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Microsoft lays off one of its responsible AI teams

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Re: Microsoft lays off one of its responsible AI teams

#81

Post by qudat »

icapybara wrote: post #78
qudat wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not in this case. If intelligence always created intelligent machines that are capable of replacing us, then how is that not intelligence as well? Further, silicon-based lifeforms would be able to spread and travel the universe much easier because what is time to a machine?

Some machines might last longer than us but they are still subject to the same laws of thermodynamics. Most computers from 20+ years ago are inoperable today; show me a machine that can survive millions of years.

They can just replace every component in their system without the ghost in the machine dissipating

Re: Microsoft lays off one of its responsible AI teams

#82

Post by MuffinFlavored »

monero-xmr wrote: post #8

If Microsoft and Google don’t release, some startup will beat them to it. Open source means raw AI will become widespread. It’s just math anyway, and you can’t stop progress.

> It’s just math anyway, and you can’t stop progress.

"It's just indexing text, why would Google win the search race"? - somebody in 1990 maybe?

Re: Microsoft lays off one of its responsible AI teams

#83

Post by peppermint_gum »

paramount wrote: post #39
echelon wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I do think the push for ethics in AI is important. As much as these functions do get sidelined in the prioritization process as outlined in the parent comment, the intent of introducing the rigor is valid.

I agree AI ethics is important, but unfortunately, the field is dominated by frauds.

Do you remember the drama[1] with Google's AI ethics team? Here's a sample of the "research" they were producing: https://s10251.pcdn.co/pdf/2021-bender-parrots.pdf

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timnit_Gebru#Exit_from_Google

Re: Microsoft lays off one of its responsible AI teams

#84

Post by pixl97 »

Filligree wrote: post #68
zug_zug wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if the first AGI is made in a closed controlled simulation honeypot (which it believes isn't a honeypot) and it immediately starts hacking everything then we'll at least have confirmation how immediately dangerous it can be.

Unfortunately, from what I've seen so far it will probably be hooked up to an unrestricted Python prompt in the first week.

"Hello everybody and welcome to my Youtube channel, hit like and subscribe, and I'll show you how to get ChatGPT-6 to press the button to fire anti-aircraft missiles in Ukraine. Also check in next week and we'll hook it up to a nuclear rocket we found in an abandoned Russian missile silo"

Re: Microsoft lays off one of its responsible AI teams

#85

Post by kmeisthax »

IceHegel wrote: post #28

You either do AI and talk about AI ethics (OpenAI) or do AI ethics and talk about AI (Google).

Google absolutely does a LOT of AI. And OpenAI stopped releasing model weights and switched to SaaS specifically citing ethical and safety concerns.

Re: Microsoft lays off one of its responsible AI teams

#86

Post by kmeisthax »

bitL wrote: post #69
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #31

Too bad Microsoft did not have an "Ethical Office Team" back when Microsoft Office was first released. Think of how many hurtful words have been typed into Word documents. Think of all the PowerPoints that were used to mislead people. Think of all the people that were tricked out of their money looking at an Excel spreadsheet with non-factual numbers.

I think they had something similar; compare Windows/Office vocabulary to Unix vocabulary and you can see which one is more polished/curated and which one is weird/rough.

Dave Plummer specifically talked about how they had to change "Kill" to "End Process" in Task Manager for this exact reason.

Re: Microsoft lays off one of its responsible AI teams

#87

Post by p1necone »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #9

These sorts of adjunct, off-to-the-side "ethics" teams are always corporate window dressing, and when push comes to shove they always get jettisoned when competition demands an increase in speed. I don't mean to start a flame war, but this is a reason why I think "Chief Diversity Officers" are such an ill-conceived notion. It's not that I don't think diversity in corporate environments is extremely valuable, but it's…

Hard agree. Anything important needs someone on each product team, either doing it as their full time job or just aware and caring about it if it's not enough to be a full time job.

Same goes for DevOps, QA, UX design, product design, accessiblity etc. If there is no direct instantaneous collaboration while the thing is being built then all that's happening is you're slowing down your product teams while their only course of action is to provide lip service to the thing you want because nobody on the team is actually incentivized to care on top of all of the other shit they need to get done.

Re: Microsoft lays off one of its responsible AI teams

#88

Post by qbasic_forever »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #9

These sorts of adjunct, off-to-the-side "ethics" teams are always corporate window dressing, and when push comes to shove they always get jettisoned when competition demands an increase in speed. I don't mean to start a flame war, but this is a reason why I think "Chief Diversity Officers" are such an ill-conceived notion. It's not that I don't think diversity in corporate environments is extremely valuable, but it's…

By your definition the entire board of directors is irrelevant since they don't own any part of the business verticals directly like the CEO, CTO, etc. Should they be removed too?

Re: Microsoft lays off one of its responsible AI teams

#89

Post by ssalka »

anonylizard wrote: post #19
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #9

These sorts of adjunct, off-to-the-side "ethics" teams are always corporate window dressing, and when push comes to shove they always get jettisoned when competition demands an increase in speed. I don't mean to start a flame war, but this is a reason why I think "Chief Diversity Officers" are such an ill-conceived notion. It's not that I don't think diversity in corporate environments is extremely valuable, but it's…

This. People should understand AI safety != AI ethics. AI safety has two branches, AI ethics and AI alignment. Those two branches despise each other with intense passion. The alignment branch (responsible for developing RLHF->ChatGPT) believes AI ethics is completely trivial, and distracts attention away from existential risks. The ethics branch (responsible for all the media attention about racist AIs/bias etc) view…

AI alignment people are the group who are capable of bringing AGI to life, but want to do it responsibly.

AI ethics people are the group who are not capable of bringing AGI to life, but want to make sure that those who can do it responsibly or not at all.

Re: Microsoft lays off one of its responsible AI teams

#90

Post by teolandon »

pixl97 wrote: post #65
qudat wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not in this case. If intelligence always created intelligent machines that are capable of replacing us, then how is that not intelligence as well? Further, silicon-based lifeforms would be able to spread and travel the universe much easier because what is time to a machine?

I mean, if that's the case let me come over and cannibalize your body for sustenance so I may continue my breeding. Oh right, it's unethical and immoral do to that to other humans (though how much better are we for doing that to animals?). I certainly don't want the paperclip maximizer disassembling me for my involuntary donation to the collective.

Your original comment didn't talk about ethics or morals, but was talking about intelligence being its own great filter. More intelligent AI consuming us could be unethical and immoral in your view, but it would still be intelligence spreading, and not filtering itself. Just not specifically human intelligence.
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