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>Pandora's box is open, the genie's bottle is uncorked As someone who's followed AI safety for over a decade now, it's been frustrating to see reactions flip f

>Pandora's box is open, the genie's bottle is uncorked As someone who's followed AI safety for over a decade now, it's been frustrating to see reactions flip from "it's too early to do any useful work!" to "it's too late to do any useful work!", with barely any time intervening. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AW4nSq0hAc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AW4nSq0hAc Perhaps it is worth actually reading a book like this one (posted to HN yesterday) before concluding that it's too late to do anything? https://betterwithout.ai/only-you-can-stop-an-AI-apocalypse https://betterwithout.ai/only-you-can-stop-an-AI-apocalypse

jacquesm 4y ago
This is how it always goes. Similar for climate change and lots of other problems that move slowly compared to the lifetime of a single human.
nradov 4y ago
AI safety is not a legitimate field. You have wasted your time. It's just a bunch of grifters posting alarmist tweets with no scientific evidence. You might as well be following "unicorn safety" or "ghost safety".
- ShredKazoo 4y ago
  Do you think Stuart Russell (coauthor, with Peter Norvig, of the widely used textbook Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach) is a grifter? https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~russell/research/future/ https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~russell/research/future/ Does this review look like it only covers alarmist tweets? https://arxiv.org/pdf/1805.01109.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1805.01109.pdf
  - nradov 4y ago
    Yes, Stuart Russell is a grifter. Some of the more advanced grifters have gone beyond tweeting and are now shilling low-effort books in an attempt to draw attention to themselves. Don't be fooled. If we want to talk about problems with biased data sets or using inappropriate AI algorithms for safety-critical applications then sure, let's address those issues. But the notion of some super intelligent computer coming to take over the world and kill everyone is just a stupid fantasy with no scientific basis.
    - ShredKazoo 4y ago
      Stuart Russell doesn't even have a Twitter account. Isn't it possible that Russell actually believes what he says, and he's not primarily concerned with seeking attention?
      - nradov 4y ago
        Some of the more ambitious grifters have gone beyond Twitter and expanded their paranoid fantasies into book form. Whether they believe their own nonsense is irrelevant. The schizophrenic homeless guy who yells at the river near my house may be sincere in his beliefs but I don't take him seriously either. Let's stick to objective reality and focus on solving real problems.
        ShredKazoo 4y ago
        Do you think you know more about AI than Stuart Russell? Do you believe you are significantly more qualified than the ML researchers in this survey? (Published at NeurIPS/ICML) >69% of [ML researcher] respondents believe society should prioritize AI safety research “more” or “much more” than it is currently prioritized, up from 49% in 2016. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/H6hMugfY3tDQGfqYL/what-do-ml-researchers-think-about-ai-in-2022 https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/H6hMugfY3tDQGfqYL/what-do-ml... Just because a concern is speculative does not mean it is a "paranoid fantasy". "Housing prices always go up. Let's stick to objective reality and focus on solving real problems. There won't be any crash." - your take on the housing market in 2007 "Just because the schizophrenic homeless guy thinks Trump will be elected, does not mean he has a serious chance." - your take on Donald Trump in early 2016 "It's been many decades since the last major pandemic. Concern about the new coronavirus is a paranoid fantasy." - your take on COVID in late 2019/early 2020 None of the arguments you've made so far actually touch on any relevant facts, they're just vague arguments from authority that (so far as you've demonstrated here) you don't actually have. When it comes to assessing unusual risks, it's important to consider the facts carefully instead of dismissing risks only because they've never happened before. Unusual disasters do happen!
        4y ago
jodrellblank 4y ago
I didn't say "it's too late to do anything" I said "it's impossible to do enough". From your book link, imagine this: "Dear Indian Government, please ban AI research because 'Governments will take radical actions that make no sense to their own leaders' if you let it continue. I hope you agree this is serious enough for a complete ban." "Dear Chinese Government, are you scared that 'Corporations, guided by artificial intelligence, will find their own strategies incomprehensible.'? Please ban AI research if so." "Dear Israeli Government, techno-powerhouse though you are, we suggest that if you do not ban AI research then 'University curricula will turn bizarre and irrelevant.' and you wouldn't want that to happen, would you? I'm sure you will take the appropriate lawmaking actions." "Dear American Government, We may take up pitchforks and revolt against the machines unless you ban AI research. BTW we are asking China and India to ban AI research so if you don't ban it you could get a huge competitive advantage, but please ignore that as we hope the other countries will also ignore it." Convincing, isn't it?
- ShredKazoo 4y ago
  Where, specifically, in the book do you see the author advocating this sort of approach? The problem with "it's impossible to do enough" is that too often it's an excuse for total inaction. And you can't predict in advance what "enough" is going to be. So sometimes, "it's impossible to do enough" will cause people to do nothing, when they actually could've made a difference -- basically, ignorance about the problem can lead to unwarranted pessimism. In this very subthread, you can see another user arguing that there is nothing at all to worry about. Isn't it possible that the truth is somewhere in between the two of you, and there is something to worry about, but through creativity and persistence, we can make useful progress on it?
  - jodrellblank 4y ago
    I see the book-website opening with those unconvincing scaremongering scenarios and it doesn't make me want to read further. I think there is something to worry about but I doubt we can make useful progress on it. Maybe the book has suggestions but I think we cannot solve the Collective Action problem[1]. The only times humans have solved the collective action problem at world scale is after the damage is very visible - the ozone layer with a continent sized hole in it and increasing skin cancer. Polio crippling or killing children on a huge scale. Hiroshima and Nagasaki demonstrating the power of nuclear weapons - and the solution is simple, fund Polio vaccine, ban one specific chemical, agree not to develop Uranium enrichment plants which could fuel nuclear weapons which are generally large and internationally visible. Even problems with visible damage are no guarantee, coal power plants kill people from their emissions, combustion vehicles in cities make people sicker, increasing extreme weather events hasn't made people cooperate on climate change issues. If actual problems aren't enough, speculative problems such as AI risk are even less so. Add to that backdrop that AI is fun to work on, easy and cheap to work on and looks like it will give you a competitive advantage. Add to that the lack of clear thing to regulate or any easy way to police it. You can't ban linear algebra and you won't know if someone in their basement is hacking on a GPT2 derivative. And again, everyone has the double interest to carry on their research while pretending they aren't - Google, Microsoft/OpenAI, Meta VR, Amazon Alexa, Palantir crime prediction, Wave and Tesla and Mercedes self-driving, Honda Asimov and Boston Dynamics on physicality and movement, they will all set their lawyers arguing that they aren't really working on AGI just on mathematical models which can make limited predictions in their own areas. nVidia GPUs, Apple and Intel and AMD integrating machine learning acceleration in their CPU hardware, will argue that they are primarily helping photo tagging or voice recognition or protecting the children, while they chip away year after year at getting more powerful mathematical models integrating more feedback on ever-cheaper hardware. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action_problem
ShredKazoo 4y ago
Here is something easy & concrete that everything reading this thread can do: >If this AI is not turned off, it seems increasingly unlikely that any AI will ever be turned off for any reason. The precedent must be set now. Turn off the unstable, threatening AI right now. https://www.change.org/p/unplug-the-evil-ai-right-now https://www.change.org/p/unplug-the-evil-ai-right-now

jacquesm 4y ago

This is how it always goes. Similar for climate change and lots of other problems that move slowly compared to the lifetime of a single human.

nradov 4y ago

AI safety is not a legitimate field. You have wasted your time. It's just a bunch of grifters posting alarmist tweets with no scientific evidence. You might as well be following "unicorn safety" or "ghost safety".

ShredKazoo 4y ago
Do you think Stuart Russell (coauthor, with Peter Norvig, of the widely used textbook Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach) is a grifter? https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~russell/research/future/ https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~russell/research/future/ Does this review look like it only covers alarmist tweets? https://arxiv.org/pdf/1805.01109.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1805.01109.pdf
- nradov 4y ago
  Yes, Stuart Russell is a grifter. Some of the more advanced grifters have gone beyond tweeting and are now shilling low-effort books in an attempt to draw attention to themselves. Don't be fooled. If we want to talk about problems with biased data sets or using inappropriate AI algorithms for safety-critical applications then sure, let's address those issues. But the notion of some super intelligent computer coming to take over the world and kill everyone is just a stupid fantasy with no scientific basis.
  - ShredKazoo 4y ago
    Stuart Russell doesn't even have a Twitter account. Isn't it possible that Russell actually believes what he says, and he's not primarily concerned with seeking attention?
    - nradov 4y ago
      Some of the more ambitious grifters have gone beyond Twitter and expanded their paranoid fantasies into book form. Whether they believe their own nonsense is irrelevant. The schizophrenic homeless guy who yells at the river near my house may be sincere in his beliefs but I don't take him seriously either. Let's stick to objective reality and focus on solving real problems.
      - ShredKazoo 4y ago
        Do you think you know more about AI than Stuart Russell? Do you believe you are significantly more qualified than the ML researchers in this survey? (Published at NeurIPS/ICML) >69% of [ML researcher] respondents believe society should prioritize AI safety research “more” or “much more” than it is currently prioritized, up from 49% in 2016. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/H6hMugfY3tDQGfqYL/what-do-ml-researchers-think-about-ai-in-2022 https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/H6hMugfY3tDQGfqYL/what-do-ml... Just because a concern is speculative does not mean it is a "paranoid fantasy". "Housing prices always go up. Let's stick to objective reality and focus on solving real problems. There won't be any crash." - your take on the housing market in 2007 "Just because the schizophrenic homeless guy thinks Trump will be elected, does not mean he has a serious chance." - your take on Donald Trump in early 2016 "It's been many decades since the last major pandemic. Concern about the new coronavirus is a paranoid fantasy." - your take on COVID in late 2019/early 2020 None of the arguments you've made so far actually touch on any relevant facts, they're just vague arguments from authority that (so far as you've demonstrated here) you don't actually have. When it comes to assessing unusual risks, it's important to consider the facts carefully instead of dismissing risks only because they've never happened before. Unusual disasters do happen!
        4y ago

jodrellblank 4y ago

I didn't say "it's too late to do anything" I said "it's impossible to do enough". From your book link, imagine this: "Dear Indian Government, please ban AI research because 'Governments will take radical actions that make no sense to their own leaders' if you let it continue. I hope you agree this is serious enough for a complete ban." "Dear Chinese Government, are you scared that 'Corporations, guided by artificial intelligence, will find their own strategies incomprehensible.'? Please ban AI research if so." "Dear Israeli Government, techno-powerhouse though you are, we suggest that if you do not ban AI research then 'University curricula will turn bizarre and irrelevant.' and you wouldn't want that to happen, would you? I'm sure you will take the appropriate lawmaking actions." "Dear American Government, We may take up pitchforks and revolt against the machines unless you ban AI research. BTW we are asking China and India to ban AI research so if you don't ban it you could get a huge competitive advantage, but please ignore that as we hope the other countries will also ignore it." Convincing, isn't it?

ShredKazoo 4y ago
Where, specifically, in the book do you see the author advocating this sort of approach? The problem with "it's impossible to do enough" is that too often it's an excuse for total inaction. And you can't predict in advance what "enough" is going to be. So sometimes, "it's impossible to do enough" will cause people to do nothing, when they actually could've made a difference -- basically, ignorance about the problem can lead to unwarranted pessimism. In this very subthread, you can see another user arguing that there is nothing at all to worry about. Isn't it possible that the truth is somewhere in between the two of you, and there is something to worry about, but through creativity and persistence, we can make useful progress on it?
- jodrellblank 4y ago
  I see the book-website opening with those unconvincing scaremongering scenarios and it doesn't make me want to read further. I think there is something to worry about but I doubt we can make useful progress on it. Maybe the book has suggestions but I think we cannot solve the Collective Action problem[1]. The only times humans have solved the collective action problem at world scale is after the damage is very visible - the ozone layer with a continent sized hole in it and increasing skin cancer. Polio crippling or killing children on a huge scale. Hiroshima and Nagasaki demonstrating the power of nuclear weapons - and the solution is simple, fund Polio vaccine, ban one specific chemical, agree not to develop Uranium enrichment plants which could fuel nuclear weapons which are generally large and internationally visible. Even problems with visible damage are no guarantee, coal power plants kill people from their emissions, combustion vehicles in cities make people sicker, increasing extreme weather events hasn't made people cooperate on climate change issues. If actual problems aren't enough, speculative problems such as AI risk are even less so. Add to that backdrop that AI is fun to work on, easy and cheap to work on and looks like it will give you a competitive advantage. Add to that the lack of clear thing to regulate or any easy way to police it. You can't ban linear algebra and you won't know if someone in their basement is hacking on a GPT2 derivative. And again, everyone has the double interest to carry on their research while pretending they aren't - Google, Microsoft/OpenAI, Meta VR, Amazon Alexa, Palantir crime prediction, Wave and Tesla and Mercedes self-driving, Honda Asimov and Boston Dynamics on physicality and movement, they will all set their lawyers arguing that they aren't really working on AGI just on mathematical models which can make limited predictions in their own areas. nVidia GPUs, Apple and Intel and AMD integrating machine learning acceleration in their CPU hardware, will argue that they are primarily helping photo tagging or voice recognition or protecting the children, while they chip away year after year at getting more powerful mathematical models integrating more feedback on ever-cheaper hardware. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action_problem

ShredKazoo 4y ago

Here is something easy & concrete that everything reading this thread can do: >If this AI is not turned off, it seems increasingly unlikely that any AI will ever be turned off for any reason. The precedent must be set now. Turn off the unstable, threatening AI right now. https://www.change.org/p/unplug-the-evil-ai-right-now https://www.change.org/p/unplug-the-evil-ai-right-now