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You are the scariest monster in the woods

jamie.ideasasylum.com

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Re: You are the scariest monster in the woods

#61

Post by superkuh »

Human beings are not the scariest monsters in the woods. By far the most dangerous, most malicious, and most powerful monsters are conglomerate entities: the legal corporate persons. They've been absolutely ravaging the earth and societies since they achieved legal personhood and rights without any of the downsides or legal liabilities. They're much scarrier than individual actual human persons. And while most people blame "AI" for the web's current troubles AI is only barely involved. The real culprits are the corporations. Again, same as it ever was.

We really need to get rid of corporate personhood. Or at least have a corporate death penalty.

Re: You are the scariest monster in the woods

#62

Post by Juliate »

myrmidon wrote: post #13

I struggle to understand how people can just dismiss the possibility of artificial intelligence. Human cognition was basically bruteforced by evolution-- why would it be impossible to achieve the exact same result in silicon, especially after we already demonstrated some parts of those results (e.g. use of language) that critically set us apart from other animals? I'm not buying the whole "AI has no agency" line eith…

> Human cognition was basically bruteforced by evolution

You center cognition/intelligence on humans as if it was the pinacle of it, rather than include the whole lot of other species (that may have totally different, or adjacent cognition models). Why? How so?

> As soon as profit can be made by transfering decision power into an AIs hand

There's an ironic, deadly, Frankensteinesque delusion in this very premise.

Re: You are the scariest monster in the woods

#63

Post by pixl97 »

Nasrudith wrote: post #37
forgetfulness wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That reminds me of the “paper clip maximizer” thought experiment about rogue AI fulfilling a particular goal, without being held to any consideration of human welfare I thought it was a very novel idea at first, until I realized that this describes all manners of human groups, notably corporations and lobbying groups, they will turn the world into a stove, subvert democracy, (try to) disrupt the economic and social f…

And corporations are ultimately just sock-puppets for humanity. People forget that and like to other them while simultaneously turning them into the scapegoats. See every idiot with the list of companies responsible for global warming that amounts to 'every oil company' and ignore that it was the customers were the ones burning their products. It is to be expected really. Humans themselves hold little consideration t…

I mean any 'moral' reasoning behind ruining society is probably wrong.

This said society can be 'ruined' by everybody in that society dying either by outside influence or their own stupidity. So while I discount the moral ruination, the "oh god, oh god, we're all dying ones I'd like to avoid"

Re: You are the scariest monster in the woods

#64

Post by otikik »

irjustin wrote: post #58
roxolotl wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of the article isn’t that abstract super intelligent agi isn’t scary. Yes the author says that’s unlikely but that paragraph at the start is a distraction. The point of the article is that humans wielding LLMs today are the scary monsters.

But that's always been the case? Since we basically discovered... Fire? Tools?

Yes but the narrative tries to make it about the tools.

"AI is going to take all the jobs".

Instead of:

"Rich guys will try to delete a bunch of jobs using AI in order to get even more rich".

Re: You are the scariest monster in the woods

#65

Post by squidbeak »

Chance-Device wrote: post #50
boole1854 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anyone knows of a steelman version of the "AGI is not possible" argument, I would be curious to read it. I also have trouble understanding what goes into that point of view.

The only thing I can come up with is that compressing several hundred million years of natural selection of animal nervous systems into another form, but optimised by gradient descent instead, just takes a lot of time. Not that we can’t get there by artificial means, but that correctly simulating the environment interactions, the sequence of progression, getting the all the details right, might take hundreds to thous…

Even this is a weak idea. There's nothing that restricts the term 'AGI' to a replication of animal intelligence or consciousness.

Re: You are the scariest monster in the woods

#66

Post by adamtaylor_13 »

myrmidon wrote: post #13

I struggle to understand how people can just dismiss the possibility of artificial intelligence. Human cognition was basically bruteforced by evolution-- why would it be impossible to achieve the exact same result in silicon, especially after we already demonstrated some parts of those results (e.g. use of language) that critically set us apart from other animals? I'm not buying the whole "AI has no agency" line eith…

> Human cognition was basically bruteforced by evolution

Well that's one reason you struggle to understand how it can be dismissed. I believe we were made by a creator. The idea that somehow nature "bruteforced" intelligence is completely nonsensical to me.

So, for me, logically, humans being able to bruteforce true intelligence is equally nonsensical.

But what the author is stating, and I completely agree with, is that true intelligence wielding a pseudo-intelligence is just as dangerous (if not moreso.)

Re: You are the scariest monster in the woods

#68

Post by Jensson »

jncfhnb wrote: post #40
myrmidon wrote: post #13

I struggle to understand how people can just dismiss the possibility of artificial intelligence. Human cognition was basically bruteforced by evolution-- why would it be impossible to achieve the exact same result in silicon, especially after we already demonstrated some parts of those results (e.g. use of language) that critically set us apart from other animals? I'm not buying the whole "AI has no agency" line eith…

I think you could make AGI right now tbh. It’s not a function of intelligence. It’s just a function of stateful system mechanics. LLMs are just a big matrix. But what about a four line of code loop that looks like: ```while true: update_sensory_inputs() narrate_response() update_emotional_state() ``` LLMs don’t experience continuous time and they don’t have an explicit decision making framework for having any agency…

> ```while true: update_sensory_inputs() narrate_response() update_emotional_state() ```

You don't think that has already been made?

Re: You are the scariest monster in the woods

#69

Post by tantalor »

jncfhnb wrote: post #40
myrmidon wrote: post #13

I struggle to understand how people can just dismiss the possibility of artificial intelligence. Human cognition was basically bruteforced by evolution-- why would it be impossible to achieve the exact same result in silicon, especially after we already demonstrated some parts of those results (e.g. use of language) that critically set us apart from other animals? I'm not buying the whole "AI has no agency" line eith…

I think you could make AGI right now tbh. It’s not a function of intelligence. It’s just a function of stateful system mechanics. LLMs are just a big matrix. But what about a four line of code loop that looks like: ```while true: update_sensory_inputs() narrate_response() update_emotional_state() ``` LLMs don’t experience continuous time and they don’t have an explicit decision making framework for having any agency…

Peak HN comment. Put this in the history books.

Re: You are the scariest monster in the woods

#70

Post by dctoedt »

fruitworks wrote: post #54
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you claiming a lack of gun / AI control is democratizing? That's not working for (the lack of) gun control in the US at the moment though. Compare also with capitalism; unchecked capitalism on paper causes healthy competition, but in practice it means concentration of power (monopolies) at the expense of individuals (e.g. our accumulated expressions on the internet being used for training materials).

>Are you claiming a lack of gun / AI control is democratizing? This is obviously the case. It results in a greater distribution of power. >That's not working for (the lack of) gun control in the US at the moment though. In the US, one political party is pro gun-control and the other is against. The party with the guns gets to break into the capitol, and the party without the guns gets to watch. I expect the local pro…

>> Are you claiming a lack of gun / AI control is democratizing?

> This is obviously the case. It results in a greater distribution of power.

That's the theory. In practice, it doesn't work.

Most people don't spend a lot of time looking for ways to acquire and/or retain wealth and power. But absent regulation, we'll gradually lose out to those driven folks who do. Perhaps they do so because they want to serve humanity and they imagine that their gifts make them the logical choice to run things. Or perhaps they just want to dominate things.

And the rest of us have every right to insist on guardrails, so those driven folks can't take us over the cliff. Certainly those folks can make huge contributions to society. But they can also fuck up spectacularly — because talent in one field isn't necessarily transferable to another. (Recall that Michael Jordan was one of the greatest basketball players of all time. But he wasn't even close to being the GOAT ... as a baseball player.)

Sure, maybe through some combination of genetics, rearing, and/or just plain hard work, you've managed to acquire "a very particular set of skills" (to coin a phrase ...) for making money, or for persuading people to do what you want. That doesn't mean you necessarily know WTF you're talking about when it comes to the myriad details of running the most-complex "organism" ever seen on the planet, namely human society.

And in any case, the rest of us are entitled to refuse to roll the dice on either the wisdom or the benevolence of the driven folks.

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