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I’m not suggesting ai development should be stopped, but unlike bitcoin, torrents, encryption, etc, ai development—for now—requires prohibitively large computin

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.
- permo-w 4y ago
  the expertise and technology for this kind of development reside in law-abiding universities and businesses. if you say it’s illegal to develop, then they will follow that law you don’t need some kind of Big Brother UN nonsense the same way you don’t need Big Brother UN nonsense to stop nuclear bombs getting into the wrong hands. it’s too specialised, too expensive, and the people involved are mostly scientists and academics also—and this has begun to annoy me—people have this idea that politics is inaccessible and not representative and there’s no solution: they’re right. politics is inaccessible and unrepresentative. however there is a solution unionise band together and create the change you want to see. politicians have never followed the will of the people. they’re too easily bought, or jaded, or blackmailed. real, meaningful change for the common man comes from organising to create a counterweight to the power of corporations and the rich
alach11 4y ago
> ai development—for now—requires prohibitively large computing power What's crazy is that it may not be that way for long. If people can run LLaMa on a Pixel 6, it seems easy for us to get to a point where all computing resources have to be closely monitored and regulated to prevent unlicensed AI development. It reminds me of the Butlerian Jihad from Dune.
- permo-w 4y ago
  it’s not so much about running as it is developing. you can run stable diffusion on an iPhone, but that has no bearing on the fact that developing something of its ilk would cost you on the scale of hundreds of thousands of pounds
- mr_toad 4y ago
  > all computing resources have to be closely monitored and regulated to prevent unlicensed AI development. With most chips being made in China?

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.

permo-w 4y ago
the expertise and technology for this kind of development reside in law-abiding universities and businesses. if you say it’s illegal to develop, then they will follow that law you don’t need some kind of Big Brother UN nonsense the same way you don’t need Big Brother UN nonsense to stop nuclear bombs getting into the wrong hands. it’s too specialised, too expensive, and the people involved are mostly scientists and academics also—and this has begun to annoy me—people have this idea that politics is inaccessible and not representative and there’s no solution: they’re right. politics is inaccessible and unrepresentative. however there is a solution unionise band together and create the change you want to see. politicians have never followed the will of the people. they’re too easily bought, or jaded, or blackmailed. real, meaningful change for the common man comes from organising to create a counterweight to the power of corporations and the rich

alach11 4y ago

> ai development—for now—requires prohibitively large computing power What's crazy is that it may not be that way for long. If people can run LLaMa on a Pixel 6, it seems easy for us to get to a point where all computing resources have to be closely monitored and regulated to prevent unlicensed AI development. It reminds me of the Butlerian Jihad from Dune.

permo-w 4y ago
it’s not so much about running as it is developing. you can run stable diffusion on an iPhone, but that has no bearing on the fact that developing something of its ilk would cost you on the scale of hundreds of thousands of pounds
mr_toad 4y ago
> all computing resources have to be closely monitored and regulated to prevent unlicensed AI development. With most chips being made in China?