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When Sam Altman is calling for AI regulation, yes it is a conspiracy by big AI to do regulatory capture. What is this regulation aimed at making AI safer that

When Sam Altman is calling for AI regulation, yes it is a conspiracy by big AI to do regulatory capture. What is this regulation aimed at making AI safer that you refer to anyway? Because I certainly haven't heard of it. Furthermore, there doesn't seem to be any agreement on whether or how AI, at a state remotely similar to the level it is at today, is dangerous or how to mitigate that danger. How can you even attempt to regulate in good faith without that?

cqqxo4zV46cp 2y ago
This is coincidentally a ridiculously bad-faith argument, and I think that you know that. The fact that one particular person is advocating for AI regulation does not mean that all calling for AI regulation are doing so due to having the same incentives. This is exactly the point the parent poster is making. It feels like you only skimmed the comment before replying to it.
- Uehreka 2y ago
  When I talk to folks like GP, they often assert that the non-CEO people who are advocating for AI safety are essentially non-factors, that really the only people whose policy agendas will be enacted are those who already have power, and therefore that the opinions of everyday activists don’t need to be considered when discussing these issues. It’s a darkly nihilistic take that I don’t agree with, but I just wanted to distill it here because I often see people imply it without stating it out loud.
JoshTriplett 2y ago
> When Sam Altman is calling for AI regulation Sure; that's almost certainly not being done in good faith. When numerous AI experts and luminaries who left their jobs in AI are advocating for AI regulation, that's much more likely to be being done in good faith. > What is this regulation aimed at making AI safer https://pauseai.info/ https://pauseai.info/ > Furthermore, there doesn't seem to be any agreement on whether or how AI, at a state remotely similar to the level it is at today, is dangerous You could also write that as "there's no agreement that AI is safe". But that aside... Most of the arguments about AI safety are not about current AI technology. (There are some reasonable arguments about the use of AI for impersonation, such as that AI-generated content should be labeled as such, but those are much less critical and they aren't the critical part of AI safety.) The most critical arguments about AI safety are not primarily about current technology. They're about near-future expansions of AI capabilities. https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.01933 https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.01933 > how to mitigate that danger Pause capabilities research until we have proven strategies for aligning AI to human safety. > How can you even attempt to regulate in good faith without that? We don't know that it's safe, many people are arguing that it's dangerous on an unprecedented scale, there are no good refutations of those arguments, and we don't know how to ensure its safety. That's not a situation in which "we shouldn't do anything about it" is a good idea. How can you even attempt to regulate biological weapons research without having a good way to mitigate it? By stopping biological weapons research.
- randomdata 2y ago
  > When numerous AI experts and luminaries who left their jobs in AI are advocating for AI regulation, that's much more likely to be being done in good faith. Their big revelation that they left their jobs over is that AI might be used to usurp identities, which, admittedly, is entirely plausible and arguably already something we're starting to see happen. It is humorous that your takeaway from that is that we need to double down on their identity instead of realizing that identity is a misguided and flawed concept.
  - AlecSchueler 2y ago
    Is it condescending to describe a differing opinion as "humorous?" It came across as quite rude.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - randomdata 2y ago
      Let's assume, for the sake of discussion, that it is. Is rudeness not rooted in the very same misguided and flawed identity concept? I don't suppose a monkey that you cannot discern from any other monkey giving you the middle finger congers any feelings of that nature. Yet, here the output of software has, I suspect because the software presents the message alongside some kind of clear identity marker. But is it not irrational to be offended by the output of software?
- shkkmo 2y ago
  In principle, I'm not opposed to a pause. However, in practice, enforcing a pause entails a massive global increase in surveillance and restrictions on what can be done with a computer. > Track the sales of GPUs and other hardware that can be used for AI training So we now have an agency with a register of all computer sales? If you give a computer with a a GPU to a friend or family member, that's breakibf the law ubless you also report it? This takes us in a very scary direction. This has to be a global effort, so we need a system of international enforcement to make it happen. We've been marginally successful in limiting proliferation of nuclear weapons, but at significant international and humanitarian costs. Nuclear weapons require a much more specialized supply chain than AI so limiting and monitoring adversarial access was easier. Now we want to use the same techniques to force adversarial regimes to implement sane regulations around the sale and usage of computer equipment. This seems absolutely batshit insane. In what world does this seem remotely feasible? We've already tried an easier version of this with the biological weapon research ban. The ban exists but enforcement doesn't. In that case, a huge part of the issue was that facilities that do that research very similar or the same as all kinds of other research. An AI Pause has the same issue, but it is compounded by the fact that AI models can grant significant economic advantage in a way that nuclear/biological weapons don't so incentives to find a way to skirt regulations are higher. (Edit: it's further complicated by the fact that the AI risks that the Pause tries to mitigate are theoretical and people haven't seen them, unlike biological/nuclear. This makes concerted global action harder) A global pause on AI research is completely unrealistic. Calls for a global pause are basically calls for starting regime change wars around the globe and even that won't be sufficient. We have to find a different way to mitigate these risks.

cqqxo4zV46cp 2y ago

This is coincidentally a ridiculously bad-faith argument, and I think that you know that. The fact that one particular person is advocating for AI regulation does not mean that all calling for AI regulation are doing so due to having the same incentives. This is exactly the point the parent poster is making. It feels like you only skimmed the comment before replying to it.

Uehreka 2y ago
When I talk to folks like GP, they often assert that the non-CEO people who are advocating for AI safety are essentially non-factors, that really the only people whose policy agendas will be enacted are those who already have power, and therefore that the opinions of everyday activists don’t need to be considered when discussing these issues. It’s a darkly nihilistic take that I don’t agree with, but I just wanted to distill it here because I often see people imply it without stating it out loud.

JoshTriplett 2y ago

> When Sam Altman is calling for AI regulation Sure; that's almost certainly not being done in good faith. When numerous AI experts and luminaries who left their jobs in AI are advocating for AI regulation, that's much more likely to be being done in good faith. > What is this regulation aimed at making AI safer https://pauseai.info/ https://pauseai.info/ > Furthermore, there doesn't seem to be any agreement on whether or how AI, at a state remotely similar to the level it is at today, is dangerous You could also write that as "there's no agreement that AI is safe". But that aside... Most of the arguments about AI safety are not about current AI technology. (There are some reasonable arguments about the use of AI for impersonation, such as that AI-generated content should be labeled as such, but those are much less critical and they aren't the critical part of AI safety.) The most critical arguments about AI safety are not primarily about current technology. They're about near-future expansions of AI capabilities. https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.01933 https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.01933 > how to mitigate that danger Pause capabilities research until we have proven strategies for aligning AI to human safety. > How can you even attempt to regulate in good faith without that? We don't know that it's safe, many people are arguing that it's dangerous on an unprecedented scale, there are no good refutations of those arguments, and we don't know how to ensure its safety. That's not a situation in which "we shouldn't do anything about it" is a good idea. How can you even attempt to regulate biological weapons research without having a good way to mitigate it? By stopping biological weapons research.

randomdata 2y ago
> When numerous AI experts and luminaries who left their jobs in AI are advocating for AI regulation, that's much more likely to be being done in good faith. Their big revelation that they left their jobs over is that AI might be used to usurp identities, which, admittedly, is entirely plausible and arguably already something we're starting to see happen. It is humorous that your takeaway from that is that we need to double down on their identity instead of realizing that identity is a misguided and flawed concept.
- AlecSchueler 2y ago
  Is it condescending to describe a differing opinion as "humorous?" It came across as quite rude.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - randomdata 2y ago
    Let's assume, for the sake of discussion, that it is. Is rudeness not rooted in the very same misguided and flawed identity concept? I don't suppose a monkey that you cannot discern from any other monkey giving you the middle finger congers any feelings of that nature. Yet, here the output of software has, I suspect because the software presents the message alongside some kind of clear identity marker. But is it not irrational to be offended by the output of software?
shkkmo 2y ago
In principle, I'm not opposed to a pause. However, in practice, enforcing a pause entails a massive global increase in surveillance and restrictions on what can be done with a computer. > Track the sales of GPUs and other hardware that can be used for AI training So we now have an agency with a register of all computer sales? If you give a computer with a a GPU to a friend or family member, that's breakibf the law ubless you also report it? This takes us in a very scary direction. This has to be a global effort, so we need a system of international enforcement to make it happen. We've been marginally successful in limiting proliferation of nuclear weapons, but at significant international and humanitarian costs. Nuclear weapons require a much more specialized supply chain than AI so limiting and monitoring adversarial access was easier. Now we want to use the same techniques to force adversarial regimes to implement sane regulations around the sale and usage of computer equipment. This seems absolutely batshit insane. In what world does this seem remotely feasible? We've already tried an easier version of this with the biological weapon research ban. The ban exists but enforcement doesn't. In that case, a huge part of the issue was that facilities that do that research very similar or the same as all kinds of other research. An AI Pause has the same issue, but it is compounded by the fact that AI models can grant significant economic advantage in a way that nuclear/biological weapons don't so incentives to find a way to skirt regulations are higher. (Edit: it's further complicated by the fact that the AI risks that the Pause tries to mitigate are theoretical and people haven't seen them, unlike biological/nuclear. This makes concerted global action harder) A global pause on AI research is completely unrealistic. Calls for a global pause are basically calls for starting regime change wars around the globe and even that won't be sufficient. We have to find a different way to mitigate these risks.