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> Near the end of his column, he offers a pretty radical prescription. “One of two things must happen. Humanity needs to accelerate its adaptation to these tech

• Footkerchief 4y ago
  Those other technologies do not require huge amounts of computing power, which provides a point of interdiction.
  • radlad 4y ago
    Bitcoin begs to differ.
    • permo-w 4y ago
      we’re talking about development, not usage it doesn’t take masses of processing power to develop a crypto coin. or really any at all. it’s just a bunch of network calls combined with a hash function. any old idiot can develop one on a device with an IDE and access to the internet yes, mining them can use a load of compute, but that’s not the point
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  • Mindwipe 4y ago
    Given LLAMA runs enough to be interesting on a Macbook I'm not sure this is going to be a fundamental limitation, and if it's one today it's certainly within the order of magnitude that models will run locally within a few years. This is why attempting to put guardrails around it simply won't work tbh.
    • wilsonnb3 4y ago
      It is the training of new models that requires huge compute, not running them
      • Mindwipe 4y ago
        Sure, but that isn't like Bitcoin it doesn't have to scale up to every bit of usage. We are already getting interesting scenarios from models that are done and the energy spent. That isn't a fundamental limitation.
        • permo-w 4y ago
          the discussion is about whether it’s possible to ban development or not
• timellis-smith 4y ago
  It may be that energy prices are ultimately the limiting factor in the advancement of ai.
  • chiffre01 4y ago
    This is literally the plot of the Matrix.
• undershirt 4y ago
  > Good luck trying to stop people. "Information wants to be free" I agree, we’re struggling with the idea that our technological systems have more agency than us. I think it’s hard for technologists to see this as an actual spiritual reality, even though we borrow it metaphorically for argument.
• uejfiweun 4y ago
  These people constantly make a mistake by referring to "humanity" and saying "humanity" needs to make a decision, yada yada. Yes, we're all humans. But "humanity" doesn't have much decision making power. Instead the dominant entities with decision making power continue to be national governments. And it sounds a lot dumber to say "America needs to slow the development of these technologies" during a period of intense technological competition with China.
• mr90210 4y ago
  Torrent use has been for sure slowed down by governments. The key people behind Torrent websites are likely in jail or fighting lawsuits. I had a friend who lives in Germany served with a fine of more than 1000 euros because he had forgotten to turn on his VPN while accessing a torrent website. > "Information wants to be free" Have you heard of the great firewall of China?
  • LordDragonfang 4y ago
    >Have you heard of the great firewall of China? Yeah, I've heard how it's basically a formality that barely stops the free flow of information: >During the survey period, it was found that 31 percent of internet users in China had used a VPN in the past month. https://www.statista.com/statistics/301204/top-markets-vpn-proxy-usage/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/301204/top-markets-vpn-p...
  • radlad 4y ago
    I'm not sure about Germany, but in the US there's been very little legal action taken against torrent users or websites in recent times. There are still plenty of popular torrent sites for anything you can imagine (e.g. The Pirate Bay is still online, BTN for TV, PTP for movies, Redacted for music.) If anything has curb torrents, I think it was the advent of streaming media services (i.e. market dynamics, not policy.) However, the flood of new services on the market is causing the cost of consumption to increase again and I expect we'll see a revival of torrents... Plus, while torrenting traffic is down, I think more people are sharing downloaded media via services like Plex, which may mask the "actual" distribution of torrents. > Have you heard of the great firewall of China? If this is a serious question... yes? What argument are you making exactly?
  • zirgs 4y ago
    Torrent use has been slowed down by Netflix, Spotify and Steam. I haven't pirated a song or a game for more than a decade. Carrot is stronger than a stick. And why would a German go to a torrent site? They have lots of money.
• gostsamo 4y ago
  We have plenty of technologies whose development has been stopped via collective agreement: nuclear proliferation, biological weapons, space weapons. AI won't be one of those technologies though, because it is relatively easy to develop and it gives advantages with externalized disadvantages.
  • didericis 4y ago
    Project Orion is the most tragic (but probably wisest) stopped technology, was in both the space weapon and nuclear proliferation bucket. But it also could have enabled luxuriously spacious trips to Saturn in the 70s had it been realized. I hope we manage to trust each other enough one day to make it a reality.
  • radlad 4y ago
    These are fantastic counterpoints, thanks. Still, I can't help but wonder if they are now out of the public view, but still being developed. (e.g. North Korea nuclear missile tests.) I think you make a fantastic point that the barrier to entry in developing an AI is much lower than building a nuclear bomb.
    • gostsamo 4y ago
      In regard to chemical weapons - no, I think that they are abondonware because they are ineffective. Something similar with bio weapons, they can backfire to your own population rather easily. Nuclear are their special case, but still their proliferation is extremely limited.
  • oh_sigh 4y ago
    You're right that it won't be - the difference is the tools for building those things were not distributed across millions of different people. It was distributed across only a small number of governments.
  • bloppe 4y ago
    "Stopped" is a strong word. Nuclear proliferation and chemical weapons are ongoing and increasing threats. I'd bet a lot of money that we'll see the use of space weapons in our lifetime.
• swatcoder 4y ago
  Alternately, take nuclear proliferation, resource extraction, or pollution. Of course you can’t reach 100% enforcement but you can make effective guardrails that limit the opportunity for worst case scenarios. The difference between your examples and mine is basically just how much actual concern there is over the problem and who it impacts.
  • jimbob45 4y ago
    Is nuclear proliferation not the single most expensive pursuit in the world though?
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• kmod 4y ago
  Before most of our time, but my understanding is that the past restrictions on cryptography research and export were reasonably effective? Yes they were disliked and probably with good reason, but just mentioning it as a counterpoint that perhaps it is possible. You could have made a similar argument that anyone with pen and paper could do cryptography Personally I think there's no way to be sure other countries aren't doing it, so perhaps it will continue in some government controlled way
  • nradov 4y ago
    There was never any real legal restriction on cryptography research. There used to be US export controls on cryptography implementations, and those were fairly effective on US based companies and open-source developers. But that was totally pointless because it generally had no power over foreigners. It just put US companies at a competitive disadvantage for no benefit.
• lwhi 4y ago
  How about the proliferation of nuclear weapons? Ultimately we don't want to encourage development of these 'tools' because they stand to wipe us out; is AI actually in a similar class if we take the risk seriously?
• sterlind 4y ago
  maybe you could slow down the hardware? like, limit the number of execution units GPUs are allowed to have? or slow them down? extremely heavy handed, but maybe better than Skynet?
  • eastbound 4y ago
    You’re going to have problems running React before you have problems running AI engines.
• permo-w 4y ago
  I’m not suggesting ai development should be stopped, but unlike bitcoin, torrents, encryption, etc, ai development—for now—requires prohibitively large computing power and expertise that are usually only accessible to law-abiding institutions. this means that it can be regulated, and relatively easily at that sure you’d struggle to get China and Russia to play along, but within the EU and US I really don’t think it would be as hard as you think
  • Applejinx 4y ago
    That's gonna end well. Particularly as Russia's Internet Research unit has direct, immediate and pressing need of a chatGPT-like thing as a weapon of war. Back in the day, they had to make use of troll farms staffed by humans.
    • permo-w 4y ago
      I’ve honestly been sceptical for a while that these “troll farms staffed by humans” weren’t just LLMs in the first place anyway. they’re not that new
      • PeterisP 4y ago
        Well it's because the initial reports of troll farms came from journalists joining them as employees, and also that doing it manually is not that expensive compared to paying for development of complex software; you can do a LOT of information dissemination with just a handful of cheap full-time employees.
  • eternalban 4y ago
    It will require something like IAEA, a UN agency. It will require inspections of code and data centers. We can certainly see what 20 years may look like. There will be "snap inspections", "sanctions", and "rogue nations". None of the superpowers, specially their militaries, will acquiesce to slowing research, development, and deployment, without equivalent of arms treaties. AI is clearly a dual-use technology with immediate application on battle fields, including cyberspace. Outside of geopolitical realm, we the little people don't have anything beyond UNHRC to protect human rights in context of mega corporations and governments use of AI. The superpowers may agree to certain things but that does not translate to protections afforded to individuals and societies. ATM I think it may be unwise to wait for things like GDPR for AI. I very much appreciate, for this very reason, efforts of orgs and hero developers who are working towards making available the necessary for running local, personal, private, and self-directed AI (such as llama.cpp for example). From a governmental level, thoughtful nations will create programs for the transition. There are precedents from the industrial era as to what approaches worked and what did not work. Finally, again a reminder that all societal matters including tech must ultimately be decided at the political arena, and purely technical social action (code, services, etc.) to address legitimate concerns are not going to work. We have to mentally and emotionally escape the hype cycle that every new wonder tech brings. You can absolutely love AI, that is fine, but now is the time to call your congress critters and senators. The decisions in this space can not be permitted to be made purely based on the mechanics of the economy.
• pmastela 4y ago
  I agree, but alas tis the motions that are followed. OpenAI went from singing praises of open-sourcing AI to now flagellating themselves for having done so [1]. Won't do much unless like the author says "a collective, enforceable decision must be made to slow the development of these technologies" which like yeah...good luck with that. 1: https://twitter.com/tobyordoxford/status/1636372964001333249 https://twitter.com/tobyordoxford/status/1636372964001333249
• tgv 4y ago
  I've suggested it before: a moratorium on ML/AI publications. That's what's been fuelling these developments. Academic researchers need to publish. They don't make these models for the money (initially). Stopping the publications will slow down research and the money put into commercializing it.
  • UncleEntity 4y ago
    You understand we have this thing called “freedom of the press”? Maybe get an old fashioned book burning going too?
    • tgv 4y ago
      Academic publications. They are already heavily censored. Oe you can stop counting them towards the researcher's citation index, de-incentivize libraries and schools from buying subscriptions on ML/AI journals, require articles to wait 10 years before publication, whatever. Stopping undesirable publications can be done.
• sottol 4y ago
  Imo, the problem isn't really the existence of AI but how it's used. And there's plenty of ways to censor corporations from using AI for various tasks. Corporations automating everything by using unaccountable AI is what I'm most afraid of. No recourse, just talking to unrelenting machines for anything from denied loans, insurance claims, health insurance claims to contesting frivolous Comcast bills. My currently biggest nightmare would be easy to legislate away, if they don't lobby hard enough...
• rglover 4y ago
  A treaty isn't even necessary. Civilization will start to degrade in a non-trivial way once we pass the tipping point of people relying more on AI than they do on their own thinking. When people can no longer fix what AI cannot—after all, "AI" is just a model of our past thinking—all hell will break loose and the only choice will be chaos or shutting it off (if the people who can do it even exist).
• singularity2001 4y ago
  torrents are pretty dead (due to law enforcement?) judicially treating bitcoin as asset instead of tender didn't help its cause either (?) and true encryption without elliptic curve nsa loopholes is not that widespread and needs to be declared in appstores I'm sure there will be regulations against "DAN"
• hudon 4y ago
  Are you limiting your argument to software? Because it's been possible to curtail the use of non-software technology. Drugs, guns, cigarettes, drones, etc. Now even if you look at software, it's not clear to me that it's impossible to stop people from using certain software, as you surmise. If you look at how governments shut down dark markets or how they've taken down certain Bitcoin exchanges or how they've blacklisted certain Bitcoin (and other crypto) public addresses, all these examples show that it's possible to enforce the law even in the software space. Child pornography is another example. Internet infrastructure is very centralized, and governments have over time acquired tools to control how information flows. Information doesn't want anything. That quote is a freudian way of saying "I want information to be free".
  • UncleEntity 4y ago
    > Because it's been possible to curtail the use of non-software technology. Curtail but not stop. There’s an opioid epidemic going on, gun violence is a thing, cigarettes still keep killing people and drones are becoming quite efficient killers in their own right. People still cheat on their taxes, drive drunk, pirate movies &etc. I could go on for days. Oh, and the whole “illegal number” thing, how’d that work out?
    • jasonhansel 4y ago
      "Curtail but not stop" sounds like a good, realistic goal.
• hinkley 4y ago
  Pretty much just the Mennonites.
• jasonhansel 4y ago
  For an excellent example of how this can work, check out "Barriers to Bioweapons": https://eukaryotewritesblog.com/2017/06/30/book-review-barriers/ https://eukaryotewritesblog.com/2017/06/30/book-review-barri...