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Safe Superintelligence Inc.

ssi.inc

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Re: Safe Superintelligence Inc.

#171

Post by maximinus_thrax »

dougb5 wrote: post #125

> Building safe superintelligence (SSI) is the most important technical problem of our time. Call me a cranky old man but the superlatives in these sorts of announcements really annoy me. I want to ask: Have you surveyed every problem in the world? Are you aware of how much suffering there is outside of your office and how unresponsive it has been so far to improvements in artificial intelligence? Are you really sayi…

> the superlatives in these sorts of announcements really annoy me

I've noticed this as well and they're making me wear my tinfoil hat more often than usual. I feel as if all of this (ALL OF IT) is just a large-scale distributed PR exercise to maintain the AI hype.

Re: Safe Superintelligence Inc.

#172

Post by sgd99 »

I love this: "Our singular focus means no distraction by management overhead or product cycles, and our business model means safety, security, and progress are all insulated from short-term commercial pressures."

Re: Safe Superintelligence Inc.

#173

Post by insane_dreamer »

cool-RR wrote: post #41
stale_data wrote: post #28

the vision here is amazing, but I can't help but feel a bit uncertain about basing a "safe super intelligence" lab in an apartheid state that is currently genociding its indigenous population using variants of the very same technology

Right, true safe super intelligence could only be developed in countries that finished genociding their indigenous populations centuries ago.

Maybe it takes a nation (tragically) built on genocide and slavery to be able to recognize (and thus prevent) the same in an AI.

Re: Safe Superintelligence Inc.

#174

Post by renegade-otter »

"and our business model means..."

Forgive my cynicism - but "our business model" means you are going to get investors, and those investors will want results, and they will be up your ass 24/7, and then your moral compass, if any, will inevitably just be broken down like a coffee bean in a burr grinder.

And in the middle of this hype cycle, when literally hundreds of billions are on the line, there is just no chance.

I am not holding my breath while waiting for a "Patagonia of AI" to show up.

Re: Safe Superintelligence Inc.

#175

Post by mark_l_watson »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #66

I understand the concern that a "superintelligence" will emerge that will escape its bounds and threaten humanity. That is a risk. My bigger, and more pressing worry, is that a "superintelligence" will emerge that does not escape its bounds, and the question will be which humans control it. Look no further than history to see what happens when humans acquire great power. The "cold war" nuclear arms race, which brough…

+1 truth.

The problem is not just governments, I am concerned about large organized crime organizations and corporations also.

I think I am on the losing side here, but my hopes are all for open source, open weights, and effective AI assistants that make peoples’ jobs easier and lives better. I would also like to see more effort shifted from LLMs back to RL, DL, and research on new ideas and approaches.

Re: Safe Superintelligence Inc.

#177

Post by AnimalMuppet »

hbarka wrote: post #149
fnordpiglet wrote: post #68

“””We are assembling a lean, cracked team of the world’s best engineers and researchers dedicated to focusing on SSI and nothing else.””” Cracked indeed

The phrase ‘crack team’ has military origins.

"Cracked team" has rather different connotations.

Re: Safe Superintelligence Inc.

#178

Post by habryka »

"We plan to advance capabilities as fast as possible while making sure our safety always remains ahead."

That sounds like a weird kind of lip service to safety. It really seems to assume you can just make these systems safe while you are going as fast as possible, which seems unlikely.

Re: Safe Superintelligence Inc.

#180

Post by eigenvalue »

FeepingCreature wrote: post #146
eigenvalue wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But wouldn't the focus on "safety first" sort of preclude them from giving their researchers the unfettered right to publish their work however and whenever they see fit? Isn't the idea to basically try to solve the problems in secret and only release things when they have high confidence in the safety properties? If I were a researcher, I think I'd care more about ensuring that I get credit for any important theoret…

If you're working on superintelligence I don't think you'd be worried about not getting credit due to a lack of publications, of all things. If it works, it's the sort of thing that gets you in the history books.

Not sure about that. It might get Ilya in the history books, and maybe some of the other high profile people he recruits early on, but a junior researcher/developer who makes a high impact contribution could easily get overlooked. Whereas if that person can have their name as lead author on a published paper, it makes it much easier to measure individual contributions.
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