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Are we still wasting our time talking about evil AI at this premature time? Can someone dig up Andrew Ng’s comments on this?

arcanus 9y ago
The ever-timely: 'Fearing a rise of killer robots is like worrying about overpopulation on Mars.'
- narrator 9y ago
  Killer robots are already here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXm-ofKLB3M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXm-ofKLB3M "Generally, the vehicle will have a set of sensors to observe the environment, and will either autonomously make decisions about its behavior or pass the information to a human operator at a different location who will control the vehicle through teleoperation."
  - backpropaganda 9y ago
    This is a strawman. Elon's idea and what Andrew is countering is that killer robots can be unintentionally created by someone trying to do good. Evil robots could always be created by evil actors, and there is nothing interesting here.
    - narrator 9y ago
      Look at the ransomware and DDOS botnet epidemics though. If these programs were to infect and control self-driving cars all sorts of science fiction level bad stuff could happen.
      - skgoa 9y ago
        Yes, but that is a computer security issue (and a damn important one!), not an ML issue.
    - Ace17 9y ago
      Not saying that creating military killer robots counts as "trying to do good", however ... if we're talking about a terminator-like scenario, let's not forget the robots from the movie initially are human-designed military appliances.
    - rytill 9y ago
      Possibly by someone trying to do good. More likely by someone just following their rational incentives. Very few people are 'evil' actors but most follow incentives.
- jmmcd 9y ago
  I really hate that smart comment. Two big differences are that with overpopulation on Mars, (1) we would be able to address it before it happened or while it was happening, on a time-scale of decades, and (2) even if there was a total disaster and Mars became permanently unlovable and a lot of people died, we'd still have Earth. Whereas (for those concerned about runaway AI) the time-scale could be minutes and the stakes are the end of known intelligent life in the universe.
c_shu 9y ago
it's kindof irrelevant to andrew ng's comments. It's about something like Cyberattacks. Something can be done very soon like tricking spam filters
booleandilemma 9y ago
Boolean algebra was developed by George Boole in 1847. Konrad Zuse built the Z1 computer in 1936, almost 90 years later. Just because the technology isn't here yet doesn't mean we can't start discussing the theory and its implications.
- QAPereo 9y ago
  Especially when the impact of strong AI will make the impact of automobiles look downright trivial by comparison.
backpropaganda 9y ago
This isn't Elon Musk-style evil AI. This is the more prosaic idea of hackers being able to hack AI systems. For instance, a hacker can put stuff on a stop sign (which won't be visible to humans) to make a Tesla car think it's not a stop sign, and therefore cause an accident. I recommend reading up about it. This is the kind of stuff that can actually happen today.
- Houshalter 9y ago
  There are practical applications too. For instance, getting around automated filters like copyright or porn detection. Making adversarial captchas that fool computers but not humans.
- rimliu 9y ago
  If something looks like a stop sign to the human but like something else to the AI, then "I" stands for "Idiocy" not "Intelligence".
  - ben_w 9y ago
    Your brain is not immune to the problem, it's just hard to automate the creation of optical (and audio, and presumably all other sensory) illusions when we don't have a synapse resolution connectome of the relevant bits of your brain. Examples include That Dress, duck-or-rabbit, stereotypes, "garden path sentences", and most film special effects.
    - rimliu 9y ago
      I am talking about cases like these: https://blog.openai.com/robust-adversarial-inputs/ https://blog.openai.com/robust-adversarial-inputs/ http://www.popsci.com/byzantine-science-deceiving-artificial-intelligence http://www.popsci.com/byzantine-science-deceiving-artificial...
      - ben_w 9y ago
        Ironically your second link starts with Clever Hans, which is another example of my point. Machines, even organic ones like our brains, are not magically able to know objective reality, and the failure itself isn't idiocy — the rate of failure (and things like metecognition about the possibility of failure) is (at last part of) the intelligence-idiocy spectrum.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

arcanus 9y ago

The ever-timely: 'Fearing a rise of killer robots is like worrying about overpopulation on Mars.'

narrator 9y ago
Killer robots are already here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXm-ofKLB3M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXm-ofKLB3M "Generally, the vehicle will have a set of sensors to observe the environment, and will either autonomously make decisions about its behavior or pass the information to a human operator at a different location who will control the vehicle through teleoperation."
- backpropaganda 9y ago
  This is a strawman. Elon's idea and what Andrew is countering is that killer robots can be unintentionally created by someone trying to do good. Evil robots could always be created by evil actors, and there is nothing interesting here.
  - narrator 9y ago
    Look at the ransomware and DDOS botnet epidemics though. If these programs were to infect and control self-driving cars all sorts of science fiction level bad stuff could happen.
    - skgoa 9y ago
      Yes, but that is a computer security issue (and a damn important one!), not an ML issue.
  - Ace17 9y ago
    Not saying that creating military killer robots counts as "trying to do good", however ... if we're talking about a terminator-like scenario, let's not forget the robots from the movie initially are human-designed military appliances.
  - rytill 9y ago
    Possibly by someone trying to do good. More likely by someone just following their rational incentives. Very few people are 'evil' actors but most follow incentives.
jmmcd 9y ago
I really hate that smart comment. Two big differences are that with overpopulation on Mars, (1) we would be able to address it before it happened or while it was happening, on a time-scale of decades, and (2) even if there was a total disaster and Mars became permanently unlovable and a lot of people died, we'd still have Earth. Whereas (for those concerned about runaway AI) the time-scale could be minutes and the stakes are the end of known intelligent life in the universe.

c_shu 9y ago

it's kindof irrelevant to andrew ng's comments. It's about something like Cyberattacks. Something can be done very soon like tricking spam filters

booleandilemma 9y ago

Boolean algebra was developed by George Boole in 1847. Konrad Zuse built the Z1 computer in 1936, almost 90 years later. Just because the technology isn't here yet doesn't mean we can't start discussing the theory and its implications.

QAPereo 9y ago
Especially when the impact of strong AI will make the impact of automobiles look downright trivial by comparison.

backpropaganda 9y ago

This isn't Elon Musk-style evil AI. This is the more prosaic idea of hackers being able to hack AI systems. For instance, a hacker can put stuff on a stop sign (which won't be visible to humans) to make a Tesla car think it's not a stop sign, and therefore cause an accident. I recommend reading up about it. This is the kind of stuff that can actually happen today.

Houshalter 9y ago
There are practical applications too. For instance, getting around automated filters like copyright or porn detection. Making adversarial captchas that fool computers but not humans.
rimliu 9y ago
If something looks like a stop sign to the human but like something else to the AI, then "I" stands for "Idiocy" not "Intelligence".
- ben_w 9y ago
  Your brain is not immune to the problem, it's just hard to automate the creation of optical (and audio, and presumably all other sensory) illusions when we don't have a synapse resolution connectome of the relevant bits of your brain. Examples include That Dress, duck-or-rabbit, stereotypes, "garden path sentences", and most film special effects.
  - rimliu 9y ago
    I am talking about cases like these: https://blog.openai.com/robust-adversarial-inputs/ https://blog.openai.com/robust-adversarial-inputs/ http://www.popsci.com/byzantine-science-deceiving-artificial-intelligence http://www.popsci.com/byzantine-science-deceiving-artificial...
    - ben_w 9y ago
      Ironically your second link starts with Clever Hans, which is another example of my point. Machines, even organic ones like our brains, are not magically able to know objective reality, and the failure itself isn't idiocy — the rate of failure (and things like metecognition about the possibility of failure) is (at last part of) the intelligence-idiocy spectrum.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]