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Safe Superintelligence Inc.

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Re: Safe Superintelligence Inc.

#561
post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> glorified token predicting machine trained on existing data (made by humans) sorry to disappoint, but human brain fits the same definition

See, this sort of claim I am instantly skeptical of. Nobody has ever caught a human brain producing or storing tokens, and certainly the subjective experience of, say, throwing a ball, doesn't involve symbols of any kind.

Any output from you could be represented as a token. It is a very generic idea. Ultimately whatever you output is because of chemical reactions that follow from the input.

Re: Safe Superintelligence Inc.

#562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, this sort of claim I am instantly skeptical of. Nobody has ever caught a human brain producing or storing tokens, and certainly the subjective experience of, say, throwing a ball, doesn't involve symbols of any kind.

Any output from you could be represented as a token. It is a very generic idea. Ultimately whatever you output is because of chemical reactions that follow from the input.

It could be represented that way. That's a long way from saying that's how brains work.

Does a thermometer predict tokens? It also produces outputs that can be represented as tokens, but it's just a bit of mercury in a tube. You can dissect a thermometer as much as you like and you won't find any token prediction machinery. There's lots of things like that. Zooming out, does that make the entire atmosphere a token prediction engine, since it's producing eg wind and temperatures that could be represented as tokens?

If you need one token per particle then you're admitting that this is task is impossible. Nobody will ever build a computer that can simulate a brain-sized volume of particles to sufficient fidelity. There is a long, long distance from "brains are made of chemicals" to "brains are basically token prediction engines."

Re: Safe Superintelligence Inc.

#563

Not to be too pessimistic here, but why are we talking about things like this? I get that it’s a fun thing to think about, what we will do when a great artificial superintelligence is achieved and how we deal with it, feels like we’re living in a science fiction book. But, all we’ve achieved at this point is making a glorified token predicting machine trained on existing data (made by humans), not really being able t…

It's no mystery, AI has attracted tons of grifters trying to cash out before the bubble pops, and investors aren't really good at filtering.

Well said.

There is a mystery though still - how many people fall for it and then stay fell, and how long that goes on for. People who've followed directly a similar pattern play itself out often many times, and still, they go along.

It's so puzzlingly common amongst very intelligent people in the "tech" space that I've started to wonder if there isn't a link to this ambient belief a lot of people have that tech can "change everything" for the better, in some sense. As in, we've been duped again and again, but then the new exciting thing comes along... and in spite of ourselves, we say: "This time it's really the one!"

Is what we're witnessing simply the unfulfilled promises of techno-optimism crashing against the shores of social reality repeatedly?

Re: Safe Superintelligence Inc.

#564
post #494

Not to be too pessimistic here, but why are we talking about things like this? I get that it’s a fun thing to think about, what we will do when a great artificial superintelligence is achieved and how we deal with it, feels like we’re living in a science fiction book. But, all we’ve achieved at this point is making a glorified token predicting machine trained on existing data (made by humans), not really being able t…

> glorified token predicting machine trained on existing data (made by humans) sorry to disappoint, but human brain fits the same definition

It's a cute generalization but you do yourself a great disservice. It's somewhat difficult to argue given the medium we have here and it may be impossible to disprove but consider that in first 30 minutes of your post being highly visible on this thread no one had yet replied. Some may have acted in other ways.. had opinions.. voted it up/down. Some may have debated replying in jest or with a some related biblical verse. I'd wager a few may have used what they could deduce from your comment and/or history to build a mini model of you in their heads, and using that to simulate the conversation to decide if it was worth the time to get into such a debate vs tending to other things.

Could current LLM's do any of this?

Re: Safe Superintelligence Inc.

#565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no "superintelligence" or "AGI". People are falling for marketing gimmicks. These models will remain in the word vector similarity phase forever. Till the time we understand consciousness, we will not crack AGI and then it won't take brute forcing of large swaths of data, but tiny amounts. So there is nothing to worry. These "apps" might be as popular as Excel, but will go no further.

Agreed. The AI of our day (the transformer + huge amounts of questionably acquired data + significant cloud computing power) has the spotlight it has because it is readily commoditized and massively profitable, not because it is an amazing scientific breakthrough or a significant milestone toward AGI, superintelligence, the benevolent Skynet or whatever. The association with higher AI goals is merely a mixture of pur…

It's a massive attractor of investment funding. Is it proven to be massively profitable?

Re: Safe Superintelligence Inc.

#566
post #533

Not to be too pessimistic here, but why are we talking about things like this? I get that it’s a fun thing to think about, what we will do when a great artificial superintelligence is achieved and how we deal with it, feels like we’re living in a science fiction book. But, all we’ve achieved at this point is making a glorified token predicting machine trained on existing data (made by humans), not really being able t…

Because it's likely soon LLMs will be able to teach themselves and surpass humans. No consciousness, no will. But somebody will have their power. Dark government agencies and questionable billionaires. Who knows what will it enable them to do. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaGo_Zero

What's the connection between LLMs and AlphaGo?

Re: Safe Superintelligence Inc.

#568
post #494

Not to be too pessimistic here, but why are we talking about things like this? I get that it’s a fun thing to think about, what we will do when a great artificial superintelligence is achieved and how we deal with it, feels like we’re living in a science fiction book. But, all we’ve achieved at this point is making a glorified token predicting machine trained on existing data (made by humans), not really being able t…

> glorified token predicting machine trained on existing data (made by humans) sorry to disappoint, but human brain fits the same definition

If you genuinely believe your brain is just a token prediction machine, why do you continue to exist? You're just consuming limited food, water, fuel, etc for the sake of predicting tokens, like some kind of biological crypto miner.

Re: Safe Superintelligence Inc.

#569
post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, this is actually an aspect of superintelligence that makes it way more dangerous than most people think. That we have no way to know if any given alignment technique works for the N+1 generation of AIs. It cuts down our ability to react, whenever the first superintelligence is created, if we can only start solving the problem after it's already created .

Fortunately, whenever you create a superintelligence, you obviously have a choice as to whether you confine it to inside a computer or whether you immediately hook it up to mobile robots with arms and fine finger control. One of these is obviously the far wiser choice. As long as you can just turn it off by cutting the power, and you're not trying to put it inside of self-powered self-replicating robots, it doesn't s…

Drone warfare is pretty big. Only reason it’s a stalemate is because both sides are advancing the tech.

Re: Safe Superintelligence Inc.

#570
post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A human-level AI can do anything that a human can do (modulo did you put it into a robot body, but lots of different groups are already doing that with current LLMs). Therefore, please imagine the most amoral, power-hungry, successful sociopath you've ever heard of. Doesn't matter if you're thinking of a famous dictator, or a religious leader, or someone who never got in the news and you had the misfortune to meet in…

Anything except tasks that require having direct control of a physical body. Until fully functional androids are developed, there is a lot a human-level AI can't do.

Human level AI should be able to control an android body to the same extent as a human can. Otherwise it is not AGI.
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