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> Are you just choosing to ignore the actual contents of my responses? Both nuclear and biotech are highly, highly regulated spaces. Apologies, I have limited

by bnralt 4y ago

> Are you just choosing to ignore the actual contents of my responses? Both nuclear and biotech are highly, highly regulated spaces. Apologies, I have limited time and tried to focus on what I felt were your stronger arguments. But if you want me to address current regulations, I can. We have regulations now on technology that 1. exists and 2. we know can be dangerous. I hope most people will understand why a technology that 1. doesn’t exist and 2. that we don’t know will be dangerous if it ever does exist doesn’t have any comparable regulation. Yes, we have regulation on nuclear power now. As far as I know, we didn’t have any regulation restricting Niels Bohr’s research in the 1920’s. Correct me if I’m wrong. If we want AI to be treated like other tech, we’d wait until an actual danger presented itself, and then apply appropriate regulation to address that danger.

ethanbond 4y ago
We have no idea if we are Niels Bohr in the 1920s or Oppenheimer on July 15th 1945. We have no idea what the distance is between those two points, but again, the trend line of technology (and especially of AI tech) is that we should expect it to be a lot shorter than 20 years. If you have good reason to believe we're in the 1920s and not 1945, I'm open to hearing it. Additionally, it's not exactly self-evident that we shouldn't have stopped nuclear research at a more nascent level, and even if we accept that, it's not evident that'd justify introducing another looming technology catastrophe. By the time of the first nuclear detonation, yes, there was immense control already being exerted on all of the relevant ingredients. Do you disagree with the claim that AI technology, on its current trajectory, (i.e. not necessarily this generation of tech) has at least a small chance of yielding at least an extremely bad outcome?
- bnralt 4y ago
  The first laws regulating nuclear energy were signed about a year after the atomic bombings, no? As far as I know, the first nuclear fission experiments were completely unregulated.
  - ethanbond 4y ago
    Were hundreds of millions of people interacting with nuclear energy and integrating it into every device in their vicinity? Very very few people are arguing this stuff should be stopped outright. They’re worried about the dynamics that will incentivize stronger and stronger systems while disincentivizing spending time on control/safety. I suppose you don’t have responses to any of the actual content of my comment, once again? Obviously no laws were necessary around a top secret weapons program that required expertise, money, and materials that no other entity could accumulate. The Manhattan Project did have, from day 1, civilian oversight by an elected governing body. And nuclear reactions had, up to that point, been controlled by default. None of these is true of AI development. Is there a reason you’re declining to answer whether you think there’s risk?
JohnFen 4y ago
> If we want AI to be treated like other tech, we’d wait until an actual danger presented itself, and then apply appropriate regulation to address that danger. I think that history is full of instances where great harm was done because foreseeable consequences of developing tech were ignored on the basis of the tech not actually presenting those dangers yet. That we have a history of being reckless with developing technologies is not a good argument that we should continue to be reckless with developing technologies.

by bnralt 4y ago

ethanbond 4y ago

We have no idea if we are Niels Bohr in the 1920s or Oppenheimer on July 15th 1945. We have no idea what the distance is between those two points, but again, the trend line of technology (and especially of AI tech) is that we should expect it to be a lot shorter than 20 years. If you have good reason to believe we're in the 1920s and not 1945, I'm open to hearing it. Additionally, it's not exactly self-evident that we shouldn't have stopped nuclear research at a more nascent level, and even if we accept that, it's not evident that'd justify introducing another looming technology catastrophe. By the time of the first nuclear detonation, yes, there was immense control already being exerted on all of the relevant ingredients. Do you disagree with the claim that AI technology, on its current trajectory, (i.e. not necessarily this generation of tech) has at least a small chance of yielding at least an extremely bad outcome?

bnralt 4y ago
The first laws regulating nuclear energy were signed about a year after the atomic bombings, no? As far as I know, the first nuclear fission experiments were completely unregulated.
- ethanbond 4y ago
  Were hundreds of millions of people interacting with nuclear energy and integrating it into every device in their vicinity? Very very few people are arguing this stuff should be stopped outright. They’re worried about the dynamics that will incentivize stronger and stronger systems while disincentivizing spending time on control/safety. I suppose you don’t have responses to any of the actual content of my comment, once again? Obviously no laws were necessary around a top secret weapons program that required expertise, money, and materials that no other entity could accumulate. The Manhattan Project did have, from day 1, civilian oversight by an elected governing body. And nuclear reactions had, up to that point, been controlled by default. None of these is true of AI development. Is there a reason you’re declining to answer whether you think there’s risk?

JohnFen 4y ago

> If we want AI to be treated like other tech, we’d wait until an actual danger presented itself, and then apply appropriate regulation to address that danger. I think that history is full of instances where great harm was done because foreseeable consequences of developing tech were ignored on the basis of the tech not actually presenting those dangers yet. That we have a history of being reckless with developing technologies is not a good argument that we should continue to be reckless with developing technologies.