Probably be good if Elon was a little less concerned with "late-stage AGI" and a lot more concerned with his self-driving cars killing people.
edit:
Reading this, calling it "open" is a pretty disgusting misuse of the term.
OpenAI Charter
61–70 of 183 posts
Re: OpenAI Charter
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
> No one in their right mind would ever publish significant details about AGI technology. Are you sure? I'd publish technical research details about strong AI. I'd probably even open source one with the papers. I think I'm in my right mind; I guess that depends on definition, doesn't it?
Wow; I would strongly recommend you to re-think your position! Think of it in terms of, e.g. , gain-of-function research in virology ( cf. [1]). [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK285579/
I'm sorry, I'm not following. Are you saying publishing novel research about strong AI is analogous to releasing a virus, or not taking antibiotics for their full cycle?
Re: OpenAI Charter
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
It also depends on your capability to discover the underpinnings of Strong AI... Certain mindsets preclude one from doing so. If you truly understood the underpinnings of StrongAI and weren't moved to heavily restrict publicized details, I'd strongly question if what you had discovered/came to understand truly were 'underpinnings' of the technology. As such, for those quick to publish or say they would publish and sh…
This is performance art, right? Your comments in this thread strain the limits of credulity. Do you actually believe there is an intellectual barrier that will helpfully ensure only the virtuous are capable of doing artificial intelligence research?
It could be many things. There is a spectrum of Human Intelligence. There is a spectrum of capability of Artificial Intelligence that can be produced by a spectrum of individual Human Intelligence. Do you believe, given many years of historical evidence and demonstration, that one's own personal limitations don't preclude them from certain discoveries? Do you think that money can solve every problem? Do you think if you throw enough PhDs in a room that you can solve any problem in the world? What is intelligence? What is its fundamental nature especially at higher orders? Does a truly and deeply intelligent individual focus on trivialities? Is money/fame their primary motivator? What would such an individual sacrifice for ultimate answers? What catches their eye? What keeps them up at night? If not virtuous, how do they not self destruct at the higher tiers of capability/intelligence? What keeps them together at the limits of comprehension/understanding? Why don't other paths appeal to them? Why don't they cut short and cash in along incremental achievements? What effect does this have on long term progress? Why/how do they think different then everyone else doing research? What is their failure rate? Why are they okay with possibly researching this problem their whole life and not getting an answer or not making money from their efforts? What then are they capable of doing that others are not? Lots of questions.. Lots of answers.. Ultimately
Re: OpenAI Charter
#64>> "We are committed to providing public goods that help society navigate the path to AGI. Today this includes publishing most of our AI research, but we expect that _safety and security concerns will reduce our traditional publishing in the future_, while increasing the importance of sharing safety, policy, and standards research." This seems like the key disclosure statement. I never reconciled how sharing A[G]I te…
You're right, we should lock up the information in the hands of a few billionaires.
Re: OpenAI Charter
#65So I have a question.
To "avoid enabling uses of AI or AGI that harm humanity or unduly concentrate power" what does one do with an idea or line of research that could potentially harm humanity or unduly concentrate power?
The manipulation of social media by foreign actors armed with dumb-AI / automation was an obvious conclusion to many of us well before the Snowden leaks, but what could we do exactly? I remember having conversations with people about it and we concluded that it would just happen until someone pushed it too far and then Russia did and now we're finally reacting.
I was privately concerned about the mass weaponization of autonomous devices via cyber attack for over a year and a half and got nowhere just emailing politicians or public safety departments. I've been told almost a dozen times that I should join a military or IR think tank but I don't want to do that. I just want someone else to vet the idea or research and pass it on to policy makers that will actually do something proactively.
Put another way:
What is the responsible disclosure process for ideas and research around AI?
Re: OpenAI Charter
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it can be used as much to generate welfare as destruction when it goes right , but the cases where it goes wrong are both plentiful and heavily biased towards destruction.
What are a few examples of those cases, exactly?
Terminator, 2001, I Robot, ...
oh wait you probably meant in reality. sorry.
edit: Oh and how could I forget the Matrix. Which of course we all totally live in.
Re: OpenAI Charter
#67I appreciate that they are committed to AI safety, but I'm afraid that researchers have little to no power to, in their words: > avoid enabling uses of AI or AGI that harm humanity or unduly concentrate power. AI and technical progress in general already disproportionately serve the rich, as they are drivers of wealth disparity, and I see no reason why better AI won't follow the same trend. Unfortunately, any changes…
> AI and technical progress in general already disproportionately serve the rich
I don't think OpenAI sees that as a problem. I think they see it as a feature.
Re: OpenAI Charter
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I seriously question what is the true motivation behind this over-stated agenda and have many answers as to why it exists and why it is so heavily funded/spotlighted. First, you could say the same thing for all AI research at the moment! Grandiosity is perhaps even more common in subcommunities of AI that aren't safety focused. Aside from grandiosity (either opportunistic or sincere), I don't think there's any sini…
Profit seeking. Career building. Fame and prominence aren't sinister. Instead they are common human motivation. Common enough to easily group a significant portion of the Grandiosity centered around 'AI'. What easily breaks this down is the depth and breath of the research effort vs. that of the productization and commercialization effort. As for research, the only thing that is required is a computer, power, an inte…
I don't think the tenor of your post is very fair.
> Again, this breaks down the vast majority of the grandiosity and carves out one's true motivations... Everyone in the industry wants to convince their investors the prior approach can iterate to the later but they know in their heats it can't (Shhh! don't tell anyone). So, the question for an individual is how aware and honest are they with themselves and what is their true motivation. You can put on a show and fool lots of people but you ultimately know what games you're playing and what shortfalls will result.
The rest of my post is a response to this sentiment.
> As for research, the only thing that is required is a computer, power, an internet connection.
All that's necessary for world-shattering mathematics research is a pen and paper. But still, most of the best mathematicians work hard to surround themselves by other brilliant people. Which, in practice, means taking "cushy" positions in the labs/universities/companies where brilliant people tend to congregate.
Maybe most great mathematicians don't purely maximize for income. But then, I doubt OpenAI is paying as well as the hedge funds that would love to slurp up this talent! So people working on safe AI at places like OpenAI cannot be fairly criticized. They're comfortable but clearly value working on interesting problems and are motivated by something other than (or in addition to) pure greed/comfort.
> Profit seeking. Career building. Fame and prominence aren't sinister. Instead they are common human motivation. Common enough to easily group a significant portion of the Grandiosity centered around 'AI'.
So what? None of these motivations necessarily preclude doing good science. Some of those are even strong motivators for great science! The history of science contains a diverse pantheon of personality types. Not every great scientist/mathematician was a lone genius pure in heart. In fact, most were far more pedestrian personalities.
The "pious monk of science" mythology is actively harmful toward young scientists for two reasons.
First, the ethos tends to drive students away from practical problems. Sometimes that's ok, but it's just as often harmful (from a purely scientific perspective).
Second, this mythology has significant personal cost. More young scientists must realize that it is possible to make significant contributions toward human knowledge while making good money, building a strong reputation, and having a healthy personal life. Maybe then we'd have more people doing science for a lifetime instead of flaming out after 5-10 years.
> It means the thinking that weak AI is centered on could cause one to be locked out from perceiving that of AGI.
Thanks for the clarification!
Re: OpenAI Charter
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
It also depends on your capability to discover the underpinnings of Strong AI... Certain mindsets preclude one from doing so. If you truly understood the underpinnings of StrongAI and weren't moved to heavily restrict publicized details, I'd strongly question if what you had discovered/came to understand truly were 'underpinnings' of the technology. As such, for those quick to publish or say they would publish and sh…
This is performance art, right? Your comments in this thread strain the limits of credulity. Do you actually believe there is an intellectual barrier that will helpfully ensure only the virtuous are capable of doing artificial intelligence research?
That's chugging your own kool-aid at a pretty high level. Impressive!
Re: OpenAI Charter
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I concede to your clear and inarguable expertise and proof on the matter; best of luck with your demonstration! There's a reason why this technology ultimately 'comes out of nowhere'. It is not that it will come out of nowhere... It will be that those having the capability of developing it who have detailed it to a degree which should yield interesting/questions were largely ignored for the many years of developmen…
> AGI could exist and could be functional at this very moment. It could be very safely secured. There's nothing to suggest otherwise beyond the limits of one's own understanding. Wait, is this your argument? - AGI could be safely secured given current industry standards - Creators would likely not publish their success - Therefore AGI currently exists
My framing is that it could exist and the broad majority would be none the wiser. My framing also is that a number of groups/individuals have likely exposed enough to cause people to question as to what stage they are in their development but instead receive the common : yeah sure buddy, let me know when you have a demo. So, ultimately it will indeed 'come out of nowhere' because society and many individuals aren't conditions to or even have their 'hearing' tuned to be aware of its coming. The safety discussion is a mute topic of discussion in this context as its baked into development and intelligence. There's discussion boards all over the internet, TED talks, economic forums, AI panes, etc.. It's all the same song and dance save for the many groups that are of no mention. Even as the same voices and idols of note continue to center on the same fundamental approaches that don't seem to be going anywhere fast, no one listens to groups/individuals thinking different or trying a fundamentally new approach. Hinton and other prominent figures even come to state that the real amazing development will come from someone who scraps everything, starts from scratch and reproaches things in a fundamentally new approach. No media outlets. No funding groups (even though they say they're looking for something amazing/new). No commentators. No lay person looks to see if there are any such people.
In such an environment, AGI could very well already be established and the reason being is that no on by and large is looking for its establishment. The focus instead is on a handful of prominent names that are well capitalized. So, the majority and anyone of such thinking indeed (misses) the event.