5 ms·

As an AI doomer, it would actually be pretty great if we could get this stuff locked away behind costly APIs and censorship. Some fat monopoly rent-extracting t

As an AI doomer, it would actually be pretty great if we could get this stuff locked away behind costly APIs and censorship. Some fat monopoly rent-extracting too. We are moving way too fast on this tech, and the competitive race dynamics are a big reason why. I want LLMs to end up with Microsoft IE6 level of progress. Preferably we could make Firefox (SD/GPT-J) illegal too. (The GPU scarcity is a good start, but maybe China could attack Taiwan as well and thus torpedo everybody's chipbuilding for a decade or so?) If LLMs keep going at their current pace and spread, the world is seriously going to end in a few years. This technology is already unsafe, and it's unsafe in exactly the ways that it'll be seriously unsafe as it scales up further - it doesn't understand and doesn't execute human ethics, and nobody has any working plan how to change that.

dragonwriter 4y ago
> As an AI doomer, it would actually be pretty great if we could get this stuff locked away behind costly APIs and censorship. Yes, because the only people with access to advanced AI tech being the people whose motive is using and training it for domination over others (whether megacorps or megagovernments) is absolutely a great way to prevent any “AI doom” scenarios.
- FeepingCreature 4y ago
  If one party could use LLMs to reliably dominate others, the alignment problem would be basically solved. Right now, one of the biggest corporations of the planet cannot get LLMs to reliably avoid telling people to commit suicide despite months (years?) of actively trying.
arbitrary_name 4y ago
To me it's the American guns ownership situation: if you make guns illegal now, criminals and governments will still keep them, but your average joe won't get them. A very unequal playing field. LLMs will be used against us: let's at least have our own, and learn how to defend against them? i say this as devil's advocate, with serious reservations about where all of this is going.
- FeepingCreature 4y ago
  It'll eventually get broad use, sure, but this is more about playing for time. The issue is the very uneven progress between capabilities and safety. I don't want only government to use them because I trust the government but because I know the government to be sclerotic and uninnovative. If only governments use them, they'll progress a lot more slowly.
amval 4y ago
> If LLMs keep going at their current pace and spread, the world is seriously going to end in a few years Why?
- aprilnya 4y ago
  If you read the words right after the part you quoted, you have your answer
  - kobalsky 4y ago
    you could assume that your commenter didn't read the whole line or your could try to understand that what they are asking is why you think that the lack of ethics enforcement of a text generating model means that the world is ending.
    - FeepingCreature 4y ago
      Personally, my take is that the lack of ethics enforcement demonstrates that whatever methods of controlling or guiding a LLM we have break down even at the current level. OA have been grinding on adversarial examples for like half a year at this point and there's still jailbreak prompts coming out. Whatever they thought they had for safety, it clearly doesn't work, so why would we expect it to work better as AIs get smarter and more reflective? I don't think the prompt moralizing that companies are trying to do right now is in any sense critical to safety. However, the fact that these companies, no matter what they try, cannot avoid painfully embarrassing themselves, speaks against the success of attempts to scale these methods to bigger models, if they can't even control what they have right now. LLMs right now have a significant "power overhang" vs control, and focusing on bigger, better models will only exacerbate it. That's the safety issue.
  - amval 4y ago
    Well, from my perspective, making claims about the world ending requires some substantial backing, which I didn't find in OP's comment. But now I understand that perhaps this is self-evident and/or due to a lack of reading comprehension on my part, thank you. I hope that when our new AI overlords come they appreciate people capable of self-reflection.
thfuran 4y ago
>but maybe China could attack Taiwan as well Speaking of things that would be terrible for the world...
zirgs 4y ago
How are you going to make this tech illegal? Raid everyone's home and check if they have it on their computer? Treat AI models like CSAM or something?
ImprobableTruth 4y ago
Big Tech on its own will already push this technology very far and they don't give a damn about safety, only the optics of it. I'm not convinced that small actors will do much damage even if they access to capable models. I do think there's at least the possibility that essential safety work will arise from this.
antifa 4y ago
> As an AI doomer, it would actually be pretty great if we could get this stuff locked away behind costly APIs and censorship. That is literally the doom scenario for me, rich people get unlimited access to spam and misinformation tools while the lower class gets fucked.
- the8472 4y ago
  For smaller values of doom. The one he's talking about is unaligned AGI doing to humans what humans did to Xerces blue.
  - pharke 4y ago
    LLMs will never be AGI
    - the8472 4y ago
      It's like saying an 8086 will never be able to render photorealistic graphics in realtime. They fuel the investment in technology and research that will likely lead there.
    - oceanplexian 4y ago
      I see only two outcomes at this point. LLMs evolve into AGI or they evolve into something perceptually indistinguishable from AGI. Either way the result is the same and we’re just arguing semantics.
      - pharke 4y ago
        Explain how a language model can “evolve” into AGI.
- gnramires 4y ago
  Agreed. A single company dominating AGI could become highly dominant, and it might start to want to cut back humans in the loop (think it starts automating everything everywhere). The thing we should watch for is whether our civilization as a whole is maximizing for meaning and wellbeing of (sentient) beings, or just concentrating power and creating profit. We need to be wary, vigilant of megacorporations (and also corporations in general). See also: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/zdKrgxwhE5pTiDpDm/practical-ai-risk-i-watching-large-compute https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/zdKrgxwhE5pTiDpDm/practical-...
pharke 4y ago
Could’ve said the same for any major technological advance. Luddism is not a solution. If these models are easily run on a laptop then yes some people are going to hurt themselves or others but we already have laws that deal with people doing bad things. The world is not going to end though. Your Taiwan scenario has a much higher probability of ending the world than this yet you seem unconcerned about that.

dragonwriter 4y ago

> As an AI doomer, it would actually be pretty great if we could get this stuff locked away behind costly APIs and censorship. Yes, because the only people with access to advanced AI tech being the people whose motive is using and training it for domination over others (whether megacorps or megagovernments) is absolutely a great way to prevent any “AI doom” scenarios.

FeepingCreature 4y ago
If one party could use LLMs to reliably dominate others, the alignment problem would be basically solved. Right now, one of the biggest corporations of the planet cannot get LLMs to reliably avoid telling people to commit suicide despite months (years?) of actively trying.

arbitrary_name 4y ago

To me it's the American guns ownership situation: if you make guns illegal now, criminals and governments will still keep them, but your average joe won't get them. A very unequal playing field. LLMs will be used against us: let's at least have our own, and learn how to defend against them? i say this as devil's advocate, with serious reservations about where all of this is going.

FeepingCreature 4y ago
It'll eventually get broad use, sure, but this is more about playing for time. The issue is the very uneven progress between capabilities and safety. I don't want only government to use them because I trust the government but because I know the government to be sclerotic and uninnovative. If only governments use them, they'll progress a lot more slowly.

amval 4y ago

> If LLMs keep going at their current pace and spread, the world is seriously going to end in a few years Why?

aprilnya 4y ago
If you read the words right after the part you quoted, you have your answer
- kobalsky 4y ago
  you could assume that your commenter didn't read the whole line or your could try to understand that what they are asking is why you think that the lack of ethics enforcement of a text generating model means that the world is ending.
  - FeepingCreature 4y ago
    Personally, my take is that the lack of ethics enforcement demonstrates that whatever methods of controlling or guiding a LLM we have break down even at the current level. OA have been grinding on adversarial examples for like half a year at this point and there's still jailbreak prompts coming out. Whatever they thought they had for safety, it clearly doesn't work, so why would we expect it to work better as AIs get smarter and more reflective? I don't think the prompt moralizing that companies are trying to do right now is in any sense critical to safety. However, the fact that these companies, no matter what they try, cannot avoid painfully embarrassing themselves, speaks against the success of attempts to scale these methods to bigger models, if they can't even control what they have right now. LLMs right now have a significant "power overhang" vs control, and focusing on bigger, better models will only exacerbate it. That's the safety issue.
- amval 4y ago
  Well, from my perspective, making claims about the world ending requires some substantial backing, which I didn't find in OP's comment. But now I understand that perhaps this is self-evident and/or due to a lack of reading comprehension on my part, thank you. I hope that when our new AI overlords come they appreciate people capable of self-reflection.

thfuran 4y ago

>but maybe China could attack Taiwan as well Speaking of things that would be terrible for the world...

zirgs 4y ago

How are you going to make this tech illegal? Raid everyone's home and check if they have it on their computer? Treat AI models like CSAM or something?

ImprobableTruth 4y ago

Big Tech on its own will already push this technology very far and they don't give a damn about safety, only the optics of it. I'm not convinced that small actors will do much damage even if they access to capable models. I do think there's at least the possibility that essential safety work will arise from this.

antifa 4y ago

> As an AI doomer, it would actually be pretty great if we could get this stuff locked away behind costly APIs and censorship. That is literally the doom scenario for me, rich people get unlimited access to spam and misinformation tools while the lower class gets fucked.

the8472 4y ago
For smaller values of doom. The one he's talking about is unaligned AGI doing to humans what humans did to Xerces blue.
- pharke 4y ago
  LLMs will never be AGI
  - the8472 4y ago
    It's like saying an 8086 will never be able to render photorealistic graphics in realtime. They fuel the investment in technology and research that will likely lead there.
  - oceanplexian 4y ago
    I see only two outcomes at this point. LLMs evolve into AGI or they evolve into something perceptually indistinguishable from AGI. Either way the result is the same and we’re just arguing semantics.
    - pharke 4y ago
      Explain how a language model can “evolve” into AGI.
gnramires 4y ago
Agreed. A single company dominating AGI could become highly dominant, and it might start to want to cut back humans in the loop (think it starts automating everything everywhere). The thing we should watch for is whether our civilization as a whole is maximizing for meaning and wellbeing of (sentient) beings, or just concentrating power and creating profit. We need to be wary, vigilant of megacorporations (and also corporations in general). See also: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/zdKrgxwhE5pTiDpDm/practical-ai-risk-i-watching-large-compute https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/zdKrgxwhE5pTiDpDm/practical-...

pharke 4y ago

Could’ve said the same for any major technological advance. Luddism is not a solution. If these models are easily run on a laptop then yes some people are going to hurt themselves or others but we already have laws that deal with people doing bad things. The world is not going to end though. Your Taiwan scenario has a much higher probability of ending the world than this yet you seem unconcerned about that.