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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 (
by 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 agoYup! 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.