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Based on this essay, I don't think the author could accurately summarize the concerns AI researchers actually have. Some of his arguments are irresponsibly lazy

Based on this essay, I don't think the author could accurately summarize the concerns AI researchers actually have. Some of his arguments are irresponsibly lazy. Take the bicentennial straw man, where he accuses researchers of a lack of imagination, and then demonstrates an inability to imagine any of the potential problems while making one long argument from ignorance.

ryanackley 9y ago
I'm curious, is there a good article or source that contains an accurate summarization of concerns that bona fide AI researchers have?
- evanlivingston 9y ago
  I think it is a mistake to only focus on the concerns of the researchers and scientists. If you use the atom bomb as an example, the concerns a sociology professor or philosopher had for the bomb might be different than then concerns of a nuclear physcicst, but both were worth paying attention to.
  - ryanackley 9y ago
    The atom bomb was a giant explosion made for killing people. The logical extrapolation is bigger explosions and more death. Doesn't take a lot of smarts to see that. The current state of AI is some clever algorithms to solve very specific problems. What is being extrapolated from that is everyone losing their job and/or being enslaved by computers. This is the point the author is trying to make. It's basically a form of hysteria.
- kryptiskt 9y ago
  Rodney Brooks is a bona fide AI researcher.
- yazr 9y ago
  Try Superintelligence - Nick Bostrom (very enjoyable - with a new original thought on every page) OR Pedro Domingos, The Master Algorithm (more difficult to read)
  - ollin 9y ago
    Not to be rude, but of the active AI researchers I've seen state an opinion, almost all of them are critical of the Bostrom book, with the main critique being (iirc) that rapid/exponential self improvement is presented as an inevitability when there is very little reason to think that this is the case. Not to say that Superintelligence isn't worth reading (as you say, it's a pretty enjoyable book), but I think it's important to point out that Bostrom's views are not broadly accepted by the people actually writing ML/AI code. The primary concerns I've seen from the community are a) issues with research itself (lots of derivative/incremental/epicycle-adding works with precious few lasting improvements) b) issues with ethics (ML models propagating bias in their training data; ML models being used to violate privacy/anonymity) c) issues with public perception/presentation (any ML/AI tech today is usually incredibly specialized, built to solve a single specific problem, but journalists and people pitching AI startups frequently represent AI as general-purpose magic that gains new capabilities with minimal human intervention).
    - vacri 9y ago
      > b) issues with ethics On a tangent, I've found it an interesting marker if a commentator speaks of the Three Laws of Robotics as if they are part of a solution. We can't even explicitly codify how those laws (ethics) should function for ourselves, let alone put them in as a restriction into a computer system. Whenever I see those mentioned as part of a solution, then I know the commentator really is only thinking of surface issues and 'sci-fi magic' answers.
      - ollin 9y ago
        Yup! To cite some sources: > Periodic reminder that most of Isaac Asimov's stories were about how the three laws of robotics DON'T ACTUALLY WORK. (https://twitter.com/grok_/status/904675286230470656 https://twitter.com/grok_/status/904675286230470656 - MIT Research Specialist in Robot Ethics, in the superintelligence-is-in-no-way-a-serious-concern camp) > It must be emphasized that Asimov wrote fiction...The general consensus seems to be that no set of rules can ever capture every possible situation and that interaction of rules may lead to unforeseen circumstances and undetectable loopholes leading to devastating consequences for humanity (https://intelligence.org/files/SafetyEngineering.pdf https://intelligence.org/files/SafetyEngineering.pdf - MIRI, home of Bostrom, Yudkowsky, and other the-superintelligence-control-problem-is-super-important folks) To the extent that there are sides here, both of them seem strongly in agreement that the Three Laws are a narrative device and not a solution to anything.
evgen 9y ago
Do you have any idea who Rodney Brooks is? While his arguments may have holes, to claim that he has no idea of "the concerns AI researchers actually have" reveals you to have no clue whatsoever about AI, its history, or current status.
- gharien 9y ago
  I do know who he is, which is what makes this essay so disappointing, and why I prefaced by saying "Based on this essay". Perhaps my wording could be better- "Based solely on this essay, I wouldn't think..". This is also why I characterize his arguments as irresponsible.
moxious 9y ago
> while making one long argument from ignorance Ignorance of what? You're saying his argument is lazy and ignorant, but you're not backing that up. I think he is willfully refusing to "imagine potential problems" - because a core point of the article is that people are "imagining magic", which isn't really an argument, but more of a way of whipping people into an emotional frenzy (all jobs will be taken by robots, dystopian futures, etc)
- gharien 9y ago
  I'm referring to a specific fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance, that appeals to our ignorance. Effectively, 'We don't know what the future holds, so we don't need to worry', 'We don't know if superhuman intelligence is even possible, so we don't need to worry', 'We don't know if your prediction will happen, so lets go with mine'.
  - goatlover 9y ago
    His argument is that people predicting future superhuman intelligence are failing to imagine what sort of limitations future AI might have. Every technology we've invented has very real limitations. A smart phone would have astounded Newton, but it still doesn't transmute lead into gold. And smart phones exist within a web of similar technologies, which future AI will also exist in. Brooks is challenging the notion of superhuman AI eating the world without anything limiting it.
  - b1daly 9y ago
    That’s an oversimplification of his argument. I interpreted it as him saying that positing a future, superhuman, malevolent, intelligent agent, that we should tremble in fear of, provides no useful line of reasoning that we could pursue to take prudent action to mitigate potential problems. His obvervation is that the future road to superhuman intelligence will be paved with events, not known to us now, that will provide us with experience to handle the emergence of the malevolent AI.m This shows that the author is not suggesting that since we can’t foresee the future, we simply should hide our head in the sand, plug our ears, la la la. On the contrary, he is implying that our normal human tactics of being concerned with the future are more robust than we might fear, and will continue to serve us into the unknown future.
Ngunyan 9y ago
> I don't think the author could accurately summarize the concerns AI researchers actually have. For the benefit of people who don't know your thoughts, could you accurately summarize the concerns of AI researchers? Maybe you have a blog or a published paper somewhere. > Some of his arguments are irresponsibly lazy. Take the bicentennial straw man, where he accuses researchers of a lack of imagination I don't know how an argument can be lazy, and that being an irresponsibility. > and then demonstrates an inability to imagine any of the potential problems while making one long argument from ignorance. Could you supply then a few of these potential problems, because that one long argument from ignorance (for you) is one vivid example (for me) supporting his position that AI researchers are mistaken.

ryanackley 9y ago

I'm curious, is there a good article or source that contains an accurate summarization of concerns that bona fide AI researchers have?

evanlivingston 9y ago
I think it is a mistake to only focus on the concerns of the researchers and scientists. If you use the atom bomb as an example, the concerns a sociology professor or philosopher had for the bomb might be different than then concerns of a nuclear physcicst, but both were worth paying attention to.
- ryanackley 9y ago
  The atom bomb was a giant explosion made for killing people. The logical extrapolation is bigger explosions and more death. Doesn't take a lot of smarts to see that. The current state of AI is some clever algorithms to solve very specific problems. What is being extrapolated from that is everyone losing their job and/or being enslaved by computers. This is the point the author is trying to make. It's basically a form of hysteria.
kryptiskt 9y ago
Rodney Brooks is a bona fide AI researcher.
yazr 9y ago
Try Superintelligence - Nick Bostrom (very enjoyable - with a new original thought on every page) OR Pedro Domingos, The Master Algorithm (more difficult to read)
- ollin 9y ago
  Not to be rude, but of the active AI researchers I've seen state an opinion, almost all of them are critical of the Bostrom book, with the main critique being (iirc) that rapid/exponential self improvement is presented as an inevitability when there is very little reason to think that this is the case. Not to say that Superintelligence isn't worth reading (as you say, it's a pretty enjoyable book), but I think it's important to point out that Bostrom's views are not broadly accepted by the people actually writing ML/AI code. The primary concerns I've seen from the community are a) issues with research itself (lots of derivative/incremental/epicycle-adding works with precious few lasting improvements) b) issues with ethics (ML models propagating bias in their training data; ML models being used to violate privacy/anonymity) c) issues with public perception/presentation (any ML/AI tech today is usually incredibly specialized, built to solve a single specific problem, but journalists and people pitching AI startups frequently represent AI as general-purpose magic that gains new capabilities with minimal human intervention).
  - vacri 9y ago
    > b) issues with ethics On a tangent, I've found it an interesting marker if a commentator speaks of the Three Laws of Robotics as if they are part of a solution. We can't even explicitly codify how those laws (ethics) should function for ourselves, let alone put them in as a restriction into a computer system. Whenever I see those mentioned as part of a solution, then I know the commentator really is only thinking of surface issues and 'sci-fi magic' answers.
    - ollin 9y ago
      Yup! To cite some sources: > Periodic reminder that most of Isaac Asimov's stories were about how the three laws of robotics DON'T ACTUALLY WORK. (https://twitter.com/grok_/status/904675286230470656 https://twitter.com/grok_/status/904675286230470656 - MIT Research Specialist in Robot Ethics, in the superintelligence-is-in-no-way-a-serious-concern camp) > It must be emphasized that Asimov wrote fiction...The general consensus seems to be that no set of rules can ever capture every possible situation and that interaction of rules may lead to unforeseen circumstances and undetectable loopholes leading to devastating consequences for humanity (https://intelligence.org/files/SafetyEngineering.pdf https://intelligence.org/files/SafetyEngineering.pdf - MIRI, home of Bostrom, Yudkowsky, and other the-superintelligence-control-problem-is-super-important folks) To the extent that there are sides here, both of them seem strongly in agreement that the Three Laws are a narrative device and not a solution to anything.

evgen 9y ago

Do you have any idea who Rodney Brooks is? While his arguments may have holes, to claim that he has no idea of "the concerns AI researchers actually have" reveals you to have no clue whatsoever about AI, its history, or current status.

gharien 9y ago
I do know who he is, which is what makes this essay so disappointing, and why I prefaced by saying "Based on this essay". Perhaps my wording could be better- "Based solely on this essay, I wouldn't think..". This is also why I characterize his arguments as irresponsible.

moxious 9y ago

> while making one long argument from ignorance Ignorance of what? You're saying his argument is lazy and ignorant, but you're not backing that up. I think he is willfully refusing to "imagine potential problems" - because a core point of the article is that people are "imagining magic", which isn't really an argument, but more of a way of whipping people into an emotional frenzy (all jobs will be taken by robots, dystopian futures, etc)

gharien 9y ago
I'm referring to a specific fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance, that appeals to our ignorance. Effectively, 'We don't know what the future holds, so we don't need to worry', 'We don't know if superhuman intelligence is even possible, so we don't need to worry', 'We don't know if your prediction will happen, so lets go with mine'.
- goatlover 9y ago
  His argument is that people predicting future superhuman intelligence are failing to imagine what sort of limitations future AI might have. Every technology we've invented has very real limitations. A smart phone would have astounded Newton, but it still doesn't transmute lead into gold. And smart phones exist within a web of similar technologies, which future AI will also exist in. Brooks is challenging the notion of superhuman AI eating the world without anything limiting it.
- b1daly 9y ago
  That’s an oversimplification of his argument. I interpreted it as him saying that positing a future, superhuman, malevolent, intelligent agent, that we should tremble in fear of, provides no useful line of reasoning that we could pursue to take prudent action to mitigate potential problems. His obvervation is that the future road to superhuman intelligence will be paved with events, not known to us now, that will provide us with experience to handle the emergence of the malevolent AI.m This shows that the author is not suggesting that since we can’t foresee the future, we simply should hide our head in the sand, plug our ears, la la la. On the contrary, he is implying that our normal human tactics of being concerned with the future are more robust than we might fear, and will continue to serve us into the unknown future.

Ngunyan 9y ago

> I don't think the author could accurately summarize the concerns AI researchers actually have. For the benefit of people who don't know your thoughts, could you accurately summarize the concerns of AI researchers? Maybe you have a blog or a published paper somewhere. > Some of his arguments are irresponsibly lazy. Take the bicentennial straw man, where he accuses researchers of a lack of imagination I don't know how an argument can be lazy, and that being an irresponsibility. > and then demonstrates an inability to imagine any of the potential problems while making one long argument from ignorance. Could you supply then a few of these potential problems, because that one long argument from ignorance (for you) is one vivid example (for me) supporting his position that AI researchers are mistaken.