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AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion

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Re: AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion

#171

Post by smrtinsert »

mimd wrote: post #167

Being bored, scared, and on Twitter is a bad combo. I'm mostly down on the current AI , as it's ML leveraging the vast "intelligent" conversations we put out on the internet. It's wheel of fortune and it failed my tests on reasoning miserably, even with the answers in hand. (I'm not going to tell you which tests, because then OpenAI will scrap it and tune their model to claim victory in GPT5. I saw the feathers brick…

When exactness, liability and oversight matters, it's just not ready yet, period. Even when its ready for that, it will take years for legislation to make it possible to use in key areas such as finance or medicine or law.

While some of the public is scared, others are thrilled as they expect an AGI takeover somehow results in a egalitarian UBI cushioned existence.

It's a mess.

Re: AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion

#172

Post by deepsquirrelnet »

allturtles wrote: post #152

If you really want to go there you could call AI enthusiasm a religion promising a scarcity-free heaven that AI will bring to us if we just believe in it hard enough. I don't think either line of argument is helpful for having a real discussion.

I’m on the fence. The problem with AI doomsday statements is that they don’t lead to any productive discussion, because nothing specific is discussed.

The format needs to be changed if we don’t want it to become religion. Pose realistic scenarios and open them for discussion. Let’s discuss specific things, rather than muse at powerful technology and assume it will be bad.

At least AI enthusiasts are excited about specific things that can be critiqued and analyzed. They might be deluded in their excitement, but it’s not religion.

Re: AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion

#173

Post by librexpr »

antonvs wrote: post #166
librexpr wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh my god will you people stop with the bullshit psychoanalysis. People disagree about things all the time, it's normal, you don't need to invoke this pseudo-Freudian nonsense to explain why people disagree with you about the risks of AI. You can do better than this.

Ignoring the “observant Jew turned atheist” aspect, the rest of that description seems apt. A comparison against the features of religions is valid here, considering that one of the criticisms is that these people are following a religious playbook rather than a rational one. We don’t enact public policy based on predictions of a biblical apocalypse, nor do we ban televisions or computers because groups like the Amis…

None of the comment is apt. You're seeing people you disagree with and assuming that if they disagree with you it must be because they're crazy, and then you use words like "cult" and "LARP" to try to dismiss them without engaging with their arguments. This does not lead to good discussion.

I think that unaligned and sufficiently smart AI could kill everyone because I looked at the arguments for and against and came to a conclusion. Presumably this is the same thing you did. I know my own mind better than you, and I'm telling you that your attempts to explain why I disagree with you are completely off the mark.

> We don’t enact public policy based on predictions of a biblical apocalypse, nor do we ban televisions or computers because groups like the Amish disapprove of them.

The reason we don't do that is because we evaluate their arguments and disagree with them. It has nothing to do with who they are or why they believe what they believe.

Re: AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion

#175

Post by mimd »

smrtinsert wrote: post #171
mimd wrote: post #167

Being bored, scared, and on Twitter is a bad combo. I'm mostly down on the current AI , as it's ML leveraging the vast "intelligent" conversations we put out on the internet. It's wheel of fortune and it failed my tests on reasoning miserably, even with the answers in hand. (I'm not going to tell you which tests, because then OpenAI will scrap it and tune their model to claim victory in GPT5. I saw the feathers brick…

When exactness, liability and oversight matters, it's just not ready yet, period. Even when its ready for that, it will take years for legislation to make it possible to use in key areas such as finance or medicine or law. While some of the public is scared, others are thrilled as they expect an AGI takeover somehow results in a egalitarian UBI cushioned existence. It's a mess.

It is.

The AGI takeover crew is a bit nauseating. But I sorta understand them considering our daily panics. Sorta a dream of being whisked away by a prince/princess.

But the scared ones are much more organized, and have been at it for a good while now. And they're more of a threat, as they could shut this down for no gain, while the AGI takeover ain't happening with this wave of AI.

Still, I worry about a period in which doctors/lawyers forget their liabilities and decide to consult the great chatgpt oracle. Makes for a wonderful daily fail story. ;)

Re: AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion

#176

Post by lewhoo »

SilverBirch wrote: post #170
lewhoo wrote: post #168

Why don't we give Sam Altman the benefit of the doubt here. He himself admitted on several occasions that AI is potentially dangerous. Why would he do that if it only raises the discussion whether or not it should even exist ? That can't be a PR stunt. Imagine Musk saying something like that about some new Tesla autopilot (yeah yeah I know /s).

The key thing that AI boosters and doomsters have in common is that essentially they agree that this AI tech is fundamentally different in kind than what has gone before. It's not a matter of a computer being 5% faster at a particular problem, it's about the technology having crossed some sort of fundamental barrier beyond which all sorts of crazy things happen - conciousness, self-improvement, independent motivation…

I fundamentally disagree. Admitting danger dissuades people. Most want the thrill but not real danger. Placing the value in the danger aspect is like saying computer viruses are the most valuable thing in the world. I'm exaggerating a bit, but the way you put it sounds to me a bit much given the fact that Altman really doesn't have to convince anyone at this point that they have something very different.

Re: AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion

#178

Post by andrewflnr »

cubefox wrote: post #69
stevenhuang wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yann is also known for constantly denigrating the abilities of LLMs and being comically wrong all the time, saying they can't do X only to be proven wrong immediately after. He's pretty much a meme at this point. He spent all his years at FB building ivory towers of mathematics attempting the analytical route for building AI systems only to be out done by the bitter lesson. He's perpetually salty about the current st…

He also likes to talk about "human level AI". That's like expecting that the invention of the airplane passes through a stage of "human level flight". That didn't happen. And probably also not for AI. These systems will vastly outperform humans at more and more tasks, while being still sub-human at others. When the time comes that they surpass humans at all tasks, they will be vastly superhuman overall. And consequen…

The analogy is more apt with a reference to "a stage of bird-level flight". Humans can't fly at all, but in the same way birds and planes both fly, but humans and machines both process information about the world, just in very different ways and for different reasons.

But yes, the notion of "human level AI" seems to be irrelevant at best.

Re: AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion

#179

Post by cwmoore »

cubefox wrote: post #142
cwmoore wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That link is not at all a list of "why AI is extremely dangerous and extremely likely to kill us all". I skimmed it (there's a lot of writing assuming grave danger) but found only the following example of AI lethality, and it appears fantastical: > ...nanomachinery builds diamondoid bacteria, that replicate with solar power and atmospheric CHON, maybe aggregate into some miniature rockets or jets so they can ride the…

Here is a much more realistic example: https://twitter.com/RokoMijic/status/1641806556038676481 In general, the argument "All the examples how AI would overpower us are way too exotic for my taste" is like one chimpanzee complaining to another chimpanzee "Your example how humans would overpower us is totally implausible and not worth taking seriously." The mistake is that both have not the intelligence to invent or u…

I'm just not seeing any real examples, exotic or otherwise, of how to recognize the risks involved in superhuman AI.

Smarter than us does not imply any particular will or agency. Of course the will and agency of the people employing the technology will reveal its immediate impact, likely toward short term profit, and alignment as a control plane employed toward the same.

Chimpanzees have limited control over humans, humans have limited control over their own technology. But of course chimpanzees can recognize the risk of armed people.

The point is not to debunk fanciful end games. Better to prepare for likely effects on the human network. I was promised a list.

Re: AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion

#180

Post by andrewflnr »

moonchrome wrote: post #15

I've seen multiple top people in AGI space say that total annihilation threat from AGI exists. I think I've heard Karpathy say something along the lines of worst case scenario of AGI is worse than a nuclear armageddon on Lex Friedman podcast. Honestly the fear of AGI worst-case scenario is worse than any other fear I've experienced. I've accepted the fact that I can die a long time ago, I was afraid but mortality is…

> I've seen multiple top people in AGI space say that total annihilation threat from AGI exists.

You've seen them say it, yes. Have you considered how plausible it actually is, or are you just taking their word for it? You better have some damn solid evidence before you start talking about "inquisitions", and I'm only seeing wild speculation. Which, to be fair, is how most historical inquisitions started, for all the good those did.

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