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> This may kill literally everyone It's indeed hard to take seriously such gross exaggeration. Even the deadliest plagues didn't kill everyone, so advocating t

by gwervc 2y ago

> This may kill literally everyone It's indeed hard to take seriously such gross exaggeration. Even the deadliest plagues didn't kill everyone, so advocating this is a likely outcome of creating spam generators is laughable. This is more likely a strategy, common in academia, of aggrandizing results (here risks) so that more eyeballs, attention and money is diverted towards the field and its proponents.

DennisP 2y ago
It's quite common for new species to kill off old species. We ourselves have obliterated many species that we outcompeted for resources.
- eltoxo 2y ago
  As if software is the same thing as a new biological species. I am just so bored of reading bullshit like this. If you really believe this then you need to level up your level of education and learning. It is not good.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    > As if software is the same thing as a new biological species. The other poster didn't claim they were. They don't need to be. They don't even need to be given control of robotic bodies, though they already are. What they do need to be, is competing for the same resources. And there's plenty of examples of corporations doing things that are bad for humans in the long-term because they are good for short-term shareholder value. And filing SLAPP suits against any activist trying to stop them.
  - khafra 2y ago
    > If you really believe this then you need to level up your level of education and learning. It is not good. How does your level of education and learning compare to Nobel Prize winner Dr. Geoffrey Hinton (father of deep learning, 10%-50% chance that AI will kill everyone), Dr. Dan Hendrycks (GELU inventor, >80%), Dr. Jan Leike (DeepMind, OpenAI, 10%-90%), Dr. Paul Christiano (OpenAI, Time 100 2023, UK Frontier Taskforce advisory board, 46%), etc.?
  - PROMISE_237 2y ago
    [dead]
roenxi 2y ago
> Even the deadliest plagues didn't kill everyone... That is logically flawed; the species that were killed off by plagues aren't around to say that. Every species exists in a state of "the deadliest plagues [we've experienced so far] didn't kill everyone". You can say that about literally every threat - we know we have overcome everything thrown at us so far because we are still here. That will continue to be the case for everything that humanity ever faces except for 1 thing (we aren't certain what yet). But we know that species go extinct from time to time, so the logic that we've overcome things in the past ergo we are safe doesn't make sense for ruling out even many well known threats. Let alone systems that can outplan us; we've never faced inhuman competitors that can strategise more effectively than a human.
ben_w 2y ago
> advocating this is a likely outcome of creating spam generators is laughable They're used as spam generators because they're cheap. The quality in many fields is currently comparable to someone in the middle of a degree in that field, which makes the quoted comparison a bit like the time Pierre Curie stuck a lump of radium on their arm for ten hours to see what it would do. I can imagine him reacting "What's that you say? A small lump of rock in a test tube might give me aplastic anemia*? The idea is laughtable!", except he'd probably have said that in Polish or French. Even the limits of current models, even if we are using those models to their greatest potential (we're probably not), isn't a safety guarantee: there is no upper bounds to how much harm can be done by putting an idiot in charge of things, and the Peter Principle applies to AI as well as humans, as we're already seeing AI being used for tasks they are inadequate to perform. * he died from a horse drawn cart, Marie Curie developed aplastic anemia and he likely would have too if not for the other accident getting him first. Bonus irony: the general idea he had in regards to this, to use radiation to treat cancer, is correct and currently in use. They just didn't know anything like enough to do that at the time.
- gwervc 2y ago
  > They're used as spam generators because they're cheap. No, the current fade of IA (LLM) are text generators. Very good, but nothing more than that. > there is no upper bounds to how much harm can be done by putting an idiot in charge of things Which is the not an AI problem. An AI may kill people indirectly in a setup like emergency services chatbot and a bad decision is taken, but it certainly couldn't roam the street with a kalachnikov killing people randomly or stabbing children (and if that ever happens politicians will say this has nothing to do with AI). The proponents of "AI can kill us all" can't write a single likely and non-contrived example of how that could happen.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    > No, the current fade of IA (LLM) are text generators. Very good, but nothing more than that. That doesn't address the point, and is also false. Transformers are token generators, which means they can also do image and sound, and DNA sequences. But even if they were just text, source code is "just text", laws are "just text", contract documents are "just text". They have been used to control robots, both as input and output. > Which is the not an AI problem "Good news, at least 3,787 have died and it might be as bad as 16,000!" "How is that good news?" "We're an AI company, and it was our AI which designed and ran the pesticide plant that exploded in a direct duplication of everything that went wrong at Bohpal." "Again, how is this good news?" "We can blame the customer for using our product wrong, not our fault, yay!" "I'm sure the victims and their family will be thrilled to learn this." > it certainly couldn't roam the street with a kalachnikov killing people randomly or stabbing children It can when it's put in charge of a robot body. There's multiple companies demonstrating this already. Pretending that AI can't be used to control robots is like saying that nothing that happens on the internet has any impact on real life. Fortunately the AI which have been given control of robot bodies so far aren't doing that — want to risk your life with the humanoid robot equivalent of the Uber self driving car? > The proponents of "AI can kill us all" can't write a single likely and non-contrived example of how that could happen. Anything less would be a thing we can trivially prevent. It's not like "dig up all the fossil fuels and burn them despite public protest about climate change and the existence of alternatives, and suing the protesters with SLAPP suits so we can keep doing it because it's inconvenient to believe the science and even if it did the consequences won't affect us personally", doesn't sound contrived. And that's with humans making the decisions, humans whose grandkids would be affected.

by gwervc 2y ago

DennisP 2y ago

It's quite common for new species to kill off old species. We ourselves have obliterated many species that we outcompeted for resources.

eltoxo 2y ago
As if software is the same thing as a new biological species. I am just so bored of reading bullshit like this. If you really believe this then you need to level up your level of education and learning. It is not good.
- ben_w 2y ago
  > As if software is the same thing as a new biological species. The other poster didn't claim they were. They don't need to be. They don't even need to be given control of robotic bodies, though they already are. What they do need to be, is competing for the same resources. And there's plenty of examples of corporations doing things that are bad for humans in the long-term because they are good for short-term shareholder value. And filing SLAPP suits against any activist trying to stop them.
- khafra 2y ago
  > If you really believe this then you need to level up your level of education and learning. It is not good. How does your level of education and learning compare to Nobel Prize winner Dr. Geoffrey Hinton (father of deep learning, 10%-50% chance that AI will kill everyone), Dr. Dan Hendrycks (GELU inventor, >80%), Dr. Jan Leike (DeepMind, OpenAI, 10%-90%), Dr. Paul Christiano (OpenAI, Time 100 2023, UK Frontier Taskforce advisory board, 46%), etc.?
- PROMISE_237 2y ago
  [dead]

roenxi 2y ago

> Even the deadliest plagues didn't kill everyone... That is logically flawed; the species that were killed off by plagues aren't around to say that. Every species exists in a state of "the deadliest plagues [we've experienced so far] didn't kill everyone". You can say that about literally every threat - we know we have overcome everything thrown at us so far because we are still here. That will continue to be the case for everything that humanity ever faces except for 1 thing (we aren't certain what yet). But we know that species go extinct from time to time, so the logic that we've overcome things in the past ergo we are safe doesn't make sense for ruling out even many well known threats. Let alone systems that can outplan us; we've never faced inhuman competitors that can strategise more effectively than a human.

ben_w 2y ago

> advocating this is a likely outcome of creating spam generators is laughable They're used as spam generators because they're cheap. The quality in many fields is currently comparable to someone in the middle of a degree in that field, which makes the quoted comparison a bit like the time Pierre Curie stuck a lump of radium on their arm for ten hours to see what it would do. I can imagine him reacting "What's that you say? A small lump of rock in a test tube might give me aplastic anemia*? The idea is laughtable!", except he'd probably have said that in Polish or French. Even the limits of current models, even if we are using those models to their greatest potential (we're probably not), isn't a safety guarantee: there is no upper bounds to how much harm can be done by putting an idiot in charge of things, and the Peter Principle applies to AI as well as humans, as we're already seeing AI being used for tasks they are inadequate to perform. * he died from a horse drawn cart, Marie Curie developed aplastic anemia and he likely would have too if not for the other accident getting him first. Bonus irony: the general idea he had in regards to this, to use radiation to treat cancer, is correct and currently in use. They just didn't know anything like enough to do that at the time.

gwervc 2y ago
> They're used as spam generators because they're cheap. No, the current fade of IA (LLM) are text generators. Very good, but nothing more than that. > there is no upper bounds to how much harm can be done by putting an idiot in charge of things Which is the not an AI problem. An AI may kill people indirectly in a setup like emergency services chatbot and a bad decision is taken, but it certainly couldn't roam the street with a kalachnikov killing people randomly or stabbing children (and if that ever happens politicians will say this has nothing to do with AI). The proponents of "AI can kill us all" can't write a single likely and non-contrived example of how that could happen.
- ben_w 2y ago
  > No, the current fade of IA (LLM) are text generators. Very good, but nothing more than that. That doesn't address the point, and is also false. Transformers are token generators, which means they can also do image and sound, and DNA sequences. But even if they were just text, source code is "just text", laws are "just text", contract documents are "just text". They have been used to control robots, both as input and output. > Which is the not an AI problem "Good news, at least 3,787 have died and it might be as bad as 16,000!" "How is that good news?" "We're an AI company, and it was our AI which designed and ran the pesticide plant that exploded in a direct duplication of everything that went wrong at Bohpal." "Again, how is this good news?" "We can blame the customer for using our product wrong, not our fault, yay!" "I'm sure the victims and their family will be thrilled to learn this." > it certainly couldn't roam the street with a kalachnikov killing people randomly or stabbing children It can when it's put in charge of a robot body. There's multiple companies demonstrating this already. Pretending that AI can't be used to control robots is like saying that nothing that happens on the internet has any impact on real life. Fortunately the AI which have been given control of robot bodies so far aren't doing that — want to risk your life with the humanoid robot equivalent of the Uber self driving car? > The proponents of "AI can kill us all" can't write a single likely and non-contrived example of how that could happen. Anything less would be a thing we can trivially prevent. It's not like "dig up all the fossil fuels and burn them despite public protest about climate change and the existence of alternatives, and suing the protesters with SLAPP suits so we can keep doing it because it's inconvenient to believe the science and even if it did the consequences won't affect us personally", doesn't sound contrived. And that's with humans making the decisions, humans whose grandkids would be affected.