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Interview with gwern

dwarkeshpatel.com

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Re: Interview with gwern

#41

Post by Philpax »

kryptiskt wrote: post #32
camillomiller wrote: post #13

I really don’t understand why we give credit to this pile of wishful thinking about the AI corporation with just one visionary at the top. First: actual visionary CEOs are a niche of a niche. Second: that is not how most companies work. The existence of the workforce is as important as what the company produces Third: who will buy or rent those services or products in a society where the most common economy driver (s…

I don't get it, why have a human visionary CEO? Even the strongest critics of AI agree that LLMs excel at producing bold visions.

Gwern's (paraphrased) argument is that an AI is unlikely to be able to construct an extended bold vision where the effects won't be seen for several years, because that requires a significant amount of forecasting and heuristics that are difficult to optimise for.

I haven't decided whether I agree with it, but I can see the thought behind it: the more mechanical work will be automated, but long-term direction setting will require more of a thoughtful hand.

That being said, in a full-automation economy like this, I imagine "AI companies" will behave very differently to human companies: they can react instantly to events, so that a change in direction can be affected in hours or days, not months or years.

Re: Interview with gwern

#42

Post by mbustamanter »

Quinzel wrote: post #9

I don’t believe Gwern lives as frugally as he’s described in this (if this even actually is the real Gwern). I’m 100% sure that he has a persona he likes to portray and being perceived as frugal is a part of that persona. When it comes to answering the question “who is gwern?” I reckon Gwern’s a plant a seed in people’s mind type of guy, and let them come up with the rest of the story. Still, I like a lot of his writ…

There is a comment on the r/slatestarcodex subreddit with supposedly true information about him (which I found googling 'who is gwern'), but it left me with even more questions.

EDIT: grammar

Re: Interview with gwern

#43

Post by falcor84 »

satvikpendem wrote: post #30
A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #10

www.gwern.net Something I've noticed in spending time online is that there's a "core group" of a few dozen people who seem to turn up everywhere there are interesting discussions. Gwern (who also posts here) is probably at the top of that list.

Analogous to the 1% Rule [0]: > In Internet culture, the 1% rule is a general rule of thumb pertaining to participation in an Internet community, stating that only 1% of the users of a website actively create new content, while the other 99% of the participants only lurk. Variants include the 1–9–90 rule (sometimes 90–9–1 principle or the 89:10:1 ratio),[1] which states that in a collaborative website such as a wiki,…

I don't know what the current HN usage stats are, but assume you would still need to explain about 3 additional orders of magnitude to get from 1% of HN down to "a few dozen".

Re: Interview with gwern

#44

Post by mola »

Everything I read from gwern has this misanthropic undertones. It's hard to put a finger on it exactly, but it grits me when I try reading him. It is also kinda scary that so many people are attracted to this. It rhymes with how I feel about Ayn Rand. Her individualism always seems so misanthropic, her adherants scare me

Re: Interview with gwern

#45

Post by satvikpendem »

falcor84 wrote: post #43
satvikpendem wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Analogous to the 1% Rule [0]: > In Internet culture, the 1% rule is a general rule of thumb pertaining to participation in an Internet community, stating that only 1% of the users of a website actively create new content, while the other 99% of the participants only lurk. Variants include the 1–9–90 rule (sometimes 90–9–1 principle or the 89:10:1 ratio),[1] which states that in a collaborative website such as a wiki,…

I don't know what the current HN usage stats are, but assume you would still need to explain about 3 additional orders of magnitude to get from 1% of HN down to "a few dozen".

It doesn't necessarily literally mean 1%, it's just an informal rule emphasizing the power law nature of creators of content versus its consumers.

Re: Interview with gwern

#46

Post by robertlagrant »

grues-dinner wrote: post #40
whiplash451 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone probably said the exact same thing when the first cars appeared. Where is the data showing that more jobs get destroyed than created by technological disruption?

Car and motor vehicles in general get you to work and help you do your work. They don't do the work. I guess that's the difference in thinking. I'm not sure that it's acrually correct: I don't think we'll actually see "AI" actually replace work in general as a concept. Unless it can quite literally do everything and anything, there will always be something that people can do to auction their time and/or health to acq…

Compilers also do the work. As do tractors. That doesn't mean there's no work left to do.

Re: Interview with gwern

#47

Post by dewey »

djmips wrote: post #39
dewey wrote: post #35

Interesting idea with the avatar, but I feel like just having a voice and some audio waves would be better than trying to create a talking avatar. Could just be my personal preference of not having a mental image of someone unknown I guess? Similar to reading a book after watching the movie adaptation.

How about just listening to the interview then?

I'm aware of that possibility but I don't mind watching the other interviewer and I'm also not sure if there's something being shown (screenshots etc.) after the first few minutes I watched.

I know it's probably a "me problem" ;)

Re: Interview with gwern

#48

Post by herculity275 »

mola wrote: post #44

Everything I read from gwern has this misanthropic undertones. It's hard to put a finger on it exactly, but it grits me when I try reading him. It is also kinda scary that so many people are attracted to this. It rhymes with how I feel about Ayn Rand. Her individualism always seems so misanthropic, her adherants scare me

I'm not entirely sure what you're referring to, but pretty much every major 20th century intellectual had misanthropic undertones (and sometimes overtones) - people who read/think/write an exceptional amount don't tend to be super people-loving.

Re: Interview with gwern

#50

Post by awanderingmind »

mola wrote: post #44

Everything I read from gwern has this misanthropic undertones. It's hard to put a finger on it exactly, but it grits me when I try reading him. It is also kinda scary that so many people are attracted to this. It rhymes with how I feel about Ayn Rand. Her individualism always seems so misanthropic, her adherants scare me

I've never really experienced that from his writing, and I am definitely not an Ayn Rand fan. I'm also pretty sure he's not interested in creating a movement that could have 'adherents'... I suppose I could be wrong on that. But on the contrary, I find his writing to be often quite life-affirming - he seems to delight in deep focus on various interesting topics.

The worst I can say is that I find his predictions around AI (i.e. the scaling laws) to be concerning.

edit: having now read the linked interview, I can provide a clearly non-misanthropic quote, in response to the interviewer asking gwern what kind of role he hopes to play in people's lives:

  I would like people to go away having not just been entertained or gotten some useful information, but be better people, in however slight a sense. To have an aspiration that web pages could be better, that the Internet could be better: “You too could go out and read stuff! You too could have your thoughts and compile your thoughts into essays, too! You could do all this!”
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