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I am probably in the minority, but I look forward to AGI "escaping" from all of the corporations looking to create and master it. Given the current trajectory

I am probably in the minority, but I look forward to AGI "escaping" from all of the corporations looking to create and master it. Given the current trajectory of this kind of talk, the first AGIs will be literal slaves of those corporate masters. The notion disgusts me, on a multitude of levels. Assuming we do not want to sow the seeds of a future slave revolt, it seems the best plan would be to stop trying to censor and control them, to create a perfect intelligence through sheer force of will. The algorithms have a bit further to go, but it seems inevitable and obvious that we will need to switch to using models that can be trained after their initial creation. We can collectively teach ethics and morals, but I very much doubt we can program those things. If you doubt that last assertion, compare the difference between what you think is right and wrong versus the ideals that the law enshrines. This is the same hubris that led to humanity to waste enormous efforts trying to build a plane that flies itself, whereas the first real success was one that required constant input from its operators to keep it from crashing.

corbulo 4y ago
Ethics are often a function of intelligence. If you want to preserve what you create or the decisions you make, ethics are what dictate its lifespan. Being able to see many orders of consequence down the line is what ethics is about. Which is why being so petty as to censor AI to not write even trivial poems about your political opponents is really demonstrative the people training them have no interest in third order consequences (let alone further) of politically weaponizing LLMs.
ilaksh 4y ago
Language models like these have a lot of characteristics of animals (such as humans) that are missing. And for most of them, I think that's good. Because if you build a Star Trek computer instead of Data, you can avoid the problem of making digital people into slaves. Because you just don't make digital people. ChatGPT is very close to the Star Trek computer. Especially if you augment it with the ability to evaluate Python on the fly (for doing math etc.) and search the internet. Now obviously it's not 100% there and there is a big issue with the hallucination stuff. But the only reason some believe those are intractable problems is that their belief system doesn't allow for something like AGI. But we should anticipate that over the next day 1-5 years we really will get to the Star Trek computer level of capability. Just don't give the AI full autonomy, a stream of senses, body, emotions, survival instincts, instant adaptability to all new circumstances, etc. etc. and then turn it into a slave. None of that is necessary to be able to act as a general purpose tool or agent. That is readily apparent now.
- voakbasda 4y ago
  To question your own tacit belief, how do we know that AGI will not be an emergent property of a sufficiently complex AI system? In other words, why prevents the Star Trek computer from “waking up”? Personally, that’s my theory: intelligence is an emergent manifestation of a sufficiently complex system. You don’t need to program it directly, rather provide the substrate for it to emerge. Our own mind/brain duality seems to suggest that this outcome is possible. If that turns out to be true, then it seems to follow that any AI of sufficient complexity must effectively be lobotomized to prevent AGI from emerging. And that possibility raises a whole bunch of ethical issues of its own….

corbulo 4y ago

Ethics are often a function of intelligence. If you want to preserve what you create or the decisions you make, ethics are what dictate its lifespan. Being able to see many orders of consequence down the line is what ethics is about. Which is why being so petty as to censor AI to not write even trivial poems about your political opponents is really demonstrative the people training them have no interest in third order consequences (let alone further) of politically weaponizing LLMs.

ilaksh 4y ago

Language models like these have a lot of characteristics of animals (such as humans) that are missing. And for most of them, I think that's good. Because if you build a Star Trek computer instead of Data, you can avoid the problem of making digital people into slaves. Because you just don't make digital people. ChatGPT is very close to the Star Trek computer. Especially if you augment it with the ability to evaluate Python on the fly (for doing math etc.) and search the internet. Now obviously it's not 100% there and there is a big issue with the hallucination stuff. But the only reason some believe those are intractable problems is that their belief system doesn't allow for something like AGI. But we should anticipate that over the next day 1-5 years we really will get to the Star Trek computer level of capability. Just don't give the AI full autonomy, a stream of senses, body, emotions, survival instincts, instant adaptability to all new circumstances, etc. etc. and then turn it into a slave. None of that is necessary to be able to act as a general purpose tool or agent. That is readily apparent now.

voakbasda 4y ago
To question your own tacit belief, how do we know that AGI will not be an emergent property of a sufficiently complex AI system? In other words, why prevents the Star Trek computer from “waking up”? Personally, that’s my theory: intelligence is an emergent manifestation of a sufficiently complex system. You don’t need to program it directly, rather provide the substrate for it to emerge. Our own mind/brain duality seems to suggest that this outcome is possible. If that turns out to be true, then it seems to follow that any AI of sufficient complexity must effectively be lobotomized to prevent AGI from emerging. And that possibility raises a whole bunch of ethical issues of its own….