans.

Donald Trump could "solve" global warming in less than 30 minutes with a call to the military. Vladimir Putin has a similar option. Depopulation and nuclear winter would do the trick. Of course I am being glib, but we are living in a world where two people have the power to end civilization any time they want to. Something that I think is important to remember when talking about risks of AI.

For risks of nuclear deterrence one would hope that the military would follow Trump's orders, for humanity one would hope that they would not because he's about as stable as 74 year old nitroclycerine.
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