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Many AI safety orgs have tried to criminalize currently-existing open-source AI

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221–230 of 405 posts

Re: Many AI safety orgs have tried to criminalize currently-existing open-source AI

#221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI safety / x-risk folks have in fact made extensive and detailed arguments. Occasionally, folks arguing against them rise to the same standard. But most of the arguments against AI safety look a lot more like name-calling and derision: "nuh-uh, that's sci-fi and unrealistic (mic drop)". That's not a counterargument. > If we're talking about nuclear weapons, for example, the tech is clear, the pattern of human behavi…

> That's easy to say now, now that the damage is largely done, [nuclear weapons] been not only tested but _used_, many countries have them, the knowledge for how to make them is widespread. AI has also been used, and many countries have AI. See how this is different from nuclear weapons?

This is a fantastic argument if capabilities stay frozen in time.

Re: Many AI safety orgs have tried to criminalize currently-existing open-source AI

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AI safety people are hypocrites. If they practiced what they preached, they'd be calling for all AI to be banned They are calling for all AI (above a certain capability level) to be banned. Not just open, not just closed, all . There are risks that apply only to open. There are risks that apply only to closed. But nobody should be developing AGI without incredibly robustly proven alignment, open or closed, any more…

>> But nobody should be developing AGI without incredibly robustly proven alignment, open or closed, any more than people should be developing nuclear weapons in their garage. Now please fly to North Korea and tell Mr. Kim Jong Um what he should or shouldn't be doing.

When your rebuttal is a suggestion that a person do something so dangerous as to be lethal, I see "KYS", not an actual point.

Re: Many AI safety orgs have tried to criminalize currently-existing open-source AI

#223
post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An extensive HYPOTHETICAL argument, stuffed with assumptions far beyond the capabilities of the technologies they're talking about for their own private ends.

If the AI already had the capabilities, it would be a bit late to do anything. Also, I'm old enough to remember when computers were supposedly "over a century" away from beating humans at Go: https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-experts-were-way-off-on-w... (And that AI could "never" drive cars or create art or music, though that latter kind of claim was generally made by non-AI people).

Yeah but AI tech can never rise to the sophistication of outputting Napoleon or Edvard Bernays level of goal to action mapping. Those goal posts will never move. They are set in stone.

Re: Many AI safety orgs have tried to criminalize currently-existing open-source AI

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not convinced the onus should be on one side to prove why something isn't an existential risk. We don't start with an assumption that something is world-ending about anything else; we generally need to see a plausibly worked-through example of how the world ends, using technology we can all broadly agree exists/will shortly exist. If we're talking about nuclear weapons, for example, the tech is clear, the pattern…

AI safety / x-risk folks have in fact made extensive and detailed arguments. Occasionally, folks arguing against them rise to the same standard. But most of the arguments against AI safety look a lot more like name-calling and derision: "nuh-uh, that's sci-fi and unrealistic (mic drop)". That's not a counterargument. > If we're talking about nuclear weapons, for example, the tech is clear, the pattern of human behavi…

They've made extensive and detailed arguments, but they are not rooted in reality. They are rooted in speculation and extrapolation built on towers of assumptions (assumptions, then assumptions about assumptions).

It reminds me a bit of the Fermi paradox. There's nothing wrong with engaging in this kind of thinking. My problem is when people start using it as a basis for serious things like legislation.

Should we ban high power radio transmissions because a rigorous analysis of the Fermi paradox suggests that there is a high probability we are living in a 'dark forest' universe?

Re: Many AI safety orgs have tried to criminalize currently-existing open-source AI

#225
post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the AI already had the capabilities, it would be a bit late to do anything. Also, I'm old enough to remember when computers were supposedly "over a century" away from beating humans at Go: https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-experts-were-way-off-on-w... (And that AI could "never" drive cars or create art or music, though that latter kind of claim was generally made by non-AI people).

Yeah but AI tech can never rise to the sophistication of outputting Napoleon or Edvard Bernays level of goal to action mapping. Those goal posts will never move. They are set in stone.

The trouble is, there's enough people out there that hold that position sincerely that I'm only 2/3rds sure (and that from the style of your final sentences rather than any content) that you're being snarky.

Re: Many AI safety orgs have tried to criminalize currently-existing open-source AI

#226
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest harm is the torrent of AI generated misinformation used to manipulate people. Unfortunately it’s pretty hard to come up with a solution for that.

Or the torrent of great information. How are we all leaping to the bad? The world is better than it was 20 years ago. I'm almost certain we'll have AI assistants telling us relevant world news and information, keeping us up to tabs with everything we need to know, and completely removing distractions from life.

... While humongous swathes of the population lose their jobs and livelihoods because of megacorps like M$ controlling the AI that replaces everyone, steals everything and shits out endless spam.

But we'll be able to talk to it and it'll give us the M$-approved news sound bites, such progress

Re: Many AI safety orgs have tried to criminalize currently-existing open-source AI

#227
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, absolutely - such an entity obviously could! Modelling the behaviour of such an entity is very difficult indeed, as you'd need to make all kinds of assumptions without basis. However, you only need to model this behaviour once you've posited the likely existence of such an entity - and that's where (purely subjectively) it feels like there's a gap. Nothing has yet convinced me (and I am absolutely honest about th…

> those have stalled at local maxima every single time. It's challenging to encapsulate AI/ML progress in a single sentence, but even assuming LLMs aren't a direct step towards AGI, the human mind exists. Due to its evolutionary limitations, it operates relatively slowly. In theory, its functions could be replicated in silicon, enhanced for speed, parallel processing, internetworked, and with near-instant access to i…

This doesn't pass the vibe check unfortunately. It just seems like something that can't happen. We are a very neuro-traditionalist species.

Re: Many AI safety orgs have tried to criminalize currently-existing open-source AI

#228
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You presuppose that intelligence is like flight in the ways you've outlined (so solutions are going to converge). Frankly I don't know whether that's true or not, but I want to suggest that it's a bad bet: I would have sworn blind that consciousness is an essential component of intelligence, but the chatbots are starting to make that look like a poor assumption on my part. When we know so little about intelligence, c…

> I think I'm with Dijkstra on this one: "The question of whether machines can think is about as relevant as the question of whether submarines can swim" Just a nitpick, but this is Turing, not Dijkstra. And it is in fact his argument in the famous "Turing Test" paper - he gives his test (which he calls "the imitation game") as an objective measure of something like AGI instead of the vague notion of "thinking", anal…

Thanks, that's not a nitpick at all. Can you provide a citation? It's all over the internet as a Dijkstra quote, and I'd like to be correct.

Re: Many AI safety orgs have tried to criminalize currently-existing open-source AI

#229

There is a bigger reason why the end of open source AI might be close: as soon as training data becomes licensed, that’s it for open source AI. Poof. I wish I could be more eloquent on this point, but I’ve mostly just been depressed about this seeming inevitability. Hopefully it won’t be the case. But how could it be otherwise? Hundreds of thousands of people are mad at openai and midjourney for doing exactly what op…

Licensed in what country? Some of the best open source models are now coming out of China, UAE, etc. What is the government planning to do with that exactly, ban files on the internet?

Re: Many AI safety orgs have tried to criminalize currently-existing open-source AI

#230

"Technology policy should not unquestioningly assume that all technological progress is beneficial, or that complete scientific openness is always best, or that the world has the capacity to manage any potential downside of a technology after it is invented." Don't watch the anime if you haven't read the manga: https://nickbostrom.com/papers/vulnerable.pdf

Wow, that sentence is absolutely designed to make e/accs scream lol.
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