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GenAI, the snake eating its own tail

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Re: GenAI, the snake eating its own tail

#131

Post by mapontosevenths »

treebigtree wrote: post #91
mapontosevenths wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet, overall it was a net positive for society... as almost every technological innovation in history has been. Did you know the 2/3rds of the people alive today wouldn't be if it hadn't been for the invention of the Haber-bosch process? Technology isn't just a toy, it's our life support mechanism. The only way our population gets to keep growing is if our technology continues to improve. Will there be some unintende…

"as almost every technological innovation in history has been" This is simply false. You really are the king of making unfounded claims.

I don't need to prove anything. You folks are the ones claiming harm. That said, AI is more akin to the invention of antibiotics than it is to the invention of any specific drug. Name any other entire category of technology from which no good has ever come. Just one.

I doubt you can. Even bioweapons led to breakthroughs in pesticides and chemotherapy. Nukes led to nuclear power, and even harmful AI stuff like deep fakes are being used for image restorations, special effects, and medical imaging.

You're just flat out wrong, and I think you know it.

Re: GenAI, the snake eating its own tail

#132

Post by mapontosevenths »

dailycardriver wrote: post #87
mapontosevenths wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (AI) doesn't have the concept of correctness/truth They kind of do, and it's getting better every day. We already have huge swatches of verifiable facts available to them to ground their statements in truth. They started building Cyc in 1984, and Wikipedia just signed deals with all the major players. The problem you're describing isn't intractable, so it's fairly certain that someone will solve it soon. Most of th…

“ Most of the brightest minds in society are working on AI in some form now.” Source? I haven’t met one intelligent person working on AI. The smartest people are being ground into dust. They’re being replaced by pompous overconfident people such as yourself.

> I haven’t met one intelligent person working on AI.

I get the impression that you don't meet a lot of people in general.

Re: GenAI, the snake eating its own tail

#133

Post by iwontberude »

mapontosevenths wrote: post #131
treebigtree wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"as almost every technological innovation in history has been" This is simply false. You really are the king of making unfounded claims.

I don't need to prove anything. You folks are the ones claiming harm. That said, AI is more akin to the invention of antibiotics than it is to the invention of any specific drug. Name any other entire category of technology from which no good has ever come. Just one. I doubt you can. Even bioweapons led to breakthroughs in pesticides and chemotherapy. Nukes led to nuclear power, and even harmful AI stuff like deep fa…

You are speaking in tautology. Yes we know that technology investment often leads to great advancement and benefits for humanity, but it is not sufficient to obviate the need for consciousness and reduction of harm. This technology will be used to disenfranchise people and we need to be willing to say, "no, try again." Not to stop advancement, but to steer it into being more equitable.

We should be trying to optimize for the best combination of risk and benefit, not taking on unlimited risk in the promise of some non-zero benefit. Your approach is very much take-it-or-leave-it which leaves very little room for regulating the technology.

The GenAI industry lobbying for a moratorium on regulation is them trying to hand wave any disenfranchisement (e.g. displaced workers, youth mental health, intellectual property rights violated, systemically racist outcomes, etc).

Re: GenAI, the snake eating its own tail

#134

Post by [deleted] »

treebigtree wrote: post #91
mapontosevenths wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet, overall it was a net positive for society... as almost every technological innovation in history has been. Did you know the 2/3rds of the people alive today wouldn't be if it hadn't been for the invention of the Haber-bosch process? Technology isn't just a toy, it's our life support mechanism. The only way our population gets to keep growing is if our technology continues to improve. Will there be some unintende…

"as almost every technological innovation in history has been" This is simply false. You really are the king of making unfounded claims.

[deleted]

Re: GenAI, the snake eating its own tail

#135

Post by iwontberude »

thestructuralme wrote: post #130

The “snake eating its own tail” frame is real, but it’s not mystical — it’s incentives + sampling. If the web gets flooded with LLM output and you train on it naively, you’re effectively training on your own prior. That pushes models toward the mean: less surprise, less specificity, more template-y phrasing. It’s like photocopying a photocopy: the sharp edges disappear. The fix isn’t “never use synthetic data.” It’s…

LLMs will always be just a little too random or a little too average. There in is the hidden beauty of AI: elevating the trust in peoples diverse experiences.

Humans are amazing machines that reduce insane amounts of complexity in bespoke combinations of neural processors to synthesize ideas and emotions. Even Ilya Sutskever has said that he wasn't and still isn't clear at a formal level why GPT works at all (e.g. interpretability problem), but GPT was not a random discovery, it was based on work that was an amalgamation of Ilya and others careers and biases.

Re: GenAI, the snake eating its own tail

#136

Post by mapontosevenths »

iwontberude wrote: post #133
mapontosevenths wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't need to prove anything. You folks are the ones claiming harm. That said, AI is more akin to the invention of antibiotics than it is to the invention of any specific drug. Name any other entire category of technology from which no good has ever come. Just one. I doubt you can. Even bioweapons led to breakthroughs in pesticides and chemotherapy. Nukes led to nuclear power, and even harmful AI stuff like deep fa…

You are speaking in tautology. Yes we know that technology investment often leads to great advancement and benefits for humanity, but it is not sufficient to obviate the need for consciousness and reduction of harm. This technology will be used to disenfranchise people and we need to be willing to say, "no, try again." Not to stop advancement, but to steer it into being more equitable. We should be trying to optimize…

> We should be trying to optimize for the best combination of risk and benefit

I 100% support this stance, it's good advice for life in general. I object to the ridiculous Luddite's view espoused elsewhere in this thread.

>The GenAI industry lobbying for a moratorium on regulation is them trying to hand wave any disenfranchisement (e.g. displaced workers, youth mental health, intellectual property rights violated, systemically racist outcomes, etc).

There must be a balance certainly. We can't "kill it before it's born", but we also need to be practical about the costs. I'm all in on debating exactly where that line should be, but object to the idea that it provides no value at all. That's madness, and dishonesty.

Re: GenAI, the snake eating its own tail

#137

Post by dTal »

mapontosevenths wrote: post #44
iwontberude wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And just like Henry Ford and the automobile, one of many externalities was the destruction of black communities: white flight that drained wealth, eminent domain for highways, and increased asthma incidence and other disease from concentrated pollution.

Yet, overall it was a net positive for society... as almost every technological innovation in history has been. Did you know the 2/3rds of the people alive today wouldn't be if it hadn't been for the invention of the Haber-bosch process? Technology isn't just a toy, it's our life support mechanism. The only way our population gets to keep growing is if our technology continues to improve. Will there be some unintende…

I don't think this argument is logically sound. The assertion that this (and every other!!) technological innovation is a "net positive" merely because of our monotonic population growth is both weakly defined and unsubstantiated. Population is not a good proxy for all things we find desirable in society, and even if it were, it is only a single number that cannot possibly distinguish between factors that helped it and factors that hurt it.

Suppose I invent The Matrix, capable of efficiently sustaining 100b humans provided they are all strapped in with tubes and stuff. Oh and no fancy simulation to keep you entertained either -it's only barely an improvement on death. Economics forces everyone into matrix-hell, but at least there's a lot of us. Net positive for society?

Re: GenAI, the snake eating its own tail

#138

Post by mapontosevenths »

dTal wrote: post #137
mapontosevenths wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet, overall it was a net positive for society... as almost every technological innovation in history has been. Did you know the 2/3rds of the people alive today wouldn't be if it hadn't been for the invention of the Haber-bosch process? Technology isn't just a toy, it's our life support mechanism. The only way our population gets to keep growing is if our technology continues to improve. Will there be some unintende…

I don't think this argument is logically sound. The assertion that this (and every other!!) technological innovation is a "net positive" merely because of our monotonic population growth is both weakly defined and unsubstantiated. Population is not a good proxy for all things we find desirable in society, and even if it were, it is only a single number that cannot possibly distinguish between factors that helped it a…

Human fecundity is probably not actually the meaning of life, it's just the best approximation most people can wrap their heads around.

If you can think of a better one, let me know. Be warned though, you'll be arguing with every biological imperative, religion, and upbringing in the room when you say it.

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