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Statement on AI Risk

safe.ai

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Re: Statement on AI Risk

#441

Post by mitthrowaway2 »

juve1996 wrote: post #329
MrScruff wrote: post #188

I find it quite extraordinary how many on here are dismissing that there is any risk at all. I also find statements like Yann LeCunn's that "The most common reaction by AI researchers to these prophecies of doom is face palming." to be lacking in awareness. "Experts disagree on risk of extinction" isn't quite as reassuring as he thinks it is. The reality is, despite the opinions of the armchair quarterbacks commentin…

What's more realistic: regulatory capture and US hegemony on AI or general intelligence destroying the world in the next 20 years? Go ahead and bet. I doubt you're putting your money on AGI.

Why would I put money on a bet that would only pay off when I, and everyone else, was dead?

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#442

Post by jvanderbot »

duvenaud wrote: post #313
jvanderbot wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, in this case, we have the ability to invent chess (a game that will be popular for centuries), invent computers, and invent chess tournaments, and invent programs that can solve chess, and invent all the supporting agriculture, power, telco, silicon boards, etc that allow someone to run a program to beat a person at chess. Then we have bodies to accomplish everything on top of it. The "idea" isn't enough. We ha…

Again, are you claiming that it's impossible for a machine to invent anything that a human could? Right now a large chunk of humanity's top talent and capital are working on exactly this problem. As for your second point, human cities also require a lot of infrastructure to keep running - I'm not sure what you're arguing here. As for your third point - would a horse or chimpanzee feel that "we" were unbeatable in phy…

Yeah, I think most animals have every right to fear us more now that we have guns. Just like Id fear a chimp more if he was carrying a machine gun.

My argument is that if we're looking for things AI can't to, building a home for itself is precisely one of those things, because they require so much infra. No amount of AI banding together is going to magically create a data center with all the required (physical) support. Maybe in scifi land where everything it needs can be done with internet connected drive by wire construction equipment, including utils, etc, but that's scifi still.

AI is precisely a tool in the way a chess bot is. It is a disembodied advisor to humans who have to connect the dots for it. No matter how much white collar skill it obtains, the current MO is that someone points it at a problem and says "solve" and these problems are well defined and have strong exit criteria.

That's way off from an apocalyptic self-important machine.

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#443

Post by nixlim »

I am somewhat inclined to believe that this statement is aimed entirely at commercial sphere, which, at least in my mind, supports those arguing that this is a marketing ploy by the organizers of this campaign to make sure that their market share is protected. I think so for two reasons: - a nefarious (or not so nefarious) state actor is not going to be affected by imposition of licensing or export controls. It seems to me rather naive to suppose that every state capable of doing so has not already scooped up all open source models and maybe nicked a few proprietary ones; and - introduction of licensing or regulatory control will directly affect the small players (say, I wanted to build an AI in my basement) who would not be able to afford the cost of compliance.

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#444

Post by mitthrowaway2 »

SanderNL wrote: post #362
sebzim4500 wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To use Eliezer's analogy, this is like arguing about which move Stockfish would play to beat you in chess. If we're arguing about whether you can beat Stockfish, I will not be able to tell you the exact moves it will play but I am entirely justified in predicting that you will lose. Obviously we can imagine concrete ways a superintelligence might kill us all (engineer a virus, hack nuclear weapons, misinformation cam…

I understand but agentic/learning general intelligence has not been shown to exist, except ourselves. I’d say this is like worrying about deadly quantum laser weapons that will consume the planet when we are still in the AK47 phase. Edit: it could still be true though. I guess I like some more handholding and pre-chewing before giving governments and large corporations more ropes.

That hand-holding exists elsewhere, but I get the sense that this particular document is very short on purpose.

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#445

Post by jackbrookes »

goolulusaurs wrote: post #388

Throughout history there have been hundreds, if not thousands of examples of people and groups who thought the end of the world was imminent. So far, 100% of those people have been wrong. The prior should be that the people who believe in AI doomsday scenarios are wrong also, unless and until there is very strong evidence to the contrary. Vague theoretical arguments are not sufficient, as there are many organizations…

Of course every one has been wrong. If they were right, you wouldn't be here talking about it. It shouldn't be surprising that everyone has been wrong before

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#446

Post by kumi111 »

Meeting in Bilderberg: OpenAI CEO: let's pay some people to promote ai risk, and put our competitors out of business in court.

meme: AI before 2023: sleep... AI after 2023: open source... triggered!!!

Meanwhile ai right now is just a good probability model, that tries to emulate human (data) with tons of hallucination... also please stop using ai movies logic, they are not real as they are made to be a good genre to those people that enjoy horror/splatter...

thanks to those who read :3 (comment written by me, while being threaten by a robot with a gun in hand :P)

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#447

Post by veerd »

RandomLensman wrote: post #412
holmesworcester wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As others have pointed out, there are many on this list (Bruce Schneier, for example) who do not stand to benefit from AI marketing or regulatory capture. Anyone upvoting this comment should take a long look at the names on this letter and realize that many are not conflicted. Many signers of this letter are more politically sophisticated than the average HN commenter, also. So sure, maybe they're getting rolled by m…

Who on the list is an expert on existential risk (and perhaps even beyond academia)?

Most people that study AI existential risk specifically are studying it due to concerns about AI x-risk. So the list of relevant AI x-risk experts will be subject to massive selection effects.

If instead you want to consider the highest status/most famous people working on AI in general, then the list of signatories here is a pretty good summary. From my flawed perspective as a casual AI enthusiast, Yann LeCun and Jürgen Schmidhuber are the most glaring omissions (and both have publicly stated their lack of concern about AI x-risk).

Of course, the highest status people aren't necessarily the most relevant people. Unfortunately, it's more difficult for me to judge relevance than fame.

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#448

Post by jabradoodle »

goolulusaurs wrote: post #416
jabradoodle wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What constitutes strong evidence? The obvious counter to your point is that an intelligence explosion would leave you with no time to react.

Well, for example I believe that nukes represent an existential risk, because they have already been used to kill thousands of people in a short period of time. What you are saying doesn't really counter my point at all though, it is another vague theoretical argument.

It was clear that nukes were a risk before they were used; that is why there was a race to create them.

I am not in the camp that is especially worried about the existential threat of AI, however, if AGI is to become a thing, what does the moment look like where we can see it is coming and still have time to respond?

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#449

Post by mitthrowaway2 »

a_bonobo wrote: post #59
sebzim4500 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what sense is this a 'biased statement' exactly? If a dozen of the top climate scientists put out a statement saying that fighting climate change should be a serious priority (even if they can't agree on one easy solution) would that also be 'biased'?

Climate change is a generally accepted phenomenon. Extinction risk due to AI is not a generally accepted phenomenon.

Perhaps open letters like this are an important step on the path to a phenomenon becoming generally accepted. I think this is called "establishing consensus".

Re: Statement on AI Risk

#450

Post by pixl97 »

candiddevmike wrote: post #340
Der_Einzige wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear weapons are uniquely good. Turns out you have to put guns to the collective temples of humanity for them to realize that pulling the trigger is a bad idea.

Past performance is no guarantee of future results

hell, the biggest risk with nukes is not that we decide to pull the trigger, but that we make a mistake that causes us to pull the trigger.
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