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> "oh so dangerous AI" was purely marketing as anyone even remotely associated with AI would know Except for the people saying this who are among the most expe

> "oh so dangerous AI" was purely marketing as anyone even remotely associated with AI would know Except for the people saying this who are among the most expert in the world on this topic. But obviously it's fruitless even making this argument to you. If they're an expert making this argument, it's marketing. If they're not, then they're clueless. If that Catch-22 doesn't set off alarm bells regarding your own thinking on the topic, you are quite literally beyond reasoning.

boh 3y ago
"Experts in the world on this topic" for self-driving cars, register-free retail and voice assistants made the same world-shattering claims. Anyone is free to "set off alarm bells" for anything. Silicon Valley has consistently undermined its own credibility by spending as much time and effort on BS as everything else. The same "experts" on AI couldn't foresee what would happen when they decided to suddenly fire their CEO so it's not entirely reasonable to expect them to have some magic ability to tell the future (particularly when all of their messaging on any given product is specifically designed to entice investors).
- ethanbond 3y ago
  Just to recap, your argument is: "Some experts in some fields have been wrong before, ergo we have good reason to disbelieve some claims of some experts in this field (and by sheer coincidence the ones we should disbelieve are the ones I already disagree with)?" Another great example of faulty alarm bells. I'm all for approaching these claims with skepticism, but that's not what you're doing here. You are categorically discarding claims you already disagree with.
  - nradov 3y ago
    That's not how this works. Those "experts" making extraordinary claims haven't provided any evidence. Thus, the rest of us should categorically discard their claims.
    - ethanbond 3y ago
      Do you think the people worried about nuclear weapons at the time the first atom was split had evidence for their claims or no?
      - CamperBob2 3y ago
        There has got to be a corollary to Godwin's Law here somewhere. "Any argument about AI will inevitably end up with a comparison to nuclear weapons. The conversation will go south from there," or some such.
        ethanbond 3y ago
        I am asking a legitimate question about what constitutes evidence to the person I'm speaking with. Some people think expecting scale-up is meaningful, and some people don't.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - nradov 3y ago
        Yes, that's exactly my point! Back in 1945, nuclear physics was a well established science with actual experimental results. By contrast, 100% of the people making wild claims about AI risks are worthless scammers and grifters with no scientific backing. A total clown show.
        ethanbond 3y ago
        But Einstein and Szilard wrote their letter to Eisenhower in 1939, well before any chain reaction had been achieved. Did that constitute a baseless concern? > 100% of the people making wild claims about AI risks are worthless scammers and grifters with no scientific backing. I mean this is demonstrably untrue: Sutskever, Suleyman, Hinton, Russell to name a few.
orbital-decay 3y ago
AI is that infamous field where the experts never saw any abrupt change coming. AI winter, deep learning, now LLMs. What makes you think they're correct at predicting the limitless-ness of the current approach, this time? I have a serious trust issue with expert opinions based on beliefs, extrapolation, and gut feelings, instead of facts. Especially when they have a vested interest to ignore immediate issues at hand (privacy, power concentration etc) and tend to focus on hypotheticals that are supposed to come after higher order effects come into play. And especially when these opinions enter a feedback loop with an uncanny resemblance to a religion. Experts can convince themselves of anything. (source: being one in my area)
- ethanbond 3y ago
  Hinton didn't see neural networks coming? Suleyman didn't see LLMs coming? Nobody - nobody - has facts about the future. Don't kid yourself into thinking you're doing more than extrapolation and gut-feeling.
  - orbital-decay 3y ago
    >Don't kid yourself into thinking you're doing more than extrapolation and gut-feeling. Of course. Gut feeling and some basic experience on how people function is almost the only thing I have here. However, I'm also not the one making those predictions.
    - ethanbond 3y ago
      You are making a prediction: there will be an outcome that is not worth acting now to prevent.
      - orbital-decay 3y ago
        Don't make me play the tiresome fallacy pointing game... I'm not making any definite predictions. It might or might not come. What I'm doing is expressing the doubt in anyone's ability to see through higher order effects, and especially in the goodwill of these people. OpenAI's charter [1], for example, is so insanely naive and idealistic, and at the same time doesn't seem to be just an empty marketing piece (they expressed the same ideas for many years). Whoever wrote this thing is clearly either has absolutely no clue on how the society functions, or is trying to hide malicious intentions behind the bullshit. In either case, I have a really hard time believing that someone who wrote this can make useful predictions. [1] https://openai.com/charter https://openai.com/charter
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> Except for the people saying this who are among the most expert in the world on this topic There were experts calling out safety concerns. But they largely weren’t the ones parading them. This was made obvious when those calling regulation started seeing draft regulation and then threw their toys out of their pram (Altman).
- ethanbond 3y ago
  Sure, I wouldn't contest the claim that there are some people dishonestly seeking regulatory capture.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > wouldn't contest the claim that there are some people dishonestly seeking regulatory capture I’m making a stronger claim. Practically everyone making public statements was doing so dishonestly. When push came to shove, none of them had workable ideas beyond a pause.
    - ethanbond 3y ago
      It seems like you're taking the latter (lack of ideas) for evidence of the former (dishonesty), which doesn't seem fair to me. It's absolutely possible to legitimately think something is a big problem and also not know how to solve it – in fact some would argue this contributes to the "bigness" of the problem in the first place.

boh 3y ago

"Experts in the world on this topic" for self-driving cars, register-free retail and voice assistants made the same world-shattering claims. Anyone is free to "set off alarm bells" for anything. Silicon Valley has consistently undermined its own credibility by spending as much time and effort on BS as everything else. The same "experts" on AI couldn't foresee what would happen when they decided to suddenly fire their CEO so it's not entirely reasonable to expect them to have some magic ability to tell the future (particularly when all of their messaging on any given product is specifically designed to entice investors).

ethanbond 3y ago
Just to recap, your argument is: "Some experts in some fields have been wrong before, ergo we have good reason to disbelieve some claims of some experts in this field (and by sheer coincidence the ones we should disbelieve are the ones I already disagree with)?" Another great example of faulty alarm bells. I'm all for approaching these claims with skepticism, but that's not what you're doing here. You are categorically discarding claims you already disagree with.
- nradov 3y ago
  That's not how this works. Those "experts" making extraordinary claims haven't provided any evidence. Thus, the rest of us should categorically discard their claims.
  - ethanbond 3y ago
    Do you think the people worried about nuclear weapons at the time the first atom was split had evidence for their claims or no?
    - CamperBob2 3y ago
      There has got to be a corollary to Godwin's Law here somewhere. "Any argument about AI will inevitably end up with a comparison to nuclear weapons. The conversation will go south from there," or some such.
      - ethanbond 3y ago
        I am asking a legitimate question about what constitutes evidence to the person I'm speaking with. Some people think expecting scale-up is meaningful, and some people don't.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    - nradov 3y ago
      Yes, that's exactly my point! Back in 1945, nuclear physics was a well established science with actual experimental results. By contrast, 100% of the people making wild claims about AI risks are worthless scammers and grifters with no scientific backing. A total clown show.
      - ethanbond 3y ago
        But Einstein and Szilard wrote their letter to Eisenhower in 1939, well before any chain reaction had been achieved. Did that constitute a baseless concern? > 100% of the people making wild claims about AI risks are worthless scammers and grifters with no scientific backing. I mean this is demonstrably untrue: Sutskever, Suleyman, Hinton, Russell to name a few.

orbital-decay 3y ago

AI is that infamous field where the experts never saw any abrupt change coming. AI winter, deep learning, now LLMs. What makes you think they're correct at predicting the limitless-ness of the current approach, this time? I have a serious trust issue with expert opinions based on beliefs, extrapolation, and gut feelings, instead of facts. Especially when they have a vested interest to ignore immediate issues at hand (privacy, power concentration etc) and tend to focus on hypotheticals that are supposed to come after higher order effects come into play. And especially when these opinions enter a feedback loop with an uncanny resemblance to a religion. Experts can convince themselves of anything. (source: being one in my area)

ethanbond 3y ago
Hinton didn't see neural networks coming? Suleyman didn't see LLMs coming? Nobody - nobody - has facts about the future. Don't kid yourself into thinking you're doing more than extrapolation and gut-feeling.
- orbital-decay 3y ago
  >Don't kid yourself into thinking you're doing more than extrapolation and gut-feeling. Of course. Gut feeling and some basic experience on how people function is almost the only thing I have here. However, I'm also not the one making those predictions.
  - ethanbond 3y ago
    You are making a prediction: there will be an outcome that is not worth acting now to prevent.
    - orbital-decay 3y ago
      Don't make me play the tiresome fallacy pointing game... I'm not making any definite predictions. It might or might not come. What I'm doing is expressing the doubt in anyone's ability to see through higher order effects, and especially in the goodwill of these people. OpenAI's charter [1], for example, is so insanely naive and idealistic, and at the same time doesn't seem to be just an empty marketing piece (they expressed the same ideas for many years). Whoever wrote this thing is clearly either has absolutely no clue on how the society functions, or is trying to hide malicious intentions behind the bullshit. In either case, I have a really hard time believing that someone who wrote this can make useful predictions. [1] https://openai.com/charter https://openai.com/charter

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> Except for the people saying this who are among the most expert in the world on this topic There were experts calling out safety concerns. But they largely weren’t the ones parading them. This was made obvious when those calling regulation started seeing draft regulation and then threw their toys out of their pram (Altman).

ethanbond 3y ago
Sure, I wouldn't contest the claim that there are some people dishonestly seeking regulatory capture.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > wouldn't contest the claim that there are some people dishonestly seeking regulatory capture I’m making a stronger claim. Practically everyone making public statements was doing so dishonestly. When push came to shove, none of them had workable ideas beyond a pause.
  - ethanbond 3y ago
    It seems like you're taking the latter (lack of ideas) for evidence of the former (dishonesty), which doesn't seem fair to me. It's absolutely possible to legitimately think something is a big problem and also not know how to solve it – in fact some would argue this contributes to the "bigness" of the problem in the first place.