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It's way too late to ban any of this. How do you propose to make that work? That would be like banning all "malicious software", it's a preposterous idea when y

It's way too late to ban any of this. How do you propose to make that work? That would be like banning all "malicious software", it's a preposterous idea when you even begin to think about the practical side of it. And where do you draw the line? Is my XGBoost model "AI", or are we only banning generative AI? Is a Markov chain "generative AI"?

ben_w 3y ago
Bans often come after examples, so while I disagree with kmeisthax about… well, everything in that comment… it's almost never too late to pass laws banning GenAI, or to set thresholds at capability levels anywhere, including or excluding Markov chains even. This is because almost no law is perfectly enforced. My standard example of this is heroin, which nobody defends even if they otherwise think drugs are great, for which the UK has 3 times as many users as its current entire prison population. Despite that failing, the law probably does limit the harm. Any attempt to enforce a ban on GenAI would by very different, like a cat and mouse game of automatic detection and improved creation (so a GAN even if accidentally), but politicians are absolutely the kind to take credit while kicking the can down the road like that.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
  Actually, anyone who knows what they're talking about will tell you the ban makes heroin a much worse problem, not better. Ban leads to a black market, leads to lousy purity, which leads to fluctuations in purity and switches to potent alternatives, leads to waves of overdose deaths.
  - emporas 3y ago
    Ban on LLMs will lead to a proliferation of illegal LLMs who are gonna talk like Dr. Dre about the streets, the internet streets, and their bros they lost due to law regulation equivalent to gang fights. Instead of ChatGPT talking like a well educated college graduate, LLMs will turn into thugs. So yeah, banning LLMs may turn out to be not so wise after all.
  - simiones 3y ago
    The way the ban is enforced, yes. But no one in their right mind believes that heroin should be openly accessible on the market like candy. We've seen how that works out with tobacco.
    - mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
      I think that's worked fine with tobacco. Unlike illegal drugs, alcohol and tobacco consumption have been gradually dropping over time(or moved to less harmful methods than smoking). Heroin already is openly accessible. As much as one can try to argue this is an accessibility issue, it really isn't. Anyone who is motivated to can get their hands on some heroin. The only thing that's made harder to access is high quality heroin. It's only a quality control and outreach(to addicts) issue. Most people in a well-functioning society wouldn't develop a heroin addiction just like most people don't become alcoholics just because alcohol is easily available. So yes, I believe heroin should be legal, and available to adults for purchase. And you're gonna have to do better than saying I'm "out of my mind" to convince me otherwise.
      - tsimionescu 3y ago
        No, heroin is not "openly accessible". Massive corporations are not profiting off pushing heroin. You'd see a massive increase in heroin use if it was fully legal. And that's not a good thing jn any possible way.
        mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
        You're not making an argument, just stating a disagreement.
        tsimionescu 3y ago
        Do you have any doubt that, say, Coca Cola Company could push heroin more effectively than someone on a street corner, if it were legal to do so? Do you think heroin is more or less commonly used than tabacco or alcohol? We've already seen from the opioid epidemic that drug companies at least are both willing and able to push massive amounts of an opioid drug on patients if it is even slightly legal to do so. Why do you think it wouldn't be much much worse if it was fully legal? Note, I am not against decriminalizing heroin and any other drug. I fully agree that the war on drugs is a massive problem. But that doesn't mean that full legalization of hard drugs, especially the most addictive of them, is the same.
_cjse 3y ago
If you lower the problem to "stop people from future developments on AI", then it seems pretty easy to get most people to stop fairly quickly by implementing a fine-based bounty system, similar to what many countries use for things like littering. [url-redacted] I guess you could always move to a desert island and build your own semiconductor fab from scratch if you were really committed to the goal, but short of that you're going to leave a loooooong paper trail that someone who wants to make a quick buck off of you could use very profitably. It's hard to advance the state of the art on your own, and even harder to keep that work hidden.
- visarga 3y ago
  That only works if all governments cooperate sincerely to this goal. Not gonna work. Everyone will develop in secret. Have we been able to stop North Korea and Iran from developing nuclear weapons? Or any motivated country for that matter.
  - _cjse 3y ago
    The US could unilaterally impose this by allowing the bounties to be charged even on people who aren't US citizens. Evil people do exist in the world, who would be happy to get in on that action. Or one could use honey instead of vinegar: Offer a fast track to US citizenship to any proven AI expert who agrees to move and renounce the trade for good. Personally I think this goal is much more likely to work. It's all about changing what counts as "cooperate" in the game theory.
    - reichstein 3y ago
      > ... move [to the US] and renounce the trade for good ... Publicly. Then possibly work for the NSA/CIA instead. > ... bounties ... on people who are not US citizens. Because that's not going to cause an uproar if done unilaterally. It works for people that most of the world agree are terrorists. Posting open dead-or-alive bounties on foreign citizens is usually considered an act of terrorism.
    - joncrocks 3y ago
Zambyte 3y ago
> That would be like banning all "malicious software", it's a preposterous idea when you even begin to think about the practical side of it If you banned proprietary software, this would seem a lot more practical.

ben_w 3y ago

Bans often come after examples, so while I disagree with kmeisthax about… well, everything in that comment… it's almost never too late to pass laws banning GenAI, or to set thresholds at capability levels anywhere, including or excluding Markov chains even. This is because almost no law is perfectly enforced. My standard example of this is heroin, which nobody defends even if they otherwise think drugs are great, for which the UK has 3 times as many users as its current entire prison population. Despite that failing, the law probably does limit the harm. Any attempt to enforce a ban on GenAI would by very different, like a cat and mouse game of automatic detection and improved creation (so a GAN even if accidentally), but politicians are absolutely the kind to take credit while kicking the can down the road like that.

mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
Actually, anyone who knows what they're talking about will tell you the ban makes heroin a much worse problem, not better. Ban leads to a black market, leads to lousy purity, which leads to fluctuations in purity and switches to potent alternatives, leads to waves of overdose deaths.
- emporas 3y ago
  Ban on LLMs will lead to a proliferation of illegal LLMs who are gonna talk like Dr. Dre about the streets, the internet streets, and their bros they lost due to law regulation equivalent to gang fights. Instead of ChatGPT talking like a well educated college graduate, LLMs will turn into thugs. So yeah, banning LLMs may turn out to be not so wise after all.
- simiones 3y ago
  The way the ban is enforced, yes. But no one in their right mind believes that heroin should be openly accessible on the market like candy. We've seen how that works out with tobacco.
  - mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
    I think that's worked fine with tobacco. Unlike illegal drugs, alcohol and tobacco consumption have been gradually dropping over time(or moved to less harmful methods than smoking). Heroin already is openly accessible. As much as one can try to argue this is an accessibility issue, it really isn't. Anyone who is motivated to can get their hands on some heroin. The only thing that's made harder to access is high quality heroin. It's only a quality control and outreach(to addicts) issue. Most people in a well-functioning society wouldn't develop a heroin addiction just like most people don't become alcoholics just because alcohol is easily available. So yes, I believe heroin should be legal, and available to adults for purchase. And you're gonna have to do better than saying I'm "out of my mind" to convince me otherwise.
    - tsimionescu 3y ago
      No, heroin is not "openly accessible". Massive corporations are not profiting off pushing heroin. You'd see a massive increase in heroin use if it was fully legal. And that's not a good thing jn any possible way.
      - mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
        You're not making an argument, just stating a disagreement.
        tsimionescu 3y ago
        Do you have any doubt that, say, Coca Cola Company could push heroin more effectively than someone on a street corner, if it were legal to do so? Do you think heroin is more or less commonly used than tabacco or alcohol? We've already seen from the opioid epidemic that drug companies at least are both willing and able to push massive amounts of an opioid drug on patients if it is even slightly legal to do so. Why do you think it wouldn't be much much worse if it was fully legal? Note, I am not against decriminalizing heroin and any other drug. I fully agree that the war on drugs is a massive problem. But that doesn't mean that full legalization of hard drugs, especially the most addictive of them, is the same.

_cjse 3y ago

If you lower the problem to "stop people from future developments on AI", then it seems pretty easy to get most people to stop fairly quickly by implementing a fine-based bounty system, similar to what many countries use for things like littering. [url-redacted] I guess you could always move to a desert island and build your own semiconductor fab from scratch if you were really committed to the goal, but short of that you're going to leave a loooooong paper trail that someone who wants to make a quick buck off of you could use very profitably. It's hard to advance the state of the art on your own, and even harder to keep that work hidden.

visarga 3y ago
That only works if all governments cooperate sincerely to this goal. Not gonna work. Everyone will develop in secret. Have we been able to stop North Korea and Iran from developing nuclear weapons? Or any motivated country for that matter.
- _cjse 3y ago
  The US could unilaterally impose this by allowing the bounties to be charged even on people who aren't US citizens. Evil people do exist in the world, who would be happy to get in on that action. Or one could use honey instead of vinegar: Offer a fast track to US citizenship to any proven AI expert who agrees to move and renounce the trade for good. Personally I think this goal is much more likely to work. It's all about changing what counts as "cooperate" in the game theory.
  - reichstein 3y ago
    > ... move [to the US] and renounce the trade for good ... Publicly. Then possibly work for the NSA/CIA instead. > ... bounties ... on people who are not US citizens. Because that's not going to cause an uproar if done unilaterally. It works for people that most of the world agree are terrorists. Posting open dead-or-alive bounties on foreign citizens is usually considered an act of terrorism.
  - joncrocks 3y ago

Zambyte 3y ago

> That would be like banning all "malicious software", it's a preposterous idea when you even begin to think about the practical side of it If you banned proprietary software, this would seem a lot more practical.