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OpenAI, GoogleDeepMind, and Meta Get Bad Grades on AI Safety

10 points by jnord 2y ago

vouaobrasil 2y ago
It's hard to believe that any of these companies could care about AI safety, except in name only. AI is evolving so fast that there simply is no framework that can exist that can protect the majority against AI. The key problem is this: while AI safety laws can mitigate the effects of existing AI, big tech has free reign to invent new models and new AI and introduce it that will propagate much faster than the law. In my opinion, there can be no safe AI. We can only partially adapt to it and try not to be the ones crushed by it and live out our current lives in the hope that we can survive. The next generations, not so much. Therefore, I conclude that it was a mistake of humanity to ever invent AI, especially since don't have the wisdom to use it nor proper safeguards for it, especially because we can only operate in the realm of ruthless capitalism.
- antonkar 2y ago
  Your catastrophizing belief is a self-fulfilling prophesy. There are quite a few safety options: law that forces AI companies to dedicate half of their compute to safety research. Tool AI idea by Tegmark instead off agentic AI. Worldwide direct-democracy constitution for AI like the one Claude has but with real-time voting. The idea is for AI to not have a specific certain goal (always leads to unintended consequences and fundamentalism) but to forever be uncertain and seek to better understand humans and help them: to maximize each individual human’s freedom of choice and options now and in the future. Just look into it, Tegmark is a good start
  - vouaobrasil 2y ago
    And what if some people don't want to use AI? How is that maximizing freedom when people begin to be forced to use it in their jobs? Doesn't sound like freedom to me. What if people do not want to be exposed to the creations of AI? I really don't think there is any freedom in a world saturated by AI.
    - aspenmayer 2y ago
      AI and the debate around its usage is reminiscent of nuclear weapons, deterrence, and mutually assured destruction. Due to MAD, nuclear weapons are useful as a deterrent, and ideally not used, leading to nuclear technology and access to it becoming politicized, resulting in anti-proliferation strategies and peaceful applications that do not lend themselves to dual-use. AI is almost a mirror image of this, in that AI is used because it is useful, not because it is ideal. Following the analogy, now that AI exists in increasingly useful forms, calls for AI safety echo those made by anti-nuclear advocates and Luddites centuries ago, but nuclear technology and AI both are simply too useful to be returned to that Pandora's box. So, we are seeing a relitigation of the same arguments used to curtail or prohibit technology in the same way we did in the crypto wars[0], only applied to AI instead of cryptography. With MAD, the only winning move was not to play, and that thinking largely remains so to this day, as the nuclear stalemate has thankfully not been broken. The delicate balance of terror[1][2] never ended, and may never end. The players and pieces may change along with the rules and the game board, but war will always be politics by other means.[3][4] However, with AI perhaps the only winning move is to play early and often? The Balkanization of the AI landscape between China and the rest of the world[5] suggests that both sides view AI technology similarly to nuclear technology: a tool too useful to ignore, an idea whose time has come. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_of_terror https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_of_terror [2] https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P1472.html https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P1472.html https://web.archive.org/web/20241204201606/https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P1472.html https://web.archive.org/web/20241204201606/https://www.rand.... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_War [4] https://warroom.armywarcollege.edu/articles/grand-strategy-clausewitz/ https://warroom.armywarcollege.edu/articles/grand-strategy-c... https://web.archive.org/web/20241130183926/https://warroom.armywarcollege.edu/articles/grand-strategy-clausewitz/ https://web.archive.org/web/20241130183926/https://warroom.a... [5] https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PEA3703-1.html https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PEA3703-1.html https://web.archive.org/web/20241214130855/https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/perspectives/PEA3700/PEA3703-1/RAND_PEA3703-1.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20241214130855/https://www.rand.... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42416878 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42416878
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
Drakim 2y ago
It's easy to think that AI is mostly a harmless concept, after all, all it does is give you text and image responses, how can that cause any serious harm? But that betrays a very serious blindness to how quickly these things can change, it's like thinking the invention of electricity cannot possibly have any huge implications for society because all it does is light some lightbulbs, and we already have oil lamps that does roughly the same. The future is not simply what you have right now scaled larger. A lot of money, time, and effort is being poured into AI, and putting anything but a trivial chunk of those resources into AI safety, or limiting further development of AI until you know it's safe, means that you'll lag behind your competition who aren't doing such pit stops. If OpenAI, Google, or Meta decide that they won't release AI models or services into society before they know it won't do serious harm in some unexpected way, then the other two will speed ahead and capture the momentum and market share. As usual, capitalism pushes us ever closer to the gaping maw by it's very design. If you aren't willing to entertain the destruction of society in your pursuit of new innovation and technology, you'll be out-competed by those who do.
michaelt 2y ago
Here's the actual report: https://futureoflife.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/AI-Safety-Index-2024-Full-Report-11-Dec-24.pdf https://futureoflife.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/AI-Safet... It's very extensive, and looks at things from a lot of angles. Both sensible angles and... more hollywood-inspired. They cover everything from jailbreaking, fine-tuning and respecting robots.txt, through board governance structures and SOC2 compliance, all the way to superintelligence and nuclear-weapon-related "model misuse". I assume the authors of the report set themselves the goal of having at least some info on every possible "but what about" question, no matter how uninformed.
- miohtama 2y ago
  > In 2023, the group put out what came to be known as “the pause letter,” which called on AI labs to pause development of advanced models for six months, and to use that time to develop safety standards. It's not that these guys would not have had bad takes before. Their job is to get as much as possible money allocated to AI safety companies, ie themselves, and the best way to do that is to sell fear. Humans have a natural fear of new things.

10 points by jnord 2y ago

It's hard to believe that any of these companies could care about AI safety, except in name only. AI is evolving so fast that there simply is no framework that can exist that can protect the majority against AI. The key problem is this: while AI safety laws can mitigate the effects of existing AI, big tech has free reign to invent new models and new AI and introduce it that will propagate much faster than the law. In my opinion, there can be no safe AI. We can only partially adapt to it and try not to be the ones crushed by it and live out our current lives in the hope that we can survive. The next generations, not so much. Therefore, I conclude that it was a mistake of humanity to ever invent AI, especially since don't have the wisdom to use it nor proper safeguards for it, especially because we can only operate in the realm of ruthless capitalism.

antonkar 2y ago
Your catastrophizing belief is a self-fulfilling prophesy. There are quite a few safety options: law that forces AI companies to dedicate half of their compute to safety research. Tool AI idea by Tegmark instead off agentic AI. Worldwide direct-democracy constitution for AI like the one Claude has but with real-time voting. The idea is for AI to not have a specific certain goal (always leads to unintended consequences and fundamentalism) but to forever be uncertain and seek to better understand humans and help them: to maximize each individual human’s freedom of choice and options now and in the future. Just look into it, Tegmark is a good start
- vouaobrasil 2y ago
  And what if some people don't want to use AI? How is that maximizing freedom when people begin to be forced to use it in their jobs? Doesn't sound like freedom to me. What if people do not want to be exposed to the creations of AI? I really don't think there is any freedom in a world saturated by AI.
  - aspenmayer 2y ago
    AI and the debate around its usage is reminiscent of nuclear weapons, deterrence, and mutually assured destruction. Due to MAD, nuclear weapons are useful as a deterrent, and ideally not used, leading to nuclear technology and access to it becoming politicized, resulting in anti-proliferation strategies and peaceful applications that do not lend themselves to dual-use. AI is almost a mirror image of this, in that AI is used because it is useful, not because it is ideal. Following the analogy, now that AI exists in increasingly useful forms, calls for AI safety echo those made by anti-nuclear advocates and Luddites centuries ago, but nuclear technology and AI both are simply too useful to be returned to that Pandora's box. So, we are seeing a relitigation of the same arguments used to curtail or prohibit technology in the same way we did in the crypto wars[0], only applied to AI instead of cryptography. With MAD, the only winning move was not to play, and that thinking largely remains so to this day, as the nuclear stalemate has thankfully not been broken. The delicate balance of terror[1][2] never ended, and may never end. The players and pieces may change along with the rules and the game board, but war will always be politics by other means.[3][4] However, with AI perhaps the only winning move is to play early and often? The Balkanization of the AI landscape between China and the rest of the world[5] suggests that both sides view AI technology similarly to nuclear technology: a tool too useful to ignore, an idea whose time has come. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_of_terror https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_of_terror [2] https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P1472.html https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P1472.html https://web.archive.org/web/20241204201606/https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P1472.html https://web.archive.org/web/20241204201606/https://www.rand.... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_War [4] https://warroom.armywarcollege.edu/articles/grand-strategy-clausewitz/ https://warroom.armywarcollege.edu/articles/grand-strategy-c... https://web.archive.org/web/20241130183926/https://warroom.armywarcollege.edu/articles/grand-strategy-clausewitz/ https://web.archive.org/web/20241130183926/https://warroom.a... [5] https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PEA3703-1.html https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PEA3703-1.html https://web.archive.org/web/20241214130855/https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/perspectives/PEA3700/PEA3703-1/RAND_PEA3703-1.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20241214130855/https://www.rand.... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42416878 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42416878

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

Drakim 2y ago

It's easy to think that AI is mostly a harmless concept, after all, all it does is give you text and image responses, how can that cause any serious harm? But that betrays a very serious blindness to how quickly these things can change, it's like thinking the invention of electricity cannot possibly have any huge implications for society because all it does is light some lightbulbs, and we already have oil lamps that does roughly the same. The future is not simply what you have right now scaled larger. A lot of money, time, and effort is being poured into AI, and putting anything but a trivial chunk of those resources into AI safety, or limiting further development of AI until you know it's safe, means that you'll lag behind your competition who aren't doing such pit stops. If OpenAI, Google, or Meta decide that they won't release AI models or services into society before they know it won't do serious harm in some unexpected way, then the other two will speed ahead and capture the momentum and market share. As usual, capitalism pushes us ever closer to the gaping maw by it's very design. If you aren't willing to entertain the destruction of society in your pursuit of new innovation and technology, you'll be out-competed by those who do.

michaelt 2y ago

Here's the actual report: https://futureoflife.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/AI-Safety-Index-2024-Full-Report-11-Dec-24.pdf https://futureoflife.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/AI-Safet... It's very extensive, and looks at things from a lot of angles. Both sensible angles and... more hollywood-inspired. They cover everything from jailbreaking, fine-tuning and respecting robots.txt, through board governance structures and SOC2 compliance, all the way to superintelligence and nuclear-weapon-related "model misuse". I assume the authors of the report set themselves the goal of having at least some info on every possible "but what about" question, no matter how uninformed.

miohtama 2y ago
> In 2023, the group put out what came to be known as “the pause letter,” which called on AI labs to pause development of advanced models for six months, and to use that time to develop safety standards. It's not that these guys would not have had bad takes before. Their job is to get as much as possible money allocated to AI safety companies, ie themselves, and the best way to do that is to sell fear. Humans have a natural fear of new things.