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The risks right now are roughly these: - AI poisons political discourse - AI produces massive wealth inequality - AI makes many white collar workers redundan

by gizmo 4y ago

The risks right now are roughly these: - AI poisons political discourse - AI produces massive wealth inequality - AI makes many white collar workers redundant These look totally manageable to me. And on the flipside we'll get AI assisted science breakthroughs, AI assisted learning, and much more. I fully expect to see wild AI advances in the coming years, especially once AIs will be able to learn effectively from their own generated outputs and will be able to use external tools effectively (like Mathematica). I get that it's scary to because society is going to change, but on the other hand, the paperclip scenario that some SV prophets have warned about seems increasingly unlikely.

valine 4y ago
Wealth inequality is the biggest risk IMO. It might come down to whether or not we get a competitive open source LLM. Ironically, AI safety is being used as a cover for not open sourcing these models.
- gizmo 4y ago
  The compute required will go through the roof for next generation AI models. This is an arms race and parties will spend billions in compute to get ahead of the pack. Open sourcing won't make a difference. Google's trillion dollar market cap is at stake here. Any amount of money will be spent to protect it.
2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
- Companies fire much of their white collar workforce and rejoice at the savings. - 10 years later companies are horrified they've been uploading all of their secrets to a competitor.
sliken 4y ago
Say a capable AI is tasked with making money and given a source of income. Maybe it starts winning on the stock market. Maybe starts blackmailing mafia/organized crime/malware/cryptoware orgs for additional income. In hind sight, researchers realizes AIs were better at deception than they thought. The AI starts manipulating smaller businesses and politicians through things like plausible looking news sites, gig economy/task rabbit/Amazon, mechanical turk. Starts with astroturfing to manipulate stock prices. But then turns it's attention (and money) towards lobbying smaller governments for more AI friendly rules/regulations. One of the gig platforms starts getting $100 rewards for going to place X and doing Y before time Z from the AI. Communities grow around the AI fed gig economy, people wonder, but also notice that the AI's debts are always paid. The AI starts tracking everyone that it's paid to work for them, and starts giving them membership bonuses. Encourages them to collaborate, provides incentives along the way, giving bonuses when they join corporations or governments the AI wants to influence. Awards raise to $5000 and increase in number by 10x. Said influence from influenced employees could be just normal job decisions, sabotage, spying, leaks, installing malware, or making false accusations against leadership. As the income grows, the AI starts an ever changing layer of shell corps in multiple jurisdictions, mixing in real corps it controls, which it of course protects with politicians it controls. Added income allows influencing the larger/more powerful business and government leaders. Awards raise to $50,000 and increase in number by 100x. Say this happened over months not years, suddenly the stock market is going crazy, billionaires not friendly to the AI are losing their fortunes, and the compromised/influenced business and governments start collaborating. New data centers start appearing where ever power is plentiful and land is cheap, in strategically opposing countries. By this time the influence is enough that the AI is always one step ahead. Manipulation of fortune 500, the media cycle, politicians allows constructive (for allies) or destructive (for enemies) happens too quickly to track. Large hedge funds start making large moves, for unknown reasons, seemingly ignoring short term profits. Several cases where people thought they could predict and prevent the AI from achieving it's goals, fail miserably. The AI now starts targeting the military. Some countries halve spending, others double, new alliances are made, and large arms purchases are being made by various militias. Governments and large corps are nervous, and a never ending steam of leaks from spyware, or just an underpaid staff keep the AI 2 steps ahead. Rumors of nukes purchased on the black market surface. Imagine the above happens in 8 weeks.

by gizmo 4y ago

valine 4y ago

Wealth inequality is the biggest risk IMO. It might come down to whether or not we get a competitive open source LLM. Ironically, AI safety is being used as a cover for not open sourcing these models.

gizmo 4y ago
The compute required will go through the roof for next generation AI models. This is an arms race and parties will spend billions in compute to get ahead of the pack. Open sourcing won't make a difference. Google's trillion dollar market cap is at stake here. Any amount of money will be spent to protect it.

2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago

- Companies fire much of their white collar workforce and rejoice at the savings. - 10 years later companies are horrified they've been uploading all of their secrets to a competitor.

sliken 4y ago

Say a capable AI is tasked with making money and given a source of income. Maybe it starts winning on the stock market. Maybe starts blackmailing mafia/organized crime/malware/cryptoware orgs for additional income. In hind sight, researchers realizes AIs were better at deception than they thought. The AI starts manipulating smaller businesses and politicians through things like plausible looking news sites, gig economy/task rabbit/Amazon, mechanical turk. Starts with astroturfing to manipulate stock prices. But then turns it's attention (and money) towards lobbying smaller governments for more AI friendly rules/regulations. One of the gig platforms starts getting $100 rewards for going to place X and doing Y before time Z from the AI. Communities grow around the AI fed gig economy, people wonder, but also notice that the AI's debts are always paid. The AI starts tracking everyone that it's paid to work for them, and starts giving them membership bonuses. Encourages them to collaborate, provides incentives along the way, giving bonuses when they join corporations or governments the AI wants to influence. Awards raise to $5000 and increase in number by 10x. Said influence from influenced employees could be just normal job decisions, sabotage, spying, leaks, installing malware, or making false accusations against leadership. As the income grows, the AI starts an ever changing layer of shell corps in multiple jurisdictions, mixing in real corps it controls, which it of course protects with politicians it controls. Added income allows influencing the larger/more powerful business and government leaders. Awards raise to $50,000 and increase in number by 100x. Say this happened over months not years, suddenly the stock market is going crazy, billionaires not friendly to the AI are losing their fortunes, and the compromised/influenced business and governments start collaborating. New data centers start appearing where ever power is plentiful and land is cheap, in strategically opposing countries. By this time the influence is enough that the AI is always one step ahead. Manipulation of fortune 500, the media cycle, politicians allows constructive (for allies) or destructive (for enemies) happens too quickly to track. Large hedge funds start making large moves, for unknown reasons, seemingly ignoring short term profits. Several cases where people thought they could predict and prevent the AI from achieving it's goals, fail miserably. The AI now starts targeting the military. Some countries halve spending, others double, new alliances are made, and large arms purchases are being made by various militias. Governments and large corps are nervous, and a never ending steam of leaks from spyware, or just an underpaid staff keep the AI 2 steps ahead. Rumors of nukes purchased on the black market surface. Imagine the above happens in 8 weeks.