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I think you misinterpreted that statement in a way. "not because they necessarily outweigh the potential benefits" is quite literally them stating that their c

I think you misinterpreted that statement in a way. "not because they necessarily outweigh the potential benefits" is quite literally them stating that their choice to focus on safety challenges is NOT because it's best for their business. "we wish to motivate further work in safety ..." is complimenting that sentiment that this isn't about what's best for their bottom line, but rather spearheading the initiative to ensure the technology is not malicious because it's the right thing to do. They're simply being honest that this isn't about profits or success. Wouldn't you prefer a business to decide what's best for the future of a technology not based on corporate interests? What you wrote sounds like marketing and PR bull TBH. It's fine, but this is a 60 page documentation paper on the literal implementation of a technology...this isn't about making fluffy feel-good virtue signaling statements.

nr2x 4y ago
I can also guarantee you as somebody who did a lot of academic publishing prior to a stint at Big Tech, the lawyers had final say on everything. That phrase is pure corporate law.
haswell 4y ago
I can no longer edit my comment, and I think I did interpret the statement too narrowly, but I'm not seeing the same interpretation you are re: business impact. If you take what they wrote literally, expand the implications into explicit statements and reframe the sentence with that additional info, it looks something like this: > There are potential benefits to AI and there are potential risks ("safety challenges"). We're not focusing on the safety challenges because we believe it's a foregone conclusion that they outweigh the benefits, but because further work is required to adequately measure safety, to identify mitigations to safety issues, and to provide assurance that such mitigations are sufficient. We believe that the current level of motivation for such research is not sufficient.. There is no language that even implies a monetary or business impact, even if those are factors that are likely to exist as well. There is no literal interpretation that makes room for such a statement as far as I can see. But what emerges is still interesting for a few reasons. 1) It implicitly acknowledges that there is not currently enough motivation to invest in tools that measure risk. This is where my "shouldn't decades of imagining the risks of AI provide more intrinsic motivation" stance comes right back. 2) It also implicitly acknowledges that they do not currently know how risk these models are, and they don't have any way to know. 3) It still reveals a rather disturbing stance towards safety. Am I glad this investigation exists? absolutely. Is it better than nothing? absolutely. Is it worrisome that they're still trying to generate motivation to build tools that measure risk? absolutely. > this is a 60 page documentation paper on the literal implementation of a technology The fact that this is a 60 page paper is kind of the point. A 60 page paper should not be positioning itself with extremely vague language that leaves room for interpretation. A 60 page paper should be direct and clear about what it is saying. The part where I do think business/money comes into play is the decision to frame this so vaguely. To speak plainly about the current state of safety measurement and unknowability or risk would cause a lot of concern. A lot of concern looks bad for business. > ..this isn't about making fluffy feel-good virtue signaling statements. I agree. I'm not worried about a language model hurting someone's feelings. I'm worried about a language model getting prematurely hooked up to systems with broad access to the real world and the failure modes involved there. None of those failure modes have anything to do with feeling good or signaling virtue.

nr2x 4y ago

I can also guarantee you as somebody who did a lot of academic publishing prior to a stint at Big Tech, the lawyers had final say on everything. That phrase is pure corporate law.

haswell 4y ago

I can no longer edit my comment, and I think I did interpret the statement too narrowly, but I'm not seeing the same interpretation you are re: business impact. If you take what they wrote literally, expand the implications into explicit statements and reframe the sentence with that additional info, it looks something like this: > There are potential benefits to AI and there are potential risks ("safety challenges"). We're not focusing on the safety challenges because we believe it's a foregone conclusion that they outweigh the benefits, but because further work is required to adequately measure safety, to identify mitigations to safety issues, and to provide assurance that such mitigations are sufficient. We believe that the current level of motivation for such research is not sufficient.. There is no language that even implies a monetary or business impact, even if those are factors that are likely to exist as well. There is no literal interpretation that makes room for such a statement as far as I can see. But what emerges is still interesting for a few reasons. 1) It implicitly acknowledges that there is not currently enough motivation to invest in tools that measure risk. This is where my "shouldn't decades of imagining the risks of AI provide more intrinsic motivation" stance comes right back. 2) It also implicitly acknowledges that they do not currently know how risk these models are, and they don't have any way to know. 3) It still reveals a rather disturbing stance towards safety. Am I glad this investigation exists? absolutely. Is it better than nothing? absolutely. Is it worrisome that they're still trying to generate motivation to build tools that measure risk? absolutely. > this is a 60 page documentation paper on the literal implementation of a technology The fact that this is a 60 page paper is kind of the point. A 60 page paper should not be positioning itself with extremely vague language that leaves room for interpretation. A 60 page paper should be direct and clear about what it is saying. The part where I do think business/money comes into play is the decision to frame this so vaguely. To speak plainly about the current state of safety measurement and unknowability or risk would cause a lot of concern. A lot of concern looks bad for business. > ..this isn't about making fluffy feel-good virtue signaling statements. I agree. I'm not worried about a language model hurting someone's feelings. I'm worried about a language model getting prematurely hooked up to systems with broad access to the real world and the failure modes involved there. None of those failure modes have anything to do with feeling good or signaling virtue.