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It's Time to Stop Taking Sam Altman at His Word

theatlantic.com

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Re: It's Time to Stop Taking Sam Altman at His Word

#591

Post by DirkH »

gojomo wrote: post #587
lolinder wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you're projecting a short-term cash-out mentality I'm a software engineer comfortably drawing a decent-but-not-FAANG paycheck at an established company with every intention of taking the slow-and-steady path to retirement. I'm not projecting, I promise. > to a vision where OpenAI is the 1st and faraway leader in the production of the most valuable 'technology' ever Except that OpenAI isn't a faraway leader. Their b…

I think your biographical testimony more confirms than refutes my suspicions. You think "smart" implies a low chance of world-epochal AI breakthroughs that would ruin your "slow-and-steady path to retirement". You think OpenAI has "no moat". You think it's wise to satisfice – taking a "decent" paycheck – rather than shoot-for-the-moon (and beyond it, control of the 'lightcone'). That's closer to the "short-term exit"…

Strong agree and strong upvote.

An intuition pump is to think of a religious zealot that has a drastically different worldview and aims and drives from you that seem completely nonsensical (e.g. perhaps not caring about wealth accumulation at all - even for stability - and only about perpetuating God's glory).

Sam is no religious zealot, but the difference in the life game he is playing and the life game most of us are playing is as vast as that between us and the zealot.

Re: It's Time to Stop Taking Sam Altman at His Word

#593

Post by slashdave »

NiloCK wrote: post #579
slashdave wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dead end. You cannot create information out of nothing.

How did alpha zero succeed?

By introducing new training data (train of thought) that was independently verified or explicitly constructed using external information.

Re: It's Time to Stop Taking Sam Altman at His Word

#594

Post by throwoutway »

lolinder wrote: post #529
throwoutway wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget the board coup, the coup-reversal, complete takeover, then co-founders leaving, and Mira leaving

Yes, all of that definitely plays into the sense that not all is well at OpenAI. Slight nit: a board can't start a coup because a coup is an illegitimate attempt to take power and the board's main job is to oversee the CEO and replace them if necessary. That's an expected exercise of power. The coup was when the CEO reversed the board's decision to oust him and then ousted them .

Yes thats a better way to say it

Re: It's Time to Stop Taking Sam Altman at His Word

#595

Post by namaria »

swiftcoder wrote: post #441
ben_w wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All I am saying is that Sam Altman's promises (remember the original topic) hinge on breaking thermodynamics If it hinged on that, then you would actually be saying it's impossible. > The elements on Earth that make life possible couldn't have been created in a younger universe Those statements also apply to the silicon and doping agents used in chip manufacture. They tell you nothing of relevance, we're not doing…

> If it hinged on that, then you would actually be saying it's impossible "impossible with the approach OpenAI is using" != "impossible"

Look, any sufficiently complex autonomous system necessitates a bigger, more complex one to maintain it's functionality. The more complex, the harder it is to deal with the entropy that this system is removing form it's target action area.

Eventually you need a whole universe capable of sustaining self reproducing intelligent systems. The way to get intelligent autonomous and sufficiently complex systems to do anything non trivial is life.

Anyone trying to sell you a box they say is capable of non trivial, adaptive, complex behavior autonomously is selling you a perpetual motion machine: a pretense that thermodynamics can be suspended at will.

Re: It's Time to Stop Taking Sam Altman at His Word

#596

Post by namaria »

ben_w wrote: post #406
namaria wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever you mean, it took 13 billion years and the whole universe as far as we can tell to create the 20 watt human intelligence brain. And it doesn't take 20 watt of energy to maintain humans, it takes a whole ecosystem capable of sustaining a human population. And for us to operate at our current level of information processing it takes a whole planetary civilization. So no you haven't proved anything by saying th…

Unless I'm mistaken, you've added these two paragraphs since my last comment: > Whatever quantity Q of entropy in the training data, the total output will be more Q all accounted for. That's true for humans and machines. No shape of possible AGI will give us any output with less Q than the combination of inputs had. The dream that a machine will solve all problems that humanity can't hinges on negating that, which go…

> Thermodynamics applies to closed systems, which the earth in isolation isn't.

Wrong. You're probably conflating the second law of thermodynamics with the whole thing. Obviously, thermodynamics applies to Earth, it was invented here.

> Entropy isn't everyday disorder, it's a specific relationship of microstates and macrostates, and you can't usefully infer things when you switch uses.

No, this is Bolzmann entropy. Entropy is absolutely a measure of disorder, and the fact that you cannot measure a specific value for large complex systems because the calculating framework is too simplistic and only applies to very well defined and artificial assemblies of quantities it does not mean that the concept and intuition do not apply.

Entropy is a measure of disorder or uncertainty. Maybe you disagree with my intuition about it.

But I'm not the only one:

- Shannon Entropy Fits Well Social Risk: Unemployment and Poverty in Large Cities https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8905455

- The Interrelation Poverty-Unemployment from the Theory of Entropy in Modern Societies https://alicia.concytec.gob.pe/vufind/Record/AUTO_bbe82cfd37...

Re: It's Time to Stop Taking Sam Altman at His Word

#597

Post by namaria »

ben_w wrote: post #376
namaria wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your brain is evidence that it's "even possible". All your brain proves is that a universe can produce planetary ecosystems capable of supporting human civilizations made of very efficient brain carrying mammals. It definitely doesn't prove that these mammals can create boxes capable 'solve physics, poverty and global warming' if we just give Sam Altman enough electricity and chips. Or dollars to that effect.

If that's what you meant, then I agree with you. What's the quote? "If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn’t". Even though it doesn't need to be a single human doing all of it, our brains as existence proofs of the physical possibility, not of our own understanding.

Like I said, our brain proves that the way to solve the problem of 'how to get autonomous systems capable of non trivially complex behavior' is 'planetary ecosystems sustained by starlight based on self reproducing cellular nanobots'.

Companies selling ways around that apparatus to achieve intelligent behavior are selling you perpetual motion machines, or slavery. There has been zero 'AI' systems that don't depend on painstakingly collected and analyzed data beforehand.

Re: It's Time to Stop Taking Sam Altman at His Word

#598

Post by namaria »

ben_w wrote: post #379
namaria wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said human intelligence is impossible. All I am saying is that Sam Altman's promises (remember the original topic) hinge on breaking thermodynamics. Humans evolved on a planet that was just so. The elements on Earth that make life possible couldn't have been created in a younger universe. So it take the full history of the universe to produce human intelligence. It also doesn't exist in a vacuum. Current huma…

> All I am saying is that Sam Altman's promises (remember the original topic) hinge on breaking thermodynamics If it hinged on that, then you would actually be saying it's impossible. > The elements on Earth that make life possible couldn't have been created in a younger universe Those statements also apply to the silicon and doping agents used in chip manufacture. They tell you nothing of relevance, we're not doing…

Yes, I am saying that AGI is impossible.

AGI is either human intelligence behind the curtains or a pie in the sky.

Re: It's Time to Stop Taking Sam Altman at His Word

#599

Post by mrangle »

FireBeyond wrote: post #299
arrobbiato wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't imagine taking The Atlantic seriously on anything. Agreed - I stopped taking The Atlantic seriously after their 2009 cover story, "Did Christianity Cause the Crash?"[1] To ignore CDOs, the Glass-Steagal repeal, the co-option of the ratings agencies and the dissolution of lending standards, and instead blame the Great Recession on a few obnoxious megapastors is to completely discard the magazine's credibilit…

Really, you can't see a connection between people promoting ever supernatural rewards for being money and prosperity-driven and stoking that fire right alongside rampant capitalism and reckless decisions on how to protect our financial and economic wellbeing? Especially when even some very very bright people still believe in imaginary creatures in the sky and use that to shape and guide their decision process? Maybe…

Yes, really. It's okay to not know anything about how the global economy works or its history: each decade defining the next. But it isn't okay to twist that ignorance to become focus on a scapegoat of convenience. Led by The Atlantic's wager on what you don't know, their hatreds, and their mission to distract.
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