3 ms·

At least we are considering it. Late last century we wired up a bunch of computers together and unleashed it on an unready world without even considering that

At least we are considering it. Late last century we wired up a bunch of computers together and unleashed it on an unready world without even considering that it might change everything. And we hadn't even begun to think about security - we literally trusted that everyone was who they said they were! This is a step forward

brookst 4y ago
Absent central planning and approval for everything, I’m not sure who the “we” would be that could slow progress. The US largely won the early internet. Maybe wiser people in some other country consciously decided not to move for the valid concerns you mention, but if so, the lack of complete homogeneity among people rendered their care moot.
- marcus_holmes 4y ago
  Good question. I suppose the "we" is us, the engineers. And it's not so much slowing progress, just doing what this system card is doing: thinking about potential applications of the technology we're building, and mitigating the bad ones if possible. It's an interesting thought experiment; if, say, the team responsible for defining SMTP had done this, what would they have done differently, if anything?
  - brookst 4y ago
    The SMTP example is interesting. There have been numerous proposed replacements, but the network effect problem makes technically superior approaches unviable. So for SMTP I’d say, if that team had done this, someone else would have shipped a basic, flawed protocol first and SMTP would never have gotten off the ground. But… AI doesn’t have those same network effects. At least not technical ones. Business ones to some degree.
    - marcus_holmes 4y ago
      I dunno, I'm not sure there were any competitors for the original SMTP spec (but I don't know for sure). But if there were, it would still have been useful for them all to produce an evaluation of their potential for evil.

3 ms·

At least we are considering it. Late last century we wired up a bunch of computers together and unleashed it on an unready world without even considering that

by marcus_holmes 4y ago

brookst 4y ago
Absent central planning and approval for everything, I’m not sure who the “we” would be that could slow progress. The US largely won the early internet. Maybe wiser people in some other country consciously decided not to move for the valid concerns you mention, but if so, the lack of complete homogeneity among people rendered their care moot.
- marcus_holmes 4y ago
  Good question. I suppose the "we" is us, the engineers. And it's not so much slowing progress, just doing what this system card is doing: thinking about potential applications of the technology we're building, and mitigating the bad ones if possible. It's an interesting thought experiment; if, say, the team responsible for defining SMTP had done this, what would they have done differently, if anything?
  - brookst 4y ago
    The SMTP example is interesting. There have been numerous proposed replacements, but the network effect problem makes technically superior approaches unviable. So for SMTP I’d say, if that team had done this, someone else would have shipped a basic, flawed protocol first and SMTP would never have gotten off the ground. But… AI doesn’t have those same network effects. At least not technical ones. Business ones to some degree.
    - marcus_holmes 4y ago
      I dunno, I'm not sure there were any competitors for the original SMTP spec (but I don't know for sure). But if there were, it would still have been useful for them all to produce an evaluation of their potential for evil.