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A conversation about AI for science with Jason Pruet

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Re: A conversation about AI for science with Jason Pruet

#71

Post by swalsh »

giardini wrote: post #49
senderista wrote: post #20

Clearly AI is worthy of public investment, but given the capture of this administration by tech interests, how can we be sure that public AI funding isn't just handouts to the president's cronies?

LLMs seem to be plateauing. I'd rather let the markets chase AI.

How do you make that assessment? I'll admit, the knowledge base is not 10x every few months anymore, but the agent capabilities keep getting better. The newer models can do a lot of useful work accurately for a while. That wasn't true several months ago.

Re: A conversation about AI for science with Jason Pruet

#72

Post by threeseed »

dale_glass wrote: post #45
candiddevmike wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about we fix global warming and switch 100% to clean energy, and then invest in AI?

Who "we"? The people qualified to fix global warming aren't the same people qualified to work on ML.

Yes they are.

I've worked with hundreds of Data Scientists and every one had the ability to work on different problem areas. And so they were working on models to optimise truck rollouts or when to increase compute for complex jobs.

If as a society we placed an increased emphasis on efficiency and power consumption we would see a lot more models being used in those areas.

Re: A conversation about AI for science with Jason Pruet

#73

Post by threeseed »

_heimdall wrote: post #64
candiddevmike wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about we fix global warming and switch 100% to clean energy, and then invest in AI?

We can't just switch to clean energy, we would need to drastically reduce our energy use per capita.

Which is actually a problem AI is perfect for.

Re: A conversation about AI for science with Jason Pruet

#74

Post by catigula »

godelski wrote: post #52
hbartab wrote: post #6

> We certainly need to partner with industry. Because they are so far ahead and are making such giant investments, that is the only possible path. And therein lies the risk: research labs may become wholly dependent on companies whose agendas are fundamentally commercial. In exchange for access to compute and frontier models, labs may cede control over data, methods, and IP—letting private firms quietly extract value…

There's a risk but there's also great reward if it is done properly. The only way to maximize utility of any individual player is to play cooperatively[0]. A single actor might get a momentary advantage by defecting from cooperation, but it decreases their total eventual rewards and frankly it quickly becomes a net negative in many cases. That said, I'm not very confident such a situation would happen in reality. I'm…

What's the "reward"?

I want to interrogate AI optimist type people because even if AI is completely safe and harmless I literally see only downsides.

Is your perception that living in theorized extreme comfort correlates to "reward"?

Re: A conversation about AI for science with Jason Pruet

#75

Post by threeseed »

engineer_22 wrote: post #57
candiddevmike wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about we fix global warming and switch 100% to clean energy, and then invest in AI?

Let's also cure cancer and stop all wars while we're at it.

There is no one cancer but we are working to cure as many variations as we can.

Re: A conversation about AI for science with Jason Pruet

#76

Post by dekhn »

woah wrote: post #69
senderista wrote: post #20

Clearly AI is worthy of public investment, but given the capture of this administration by tech interests, how can we be sure that public AI funding isn't just handouts to the president's cronies?

HN commenters in 1960: > Clearly computer networking is worthy of public investment, but given the capture of this administration by military industrial interests, how can we be sure that public networking funding isn't just handouts to the president's cronies?

Check out the history of BBN, who was deeply involved in the creation of the modern internet. There was an open revolving door between BBN employees and granting agencies, and BBN was even charged with contract fraud by the government . It's owned by Raytheon- a classic defense company.

Our country's tight relationship between the government, military, academia, and industrial has paid off repeatedly, even if it has some graft.

Re: A conversation about AI for science with Jason Pruet

#77

Post by haswell »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #51
haswell wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To the extent that further improvements to AI remain economically useful, "let's do these other things first" means your economy trails behind those of whoever did work on the AI. The major question is: at what point will unaddressed climate change nullify these economic gains and make the fact that anyone worried about them feel silly in retrospect? Or put another way, will we even have the chance collectively enj…

Still, another two big questions are: - To what extent AI will actually be helpful in solving the climate crisis? - To what extent the power generation growth fueled by AI will be critical to solving the climate crisis, and conversely, how badly we'll be screwed without it? "Degrowth" is not an option. It hasn't been for a long time now. We can't just "social solution" our way out this problem anymore.

I think those are the right questions to be asking, with emphasis on the fact that these remain questions.

Too many AI accelerationists are treating these questions as foregone conclusions, which seems like an enormously dangerous bet without a clearer pathway to a truly beneficial outcome.

It may very well be that some form of AI (which form? hard to say - probably not LLMs) are a part of the solution. It may just as well be that they are not. But when building software, the age old advice to “start with the problem, not the solution” comes to mind.

The number of engineers I’ve worked with over the years (I’ve been one of them) who are convinced that the feature they’re building is the right thing to build, only to realize later that it doesn’t solve a problem people care about…is a very large number.

Regarding degrowth, I’m not advocating for it. With that said, that will be the unwanted result forced on us by the realities of the environment if we can’t put a lid on the climate issue.

Re: A conversation about AI for science with Jason Pruet

#78

Post by FilosofumRex »

mdhb wrote: post #11
hbartab wrote: post #6

> We certainly need to partner with industry. Because they are so far ahead and are making such giant investments, that is the only possible path. And therein lies the risk: research labs may become wholly dependent on companies whose agendas are fundamentally commercial. In exchange for access to compute and frontier models, labs may cede control over data, methods, and IP—letting private firms quietly extract value…

This is literally THE scam Elon, Thiel, Sacks and others are running as they gut the government. Sell assets like government real estate to themselves at super cheap rates and then set up as many dependencies as they can where the government has to buy services from them because they have nowhere else to turn. To give an example this missile dome bullshit they are talking about building which is a terrible idea for a…

Right on target, publicly funded research always ends up in the hands of private profiteers via private university labs.

If LLM/AI is critical to national security, then it should be funded solely via the Dep of Defense budget, with no IP or copy right derivatives allowed.

Re: A conversation about AI for science with Jason Pruet

#79

Post by christophilus »

catigula wrote: post #74
godelski wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a risk but there's also great reward if it is done properly. The only way to maximize utility of any individual player is to play cooperatively[0]. A single actor might get a momentary advantage by defecting from cooperation, but it decreases their total eventual rewards and frankly it quickly becomes a net negative in many cases. That said, I'm not very confident such a situation would happen in reality. I'm…

What's the "reward"? I want to interrogate AI optimist type people because even if AI is completely safe and harmless I literally see only downsides. Is your perception that living in theorized extreme comfort correlates to "reward"?

You really see only downsides? I’m no AI optimist, but it is a useful tool, and it’s here to stay.

Re: A conversation about AI for science with Jason Pruet

#80

Post by dekhn »

hdivider wrote: post #13
hbartab wrote: post #6

> We certainly need to partner with industry. Because they are so far ahead and are making such giant investments, that is the only possible path. And therein lies the risk: research labs may become wholly dependent on companies whose agendas are fundamentally commercial. In exchange for access to compute and frontier models, labs may cede control over data, methods, and IP—letting private firms quietly extract value…

I fail to understand the sentiment here. This is the intention of tech transfer. To have private-sector entities commercialize the R&D. What is the alternative? National labs and universities can't commercialize in the same way, including due to legal restrictions at the state and sometimes federal level. As long as the process and tech transfer agreements are fair and transparent -- and not concentrated in say OpenA…

What do you mean universities can't commercialize in the same way (I may have misunderstood what you meant)? Due to Bayh-Dole, Universities can patent and license the tech they develop under contract for the government- often helping professors start up companies with funding, while simultaneously charging those companies to license the tech. This is also true for National labs run by universities (Berkeley and a few others). the other labs run under contract by external for-profit companies.
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