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So I have a question. To "avoid enabling uses of AI or AGI that harm humanity or unduly concentrate power" what does one do with an idea or line of research th

So I have a question. To "avoid enabling uses of AI or AGI that harm humanity or unduly concentrate power" what does one do with an idea or line of research that could potentially harm humanity or unduly concentrate power? The manipulation of social media by foreign actors armed with dumb-AI / automation was an obvious conclusion to many of us well before the Snowden leaks, but what could we do exactly? I remember having conversations with people about it and we concluded that it would just happen until someone pushed it too far and then Russia did and now we're finally reacting. I was privately concerned about the mass weaponization of autonomous devices via cyber attack for over a year and a half and got nowhere just emailing politicians or public safety departments. I've been told almost a dozen times that I should join a military or IR think tank but I don't want to do that. I just want someone else to vet the idea or research and pass it on to policy makers that will actually do something proactively. Put another way: What is the responsible disclosure process for ideas and research around AI?

dsacco 9y ago
> To "avoid enabling uses of AI or AGI that harm humanity or unduly concentrate power" what does one do with an idea or line of research that could potentially harm humanity or unduly concentrate power? Pursue the research and publish its results freely and in their entirety.
- rspeer 9y ago
  I don't think you answered 3pt14159's question. What if you publish the research and nobody who can do anything about it cares?
  - dsacco 9y ago
    Then what exactly was the new bad thing introduced by publishing it in the first place?
- Smaug123 9y ago
  Are you saying that if it were discovered to be both cheap and easy to create a super-pandemic using nothing more than household chemicals and a swab of your own snot, then you'd publish the results freely and in their entirety? If not, how catastrophic a level of harm are you willing to risk before you start advocating concealing the results?
  - sfsylvester 9y ago
    This is the very same concern cyber-security researchers face every time they notice a vulnerability. Do they publish their work openly and potentially leave all those using the service vulnerable to attack? Yes, for a combination of two reasons: 1) They have obvious incentives to publish their results. 2) The more we know about vulnerabilities, the better we are at combatting ourselves against it. That second reason is why we are (overall) better off from acknowledging possible threats to our existence. In your example, the more open the study of super-pandemics is, the more open the study of combatting against super-pandemics is. The more we are aware of a threat, the better informed we are to prevent it. Yes, in your example, the threat could be highly dangerous and imminent. However, if only one individual was capable of creating a super-pandemic, the number of people who could potentially help stop it is drastically reduced. Rather than a free distribution of results which arms our society completely with the ability of preventing it.
    - Smaug123 9y ago
      "Only one individual capable of creating a super-pandemic": by hypothesis, this individual is morally good in some way. (Otherwise they wouldn't be having this internal debate about whether or not to release the information about how to produce the virus: they'd just release the virus!) The ideal scenario is that throughout the rest of time, no entity ever manufactures the virus; the second-best scenario is that an entity does manufacture the virus, but only after there is some hypothetical defence against it. You are shattering forever the dream of achieving the ideal scenario (again by hypothesis, the virus is easy to make, and history demonstrates that if something is easy and destructive, eventually someone will do it); you're pinning your hopes on the second-best scenario. You are therefore implicitly assuming that "we get better at arming ourselves against the virus" happens faster than "enemies create the virus", which is by no means a given and must be weighed on a case-by-case basis. By the way, this is the basic reason why I'm so sad about the existence of fully 3D-printed guns. There is essentially no defence against guns. The creators of the 3D-printed gun chose to spread the blueprints far and wide, to accelerate their advent. It's sad that human nature is such that this was predictable and inevitable.
s1dechnl 9y ago
> To "avoid enabling uses of AI or AGI that harm humanity or unduly concentrate power" what does one do with an idea or line of research that could potentially harm humanity or unduly concentrate power? You don't publish it : See Pandora's box. You secure it. You demonstrate its capability and you focus public critical discussion from then on with the creators of it along with a panel of individuals who can probe areas of concern. Public discussion and welcomed inquiry Private and protected research and IP. > The manipulation of social media by foreign actors armed with dumb-AI / automation was an obvious conclusion to many of us well before the Snowden leaks, but what could we do exactly? Before foreign, there was domestic and manipulation was a central concept at the inception of these platforms. Data collection and selling for profit is aimed at manipulation. What human beings could do is be honest with themselves and others for once and stop using their intellectual capacity to manipulate, dumb, and screw others over for profit. You can't engage in negative foundations and expect positive outcomes. You can't manipulate the truth and information and pretend like its going to benefit society. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt is a manipulative business tactic and it remains at the heart of the 'safety' problem and the nonsensical doomsday AI scenarios. Certain well funded groups and deep pockets have invested heavily in weakAI and it sits nicely with their legacy business models and they're scared of a truly disruptive technology eating their lunch. So, they concoct disinformation campaigns to steer resources/attention away from such dev groups and back into their coffers. > I was privately concerned about the mass weaponization of autonomous devices via cyber attack for over a year and a half and got nowhere just emailing politicians or public safety departments. Money and Power and strong motivators for some. Everything else is secondary. Many human beings like to craftily use marketing/politics to convince people otherwise, but its just a mask of their true intent. Engage your intellect and you can quickly filter through the b.s to one's true motivations/intent... Hint : their actions not their words will be aligned accordingly. > I've been told almost a dozen times that I should join a military or IR think tank but I don't want to do that. I just want someone else to vet the idea or research and pass it on to policy makers that will actually do something proactively. Money&Power. This is what dominates the world. The suggestion to join the appropriate groups which recognize this and attempt to mitigate negative effects is well founding. > What is the responsible disclosure process for ideas and research around AI? You don't publish it : See Pandora's box. You secure it. You demonstrate its capability and you focus public critical discussion from then on with the creators of it along with a panel of individuals who can probe areas of concern. Public discussion and welcomed inquiry Private and protected research and IP. So, you make the world aware that something indeed exist because you created it. You open up things for public discussion so people can work through all the issues/concerns/etc with the most knowledge group 'the creators' of it. The tech is privately secured and development goes forward with the public commentary having been received. The End. This is possibly the best format for things. Other approaches lend themselves to politics, b.s, and manipulation.
mooneater 9y ago
Good question, and the best answer would probably require a trip down some rabbit holes. One answer might be, bring it to an org you trust, that specializes in those rabbit holes, like OpenAI, that is if you decide you trust them.
eb3c90 9y ago
I'm thinking about an AI safety index. Where a think tank rates governments on their AI readiness and preparation against threats (amongst other things). That soft of thing might be part of the answer.
rojobuffalo 9y ago
I've wondered about this same question. If it were up to you, what would you propose?
YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
>> What is the responsible disclosure process for ideas and research around AI? Basically, we're so far away from AGI that there's no need to worry about disclosig anything. The recent advances in machine vision and speech processing are impressive, but only in the context of the last 50 years or so. A trully intelligent agent will need much more than this and there doesn't seem to be anyone alive today who knows how to go from where we are to where AGI will be. In other words, all this is really premature. If we're talking about responsible and regulated use of what you call "dumb AI/automation" on the other hand, then that's a differen tissue. But AGI, currently, is science fiction. You may as well regulate research in time travel, or teleportation.
- 3pt14159 9y ago
  The maluse of AI is a continuum that ends with AGI. If we don't have a process for handling responsible disclosure of dumb AI that could kill millions then why should we expect that a process will be available once AGI is within a reasonable time horizon. If I have other shit in my head that I'm worried about today who do I tell?
  - YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
    There are no realistic prospects of building AGI with modern understanding and equipment. We'll probably need many generations and a paradigm shift (or two) in computer science before we can build machines that can run intelligence like a program, let alone being able to write that program. Hence my comment about how you might as well worry about time travel and teleportation. They're just as likely to happen in any timeframe that you might be interested in. If you're going to be worried about how AGI might be misused, you can start worrying about how time machines or teleporters might be misused. >> If I have other shit in my head that I'm worried about today who do I tell? You could look at joining the Campaing Against Killer Robots, or look around for a similar group.
  - throwaway84742 9y ago
    I think the current maluse of AI is about as likely to produce AGI as finger painting of a toddler is to produce a Mona Lisa, and the whole AGI drama is overblown way out of proportion. Right now the state of the field is such that no one can even begin to contemplate how to create the very basic underpinnings of anything remotely resembling AGI. That’s how fundamental this problem still is. That’s not to say that there’s no way the humanity can be fucked with the more pedestrian “garden variety” AI that is with our technical capabilities. It’s to say that AGI is a nebulous, unobtainable red herring which only serves to detract from the more immediate issues.

dsacco 9y ago

rspeer 9y ago
I don't think you answered 3pt14159's question. What if you publish the research and nobody who can do anything about it cares?
- dsacco 9y ago
  Then what exactly was the new bad thing introduced by publishing it in the first place?
Smaug123 9y ago
Are you saying that if it were discovered to be both cheap and easy to create a super-pandemic using nothing more than household chemicals and a swab of your own snot, then you'd publish the results freely and in their entirety? If not, how catastrophic a level of harm are you willing to risk before you start advocating concealing the results?
- sfsylvester 9y ago
  This is the very same concern cyber-security researchers face every time they notice a vulnerability. Do they publish their work openly and potentially leave all those using the service vulnerable to attack? Yes, for a combination of two reasons: 1) They have obvious incentives to publish their results. 2) The more we know about vulnerabilities, the better we are at combatting ourselves against it. That second reason is why we are (overall) better off from acknowledging possible threats to our existence. In your example, the more open the study of super-pandemics is, the more open the study of combatting against super-pandemics is. The more we are aware of a threat, the better informed we are to prevent it. Yes, in your example, the threat could be highly dangerous and imminent. However, if only one individual was capable of creating a super-pandemic, the number of people who could potentially help stop it is drastically reduced. Rather than a free distribution of results which arms our society completely with the ability of preventing it.
  - Smaug123 9y ago
    "Only one individual capable of creating a super-pandemic": by hypothesis, this individual is morally good in some way. (Otherwise they wouldn't be having this internal debate about whether or not to release the information about how to produce the virus: they'd just release the virus!) The ideal scenario is that throughout the rest of time, no entity ever manufactures the virus; the second-best scenario is that an entity does manufacture the virus, but only after there is some hypothetical defence against it. You are shattering forever the dream of achieving the ideal scenario (again by hypothesis, the virus is easy to make, and history demonstrates that if something is easy and destructive, eventually someone will do it); you're pinning your hopes on the second-best scenario. You are therefore implicitly assuming that "we get better at arming ourselves against the virus" happens faster than "enemies create the virus", which is by no means a given and must be weighed on a case-by-case basis. By the way, this is the basic reason why I'm so sad about the existence of fully 3D-printed guns. There is essentially no defence against guns. The creators of the 3D-printed gun chose to spread the blueprints far and wide, to accelerate their advent. It's sad that human nature is such that this was predictable and inevitable.

s1dechnl 9y ago

> To "avoid enabling uses of AI or AGI that harm humanity or unduly concentrate power" what does one do with an idea or line of research that could potentially harm humanity or unduly concentrate power? You don't publish it : See Pandora's box. You secure it. You demonstrate its capability and you focus public critical discussion from then on with the creators of it along with a panel of individuals who can probe areas of concern. Public discussion and welcomed inquiry Private and protected research and IP. > The manipulation of social media by foreign actors armed with dumb-AI / automation was an obvious conclusion to many of us well before the Snowden leaks, but what could we do exactly? Before foreign, there was domestic and manipulation was a central concept at the inception of these platforms. Data collection and selling for profit is aimed at manipulation. What human beings could do is be honest with themselves and others for once and stop using their intellectual capacity to manipulate, dumb, and screw others over for profit. You can't engage in negative foundations and expect positive outcomes. You can't manipulate the truth and information and pretend like its going to benefit society. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt is a manipulative business tactic and it remains at the heart of the 'safety' problem and the nonsensical doomsday AI scenarios. Certain well funded groups and deep pockets have invested heavily in weakAI and it sits nicely with their legacy business models and they're scared of a truly disruptive technology eating their lunch. So, they concoct disinformation campaigns to steer resources/attention away from such dev groups and back into their coffers. > I was privately concerned about the mass weaponization of autonomous devices via cyber attack for over a year and a half and got nowhere just emailing politicians or public safety departments. Money and Power and strong motivators for some. Everything else is secondary. Many human beings like to craftily use marketing/politics to convince people otherwise, but its just a mask of their true intent. Engage your intellect and you can quickly filter through the b.s to one's true motivations/intent... Hint : their actions not their words will be aligned accordingly. > I've been told almost a dozen times that I should join a military or IR think tank but I don't want to do that. I just want someone else to vet the idea or research and pass it on to policy makers that will actually do something proactively. Money&Power. This is what dominates the world. The suggestion to join the appropriate groups which recognize this and attempt to mitigate negative effects is well founding. > What is the responsible disclosure process for ideas and research around AI? You don't publish it : See Pandora's box. You secure it. You demonstrate its capability and you focus public critical discussion from then on with the creators of it along with a panel of individuals who can probe areas of concern. Public discussion and welcomed inquiry Private and protected research and IP. So, you make the world aware that something indeed exist because you created it. You open up things for public discussion so people can work through all the issues/concerns/etc with the most knowledge group 'the creators' of it. The tech is privately secured and development goes forward with the public commentary having been received. The End. This is possibly the best format for things. Other approaches lend themselves to politics, b.s, and manipulation.

mooneater 9y ago

Good question, and the best answer would probably require a trip down some rabbit holes. One answer might be, bring it to an org you trust, that specializes in those rabbit holes, like OpenAI, that is if you decide you trust them.

eb3c90 9y ago

I'm thinking about an AI safety index. Where a think tank rates governments on their AI readiness and preparation against threats (amongst other things). That soft of thing might be part of the answer.

rojobuffalo 9y ago

I've wondered about this same question. If it were up to you, what would you propose?

YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago

>> What is the responsible disclosure process for ideas and research around AI? Basically, we're so far away from AGI that there's no need to worry about disclosig anything. The recent advances in machine vision and speech processing are impressive, but only in the context of the last 50 years or so. A trully intelligent agent will need much more than this and there doesn't seem to be anyone alive today who knows how to go from where we are to where AGI will be. In other words, all this is really premature. If we're talking about responsible and regulated use of what you call "dumb AI/automation" on the other hand, then that's a differen tissue. But AGI, currently, is science fiction. You may as well regulate research in time travel, or teleportation.

3pt14159 9y ago
The maluse of AI is a continuum that ends with AGI. If we don't have a process for handling responsible disclosure of dumb AI that could kill millions then why should we expect that a process will be available once AGI is within a reasonable time horizon. If I have other shit in my head that I'm worried about today who do I tell?
- YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
  There are no realistic prospects of building AGI with modern understanding and equipment. We'll probably need many generations and a paradigm shift (or two) in computer science before we can build machines that can run intelligence like a program, let alone being able to write that program. Hence my comment about how you might as well worry about time travel and teleportation. They're just as likely to happen in any timeframe that you might be interested in. If you're going to be worried about how AGI might be misused, you can start worrying about how time machines or teleporters might be misused. >> If I have other shit in my head that I'm worried about today who do I tell? You could look at joining the Campaing Against Killer Robots, or look around for a similar group.
- throwaway84742 9y ago
  I think the current maluse of AI is about as likely to produce AGI as finger painting of a toddler is to produce a Mona Lisa, and the whole AGI drama is overblown way out of proportion. Right now the state of the field is such that no one can even begin to contemplate how to create the very basic underpinnings of anything remotely resembling AGI. That’s how fundamental this problem still is. That’s not to say that there’s no way the humanity can be fucked with the more pedestrian “garden variety” AI that is with our technical capabilities. It’s to say that AGI is a nebulous, unobtainable red herring which only serves to detract from the more immediate issues.