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Only You Can Stop an AI Apocalypse

betterwithout.ai

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Re: Only You Can Stop an AI Apocalypse

#91

Post by ShredKazoo »

post_below wrote: post #33
madrox wrote: post #16

Anti-AI seems poised to be the anti-vax of the next few years, where laymen pick up lines like "we have no idea how AI does the stuff it does" and take that wholly out of context. As a society, we have to decide how we feel about AI in legal and cultural contexts as we expand our capabilities, but there's time to do that. Github Copilot will not end up launching nuclear missiles in the meantime. Stuff like this just…

I had the same impression. He says things which are demonstrably untrue, it implies a lack of domain knowledge. But, on paper anyway, he has the domain knowledge. I agree with the idea that the right time to decide how to handle AI is before it becomes extremely powerful. But he uses so much hyperbole, and what seems to me to be intentionally inflammatory language for purposes of creating fear. It makes we want to ta…

What's a specific demonstrably untrue claim which is made?

Re: Only You Can Stop an AI Apocalypse

#92

Post by ShredKazoo »

twblalock wrote: post #49
vages wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you miss this paragraph from the same page? > I am not a Luddite. I have been wildly enthusiastic about science, technology, and intellectual and material progress since I was a kid. I have a PhD in artificial intelligence, and I find the current breakthroughs fascinating.

This is a great example of a fallacious appeal to authority -- both from the author, and from you.

I think jhbadger's original comment also counts as an appeal to authority by the definition you're using: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34785616

Re: Only You Can Stop an AI Apocalypse

#93

Post by nhod »

ShredKazoo wrote: post #83
nhod wrote: post #73

Actually, no, "only you" can't stop it. No one can. There was a book in the 80's called The Hundredth Monkey that posited that if only enough people opposed nuclear technology, there would be a magical critical mass of people after which it would become apparent to everyone in the whole world that nuclear technology was, you know, really bad and stuff, and it would all just go away. We know how that went. Like nuclea…

>We know how that went. A large majority of the world's countries have no nuclear weapons. Big swaths of the globe have been designated as "Nuclear-weapon-free zones": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear-weapon-free_zone And we haven't had a nuclear apocalypse -- in part due to lots of work on things like weapons treaties, monitoring, control systems, etc. Throwing up our hands and giving up seems very premature. T…

I haven’t read the book in like 30 years, but I recall it being about both nuclear warfare AND nuclear power, inextricably linked. Which means you are right — it resulted in nuclear non-proliferation. It also resulted in an absurd, perhaps even Luddite-esque fear of nuclear power, which has set us back in countless ways.

Again, the difference here is that the cat is already out of the bag and AI technology is widely distributed and integrated into everything, including the iPhone I am writing this on. Non-proliferation has already failed.

Re: Only You Can Stop an AI Apocalypse

#94

Post by krmboya »

The biggest threat I see about AI is concentrating power over many in the hands of the few. Kind of like atomic bombs.

Some manifestations of this are how the tiktok algorithm that is rewiring the attention span of millions globally is controlled by a single corp. Likewise, the almighty google algorithm that can decide to shut down your account and there's practically no recourse.

As long as AI will remain the preserve of those with large amounts of data and big infrastructure this will be the case

Re: Only You Can Stop an AI Apocalypse

#95

Post by ShredKazoo »

jhbadger wrote: post #21
vages wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you miss this paragraph from the same page? > I am not a Luddite. I have been wildly enthusiastic about science, technology, and intellectual and material progress since I was a kid. I have a PhD in artificial intelligence, and I find the current breakthroughs fascinating.

I think the word "most" is relevant. You can find people with doctorates in technical fields who believe in a Flat Earth or that the Earth was created in 4004 BC. They just aren't most of them.

The shape and origin of the Earth are central questions of the relevant scientific fields. They've received centuries of extensive debate.

By contrast, the questions that this book explores haven't received nearly as much expert attention. And if you poll the experts on whether those questions should receive more attention, they mostly say yes!

>69% of [ML researcher] respondents believe society should prioritize AI safety research “more” or “much more” than it is currently prioritized, up from 49% in 2016.

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/H6hMugfY3tDQGfqYL/what-do-ml...

Re: Only You Can Stop an AI Apocalypse

#96

Post by ShredKazoo »

nhod wrote: post #93
ShredKazoo wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We know how that went. A large majority of the world's countries have no nuclear weapons. Big swaths of the globe have been designated as "Nuclear-weapon-free zones": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear-weapon-free_zone And we haven't had a nuclear apocalypse -- in part due to lots of work on things like weapons treaties, monitoring, control systems, etc. Throwing up our hands and giving up seems very premature. T…

I haven’t read the book in like 30 years, but I recall it being about both nuclear warfare AND nuclear power, inextricably linked. Which means you are right — it resulted in nuclear non-proliferation. It also resulted in an absurd, perhaps even Luddite-esque fear of nuclear power, which has set us back in countless ways. Again, the difference here is that the cat is already out of the bag and AI technology is widely…

>Again, the difference here is that the cat is already out of the bag and AI technology is widely distributed and integrated into everything, including the iPhone I am writing this on. Non-proliferation has already failed.

If you read the book's chapter headings under the "HOW TO AVERT AN AI APOCALYPSE" section, it seems to me that the author is cognizant of your iPhone.

I think the title is meant to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek btw.

It seems to me that the anti-nuclear movement had an overall positive impact, because lack of nuclear power, while undesirable, is a far more desirable outcome than nuclear holocaust.

And we had enough nuclear close calls (see e.g. Arkhipov or Petrov) that I'm not comfortable with the conclusion that anti-nuclear activism was unnecessary.

If humanity had been more fatalistic about nuclear proliferation, and there was never any anti-nuclear activism, nuclear weapons probably would've proliferated a lot more, there would've been more close calls, and some of them would've been catastrophes.

Of course, it would be ideal if we had both nuclear power and lack of nuclear weapons -- I'm just pushing back against "anti-nuclear = bad" oversimplifications.

Re: Only You Can Stop an AI Apocalypse

#97

Post by chrischen »

teucris wrote: post #86
chrischen wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are fallaciously appealing to (assumed) authority and missing entirely the fact that the author is a PhD in AI. This critically underscores why blind faith in authority is bad, and why people should do some basic research such as reading the article. By reading the article you would have understood the arguments the author is making on their merits, rather than on blind faith in imagined authority figures you are…

> AI in its current form is a lot of automating assumption making. Imagine taking your assumption making powers, and extracting it into an unaccountable model that can be deployed at national or global scales. Just say this part! This is what we could be talking about. It’s not a difficult mental model. But it’s just wrapped up in alarmist rhetoric that makes it hard for us to focus on the fact that the quote above i…

Problem is some people do think it's the other things like in Terminator or 2001 a Space Odyssey, and they're co-opting legitimate arguments and conversations on AI safety and ethics.

Re: Only You Can Stop an AI Apocalypse

#98

Post by renewiltord »

AI safetyists producing more of what they're masterful at producing: blog posts. AI safetyism is all just "awareness building" and blog posts. Sorry, man, e/acc takes the day through knowing how to make things. AI safety blog posts will eventually just be constructable with AI.

Re: Only You Can Stop an AI Apocalypse

#99

Post by renewiltord »

jimmytucson wrote: post #57
Dalewyn wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I just replace "AI" in all such fearmongering statements with "man". For example: "Man will make critical decisions that we cannot understand."

Even with "man", it's a dismal view. If Magnus Carlsen sat next to me at a chess tournament and suggested moves, I would follow his suggestion in every critical position, and probably most others if I wanted to maximize my chances. At that point, it would cease to be me playing the tournament. This website argues that a super intelligent program would be to human affairs what right-hand Magnus is to my chess tourname…

We are already merely agents acting as part of a larger semi conscious whole. I have as much of a problem building AI as a T-cell in a baby human hates that the human is growing a brain.

The conscious planet builds itself a better mind and far be it from me to stop the agent that I am a sub agent of.

Re: Only You Can Stop an AI Apocalypse

#100

Post by ShredKazoo »

kamaal wrote: post #89
ShredKazoo wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We know how that went. A large majority of the world's countries have no nuclear weapons. Big swaths of the globe have been designated as "Nuclear-weapon-free zones": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear-weapon-free_zone And we haven't had a nuclear apocalypse -- in part due to lots of work on things like weapons treaties, monitoring, control systems, etc. Throwing up our hands and giving up seems very premature. T…

>>And we haven't had a nuclear apocalypse -- in part due to lots of work on things like weapons treaties, monitoring, control systems, etc. Mostly its because no body has been desperate enough to press the button yet. Even in cases with a power losing a war, they've had the attitude to 'live to fight another day'. So it hasn't come to pass. The biggest fear is someday, a power, which is often known to get away with a…

If people had given up on anti-proliferation efforts, it seems likely that additional nations would've had nuclear weapons, and maybe one of those nations would've been desperate enough to push the button. So I don't think the example of nuclear anti-proliferation tells us that we should be fatalistic.
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