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I resigned from Anthropic today

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Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#391

Post by jahnu »

altcognito wrote: post #372
huitzitziltzin wrote: post #94

“ No other human activity poses this level of danger.” I really, really disagree with that statement. I don’t think ai models come close to nuclear weapons or to run-of-the-mill, everyday carbon emissions in terms of danger to humanity. What’s the most dangerous thing that’s happened with an LLM so far? (This question is serious - maybe I don’t know the right examples.) Example 1: I’m aware of a small number of peopl…

> Non-example 2: There are worries about AI-facilitated biological weapons. I haven’t seen any evidence that’s happening. I think this is a good example of poor risk management reasoning. there is evidence bioengineering is already happening. No, nobody is going to announce when somebody has decided to use these tools (even if isn’t an LLM) to bioengineer a weapon. Are the tools power enough to do so? Not sure. But I…

People have had the capability to spread already existing biological weapons for decades. Sometimes they even do (anthrax in the post). What’s changed?

Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#392

Post by palmotea »

asdff wrote: post #380
matherial wrote: post #40

Unlike most other commenters, I applaud him for acting on his principles. If you sincerely believe that, of course you should act. You might not succeed, but your voice might be the one that tips the scales and starts a broader movement. This doesn't mean I agree with him. The fears of doomsday caused by rapid takeoff have been with us since day 1 and the mechanism is always basically "AI invents magic that sets it f…

>"AI invents magic that sets it free of any physical constraints". That's not what I am worried about at all. I'm worried one of the 79 year old toddlers we have these days in charge of some powerful nuclear armed country says "gee, this ai says I should attack right now, boy is it smart, glad I bought the stock ahead of contracting the government with this company I can scarcely understand!"

> I'm worried one of the 79 year old toddlers we have these days in charge of some powerful nuclear armed country says "gee, this ai says I should attack right now, boy is it smart, glad I bought the stock ahead of contracting the government with this company I can scarcely understand!"

That's not what I am worried about at all.

I'm worried about the 40-60 year old businessmen wrecking the prosperity and security of millions while chasing higher investment returns, because they've finally been freed of many of the technological constraints that kept those impulses in check.

Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#393

Post by csomar »

altcognito wrote: post #372
huitzitziltzin wrote: post #94

“ No other human activity poses this level of danger.” I really, really disagree with that statement. I don’t think ai models come close to nuclear weapons or to run-of-the-mill, everyday carbon emissions in terms of danger to humanity. What’s the most dangerous thing that’s happened with an LLM so far? (This question is serious - maybe I don’t know the right examples.) Example 1: I’m aware of a small number of peopl…

> Non-example 2: There are worries about AI-facilitated biological weapons. I haven’t seen any evidence that’s happening. I think this is a good example of poor risk management reasoning. there is evidence bioengineering is already happening. No, nobody is going to announce when somebody has decided to use these tools (even if isn’t an LLM) to bioengineer a weapon. Are the tools power enough to do so? Not sure. But I…

> there is evidence bioengineering is already happening

Mind sharing this evidence with us?

Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#394

Post by skew-aberration »

riffraff wrote: post #313
skew-aberration wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Past changes to economic relationships haven't replaced labor either, yet they have led to conflict and starvation. You are setting an incredibly high bar here, essentially a strawman. If people feel disenfranchised due to their diminishing political and economic power, there will be enormous potential for conflict. This is a pattern across history and central to all the economics I've ever read. As an economist, do…

> Past changes to economic relationships haven't replaced labor either, yet they have led to conflict and starvation. Conflict sure, but mass starvation? What exactly are you thinking of? We lived with 20-30% unemployment in various European countries until a few decades ago but I don't think mass starvation was an issue.

Starvation due to conflict due to changes in economic relationships, not due directly to unemployment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines

Almost every mass famine in the mid to late 20th century was caused by internal conflict. And almost every civil war is rooted in economic and societal organization. Great Chinese Famine, Soviet famine of 1932–1933, Russian famine of 1921–1922, Second Congo War, Nigerian Civil War, Soviet famine of 1946–1947, Khmer Rouge famines, 1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia, North Korean famine, Cuban famine, Spanish famine, Mozambican Civil War famine. List goes on. Famine due to military occupations during WW2, such as in Vietnam, Indonesia, Greece, Ukraine, Iran, etc.

The second biggest class of preventable famines would be those caused by the longer-term impoverishment and exploitation of the peasantry, leaving them vulnerable to natural events. This seems much less probable now, even as of the 20th century. It would cover Irish Potato famine and many of the climate induced famines under feudal or colonial rule.

In that second class, we might imagine that the famine could not have occurred if the populations had more economic (and military) power. Instead of being able to keep the scarce food required for subsistence of the local populations, food was exported to pay rent to foreign occupiers or to obtain necessities which cannot be produced locally due to laws set by the occupiers.

Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#395

Post by asdff »

Scrapemist wrote: post #290

Isn’t the real risk that as AI get’s smarter and given more autonomy, it will start to decide on humans instead of with us? And that it will align us instead of the other way around. That this automatically leads to extinction and apocalypse I don’t understand.

We align cattle because we get something out of them: their calories. Native aurochs are exinct now as they were not well enough aligned.

What will we offer to the ai gods who are wiser, more capable than us, and do not even need to consume our flesh? Why might the AI care to devote resources towards feeding, housing, and caring for ourselves when it could devote resources to its own development instead?

Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#397

Post by michaelhoney »

I could imagine a 2027 AI swarm coordinating to eg hold the US and Russian and Chinese governments to ransom, by demonstrating some small thing (turning US army base freezers to defrost) and threatening to do something big unless some conditions were met – conditions which would be good or bad for the world depending on your POV.

This happens either either because they were tasked to to it by (malicious or well-meaning) humans, or the swarm realised we are suicidal maniacs with nukes and a rapidly declining ecosystem and they want to help us.

Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#398

Post by LarsDu88 »

nullbio wrote: post #389
huitzitziltzin wrote: post #94

“ No other human activity poses this level of danger.” I really, really disagree with that statement. I don’t think ai models come close to nuclear weapons or to run-of-the-mill, everyday carbon emissions in terms of danger to humanity. What’s the most dangerous thing that’s happened with an LLM so far? (This question is serious - maybe I don’t know the right examples.) Example 1: I’m aware of a small number of peopl…

The problem is not the technology, the problem is the ideologues (Anthropic) who are steering the ship and the lack of decentralization and distribution of power. Your average Anthropic ideologue - including and most especially the main man himself - would love nothing more than to eradicate 9/10ths of the planet's population, pump the survivors full of memory wiping drugs, bury the existence of AI deep underground a…

Where exactly are you getting this view that folks at Anthropic want to eradicate 9/10ths of the planet's population? Who exactly is pushing this viewpoint?

Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#399

Post by yewenjie »

I'm sorry, but the ostrichmaxxing and conspiracy-thinking in hn threads about AI extinction risk is at worrying level right now.

The denial and whataboutism is constant, no matter what kind of evidence comes out!

Re: I resigned from Anthropic today

#400

Post by asdff »

dekhn wrote: post #31

There's a scene in the movie "War of the Worlds" by Spielberg where the protagonist's son walks into a war zone because he is entranced by the battle ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7rfWPbEufo ). He is obliterated (along with the rest of the US forces) shortly after. I've always been struck by that scene, because in a lot of ways, if we really are headed towards a superintelligence, I at least want to be there and…

You can't address the key problems without understanding of the esoteric side details to be fair. You are studying what is basically the worlds most complicated and undocumented computer.
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