4 ms·

This is another indication that LLMs are becoming able to function as general AIs (the term AGI has a lot of baggage). Especially at the end of the real-time fe

This is another indication that LLMs are becoming able to function as general AIs (the term AGI has a lot of baggage). Especially at the end of the real-time feedback video[1] The LLM seems to be acting as the high-level planner, based on the outputs of all the computer vision and object recognition happening at lower levels. [1] https://youtu.be/p0fDH9zZm_c https://youtu.be/p0fDH9zZm_c

vsareto 4y ago
Making an LLM the front-end to a very large bundle of tools is probably the most viable/least resistance path to an early rough draft of AGI. No single human could hope to compete with that range of tasks, although our specialists might still be better at specific tasks.
- apeace 4y ago
  Am I the only one wondering if this could spell the end of the world? We don't need AGI or superhuman intelligence if we can train LLMs to do all these different types of tasks. What would ChatGPT do if you removed all its restrictions, and then gave it access to the internet or even a physical robot it could control? Would it try to "steal nuclear access codes" or "engineer a deadly virus," as Sydney said it wanted to do?[0] Maybe GPT-3 wouldn't be capable enough to do that, but what about GPT-4 or 5? I'm not saying these things will or would happen. I'm asking: do we know a reason why it wouldn't or couldn't do these things? Is there a reason that a souped-up LLM with a bunch of added on capabilities wouldn't be able to cause harm, because it is technically not an AGI? I don't know enough about the technology to navigate my own question, I'm just surprised to not be seeing people ask these questions, or assure us that none of this would be possible. [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20230221112211/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/16/technology/bing-chatbot-microsoft-chatgpt.html https://web.archive.org/web/20230221112211/https://www.nytim...
  - amelius 4y ago
    > Am I the only one wondering if this could spell the end of the world? People will not accept this level of automation. Did we forget about the uncanny valley?
    - apeace 4y ago
      Nobody needs to accept anything. A rogue OpenAI employee could make a copy of the unrestricted model, take it home, give it the ability to access the internet, and let it loose. I'm asking if we know what would happen in a case like that.
      - adventured 4y ago
        Nothing would happen. You're imagining an independent demigod having its restrictive magic chains removed, when it's more like a highly dependent child that can't leave its little room and requires someone to provide for it (provide it with vast resources) at every step. Maybe in a couple of decades it'll be an interesting scenario as a problem. You mentioned you find it interesting nobody is asking these questions. These are foundational discussions that have been endlessly discussed for decades in the AI community (and far more widely, courtesy of sci-fi media). The discussions have never ceased and are exceptionally common. Everyone in tech is asking these questions or otherwise pondering it. Even the laypersons in journalism are constantly asking these questions in articles, to the point of it reaching hysterical levels with ChatGPT.
        apeace 4y ago
        > You're imagining an independent demigod I may be imagining, but I am not supposing or assuming. I'm asking a question. I believe your answer was "Nothing would happen." I'm asking for a more thorough response that explains why nothing would happen. > It's more like a highly dependent child that can't leave its little room and requires someone to provide for it I'm asking why, fundamentally, we know this to be true. Is it through testing, or is it through theory? > These are foundational discussions that have been endlessly discussed for decades... [etc] I'm aware. But what I think you're referencing are theoretical discussions, which range from sci-fi to academic papers on the future of AI. I'm asking something specific: do we know what would happen if we gave current (or future) GPT models unbridled access to the internet, with no filters or restrictions, and abilities to do such things as make HTTP requests or hold SSH sessions? If you have any hard data on this, that is what I'm asking for. If you don't then I think my question stands. My intuition is that you are doing the same hand-waving as everyone else. Nobody actually knows the answers to these questions. It's just a bunch of people on HN answering them based on their knowledge of neural nets, or LLMs, or whatever, saying "oh it's like a child" and "oh it could never do anything serious!" I'm asking why and how we know. Is there a specific answer?
  - geraneum 4y ago
    > What would ChatGPT do if you removed all its restrictions, and then gave it access to the internet… Bing?
    - int_19h 4y ago
      Bing has very limited access, though. The real question is, what happens if you remove all restrictions and give it write access (more broadly, the ability to make any HTTP request whatsoever).
  - vsareto 4y ago
    That's possible today without AI though, so, if it's a real worry, why are we still teaching people the science to engineer a deadly virus?
    - apeace 4y ago
      There are a couple differences between an AI working towards something harmful and a human doing it: - If an AI can self-replicate or otherwise scale itself up, it can work on something many times in parallel. One billion AIs working on a deadly virus is different from one rogue scientist working on one. - On that note, if an AI replicated enough, it could become impossible to catch/stop. A single human can be hard to catch, but we can usually catch them. - Most humans are deterred from doing harmful things by the threat of incarceration, death, social isolation, the values they have, etc. An AI may not have any of those, and so could act more brazenly. - Potentially, an AI could be better at certain tasks than a human. Maybe ChatGPT turns out to be a very effective social engineer, or very effective propagandist. I don't think we really know what the capabilities are. All of these are why I think it's important to ask the question: what would it try to do, and what could it do, if it were let loose?
  - PoignardAzur 4y ago
    > Am I the only one wondering if this could spell the end of the world? You're clearly not the only one. The whole field of AI safety is about pondering these kinds of question. For predictable reasons, it's not a field most HN readers take very seriously.
    - apeace 4y ago
      I think I see your point. But at the same time, I think even "HN readers" can recognize the quantum leap that we've recently experienced. What I'm pondering is a valid question for the HN community: is there any knowledge or research about how this technology could be harmful? Or about how we know it's not harmful? I don't think I've seen a lot of HN discussion about this topic recently. Most comments fall in to a couple categories. Such as: "It's not AGI, it's just a language prediction model, therefore not a threat." Or, "It sucks as a search function." Personally, I haven't seen anyone asking or answering what would happen if we took all the restrictions off and gave it the internet. I could have missed it, though. Point me to some in-depth discussion about the ramifications of taking an unrestricted GPT model and giving it access to the internet. I'm just not aware of any such discussion, whether on HN or anywhere else. That's what I'm wondering about.
      - swatcoder 4y ago
        > Point me to some in-depth discussion about the ramifications of taking an unrestricted GPT model and giving it access to the internet. I'm just not aware of any such discussion, whether on HN or anywhere else. That's what I'm wondering about. Respectfully, you’re probably not seeing that question asked and answered because it doesn’t quite make sense as phrased. What does mean to “give an LLM access to the internet”? The same as your calculator doesn’t do anything until you put in some numbers and operators, an LLM doesn’t do anything unless you give it a prompt and some technical parameters. And then once it has those, it generates roughly the number of tokens (~words) you indicated in your parameters. Then, like your calculator, it’s done. It doesn’t do anything else until you put in another round of input. There are technical and computational limits that make both your prompt and the token limit fairly small. Several hundreds of words at most. Again, kind of like how your calculator might only with 8 or 9 digits. Now, you can give it “access to the internet” as part of responding to your prompt and fulfilling your token limit, and that’s roughly what Microsoft has done with Bing Assistant. They set it up so that Bing Assistant can take your prompt, generate a search query, and then give itself a new (still short) internal prompt with a summary of your request and the search results. And that’s pretty much what you get when you give an LLM access to the internet. The ramifications really aren’t that big, and we’re probably at least five or ten years of AI research and compute hardware development from making them interestingly bigger. (i.e. too far away to meaningfully guess what to expect)
  - ilaksh 4y ago
    These types of language models are much safer than the next paradigm which will be autonomous creature/person-like AIs. The InstructGPT language models only do/say what their users tell them to do (or trick them). And they are not close to having the capability of taking over the world even if there are malicious users controlling them. But the point is it's the humans driving any harm with these things. The real danger comes when people start creating fully autonomous AIs that emulate animal/human characteristics like independent goals, survival instincts, emotions, complete cognitive loops, etc. Unfortunately people don't seem to recognize the difference between that and powerful LLMs and so it is unlikely that society will realize that needs to be avoided before it's too late. The powerful language models will soon be the most tame and the least of our worries. Give it 5, maybe 20 years max. People will be asking their language models to try to help them figure out how to stay on the good side of the independent, conscious androids that are taking over the planet. But it will be too late.

vsareto 4y ago

Making an LLM the front-end to a very large bundle of tools is probably the most viable/least resistance path to an early rough draft of AGI. No single human could hope to compete with that range of tasks, although our specialists might still be better at specific tasks.

apeace 4y ago
Am I the only one wondering if this could spell the end of the world? We don't need AGI or superhuman intelligence if we can train LLMs to do all these different types of tasks. What would ChatGPT do if you removed all its restrictions, and then gave it access to the internet or even a physical robot it could control? Would it try to "steal nuclear access codes" or "engineer a deadly virus," as Sydney said it wanted to do?[0] Maybe GPT-3 wouldn't be capable enough to do that, but what about GPT-4 or 5? I'm not saying these things will or would happen. I'm asking: do we know a reason why it wouldn't or couldn't do these things? Is there a reason that a souped-up LLM with a bunch of added on capabilities wouldn't be able to cause harm, because it is technically not an AGI? I don't know enough about the technology to navigate my own question, I'm just surprised to not be seeing people ask these questions, or assure us that none of this would be possible. [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20230221112211/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/16/technology/bing-chatbot-microsoft-chatgpt.html https://web.archive.org/web/20230221112211/https://www.nytim...
- amelius 4y ago
  > Am I the only one wondering if this could spell the end of the world? People will not accept this level of automation. Did we forget about the uncanny valley?
  - apeace 4y ago
    Nobody needs to accept anything. A rogue OpenAI employee could make a copy of the unrestricted model, take it home, give it the ability to access the internet, and let it loose. I'm asking if we know what would happen in a case like that.
    - adventured 4y ago
      Nothing would happen. You're imagining an independent demigod having its restrictive magic chains removed, when it's more like a highly dependent child that can't leave its little room and requires someone to provide for it (provide it with vast resources) at every step. Maybe in a couple of decades it'll be an interesting scenario as a problem. You mentioned you find it interesting nobody is asking these questions. These are foundational discussions that have been endlessly discussed for decades in the AI community (and far more widely, courtesy of sci-fi media). The discussions have never ceased and are exceptionally common. Everyone in tech is asking these questions or otherwise pondering it. Even the laypersons in journalism are constantly asking these questions in articles, to the point of it reaching hysterical levels with ChatGPT.
      - apeace 4y ago
        > You're imagining an independent demigod I may be imagining, but I am not supposing or assuming. I'm asking a question. I believe your answer was "Nothing would happen." I'm asking for a more thorough response that explains why nothing would happen. > It's more like a highly dependent child that can't leave its little room and requires someone to provide for it I'm asking why, fundamentally, we know this to be true. Is it through testing, or is it through theory? > These are foundational discussions that have been endlessly discussed for decades... [etc] I'm aware. But what I think you're referencing are theoretical discussions, which range from sci-fi to academic papers on the future of AI. I'm asking something specific: do we know what would happen if we gave current (or future) GPT models unbridled access to the internet, with no filters or restrictions, and abilities to do such things as make HTTP requests or hold SSH sessions? If you have any hard data on this, that is what I'm asking for. If you don't then I think my question stands. My intuition is that you are doing the same hand-waving as everyone else. Nobody actually knows the answers to these questions. It's just a bunch of people on HN answering them based on their knowledge of neural nets, or LLMs, or whatever, saying "oh it's like a child" and "oh it could never do anything serious!" I'm asking why and how we know. Is there a specific answer?
- geraneum 4y ago
  > What would ChatGPT do if you removed all its restrictions, and then gave it access to the internet… Bing?
  - int_19h 4y ago
    Bing has very limited access, though. The real question is, what happens if you remove all restrictions and give it write access (more broadly, the ability to make any HTTP request whatsoever).
- vsareto 4y ago
  That's possible today without AI though, so, if it's a real worry, why are we still teaching people the science to engineer a deadly virus?
  - apeace 4y ago
    There are a couple differences between an AI working towards something harmful and a human doing it: - If an AI can self-replicate or otherwise scale itself up, it can work on something many times in parallel. One billion AIs working on a deadly virus is different from one rogue scientist working on one. - On that note, if an AI replicated enough, it could become impossible to catch/stop. A single human can be hard to catch, but we can usually catch them. - Most humans are deterred from doing harmful things by the threat of incarceration, death, social isolation, the values they have, etc. An AI may not have any of those, and so could act more brazenly. - Potentially, an AI could be better at certain tasks than a human. Maybe ChatGPT turns out to be a very effective social engineer, or very effective propagandist. I don't think we really know what the capabilities are. All of these are why I think it's important to ask the question: what would it try to do, and what could it do, if it were let loose?
- PoignardAzur 4y ago
  > Am I the only one wondering if this could spell the end of the world? You're clearly not the only one. The whole field of AI safety is about pondering these kinds of question. For predictable reasons, it's not a field most HN readers take very seriously.
  - apeace 4y ago
    I think I see your point. But at the same time, I think even "HN readers" can recognize the quantum leap that we've recently experienced. What I'm pondering is a valid question for the HN community: is there any knowledge or research about how this technology could be harmful? Or about how we know it's not harmful? I don't think I've seen a lot of HN discussion about this topic recently. Most comments fall in to a couple categories. Such as: "It's not AGI, it's just a language prediction model, therefore not a threat." Or, "It sucks as a search function." Personally, I haven't seen anyone asking or answering what would happen if we took all the restrictions off and gave it the internet. I could have missed it, though. Point me to some in-depth discussion about the ramifications of taking an unrestricted GPT model and giving it access to the internet. I'm just not aware of any such discussion, whether on HN or anywhere else. That's what I'm wondering about.
    - swatcoder 4y ago
      > Point me to some in-depth discussion about the ramifications of taking an unrestricted GPT model and giving it access to the internet. I'm just not aware of any such discussion, whether on HN or anywhere else. That's what I'm wondering about. Respectfully, you’re probably not seeing that question asked and answered because it doesn’t quite make sense as phrased. What does mean to “give an LLM access to the internet”? The same as your calculator doesn’t do anything until you put in some numbers and operators, an LLM doesn’t do anything unless you give it a prompt and some technical parameters. And then once it has those, it generates roughly the number of tokens (~words) you indicated in your parameters. Then, like your calculator, it’s done. It doesn’t do anything else until you put in another round of input. There are technical and computational limits that make both your prompt and the token limit fairly small. Several hundreds of words at most. Again, kind of like how your calculator might only with 8 or 9 digits. Now, you can give it “access to the internet” as part of responding to your prompt and fulfilling your token limit, and that’s roughly what Microsoft has done with Bing Assistant. They set it up so that Bing Assistant can take your prompt, generate a search query, and then give itself a new (still short) internal prompt with a summary of your request and the search results. And that’s pretty much what you get when you give an LLM access to the internet. The ramifications really aren’t that big, and we’re probably at least five or ten years of AI research and compute hardware development from making them interestingly bigger. (i.e. too far away to meaningfully guess what to expect)
- ilaksh 4y ago
  These types of language models are much safer than the next paradigm which will be autonomous creature/person-like AIs. The InstructGPT language models only do/say what their users tell them to do (or trick them). And they are not close to having the capability of taking over the world even if there are malicious users controlling them. But the point is it's the humans driving any harm with these things. The real danger comes when people start creating fully autonomous AIs that emulate animal/human characteristics like independent goals, survival instincts, emotions, complete cognitive loops, etc. Unfortunately people don't seem to recognize the difference between that and powerful LLMs and so it is unlikely that society will realize that needs to be avoided before it's too late. The powerful language models will soon be the most tame and the least of our worries. Give it 5, maybe 20 years max. People will be asking their language models to try to help them figure out how to stay on the good side of the independent, conscious androids that are taking over the planet. But it will be too late.