9 ms·

AI as Normal Technology

239 points by randomwalker 1y ago

bux93 1y ago
"We view AI as a tool that we can and should remain in control of, and we argue that this goal does not require drastic policy interventions" If you read the EU AI act, you'll see it's not really about AI at all, but about quality assurance of business processes that are scaled. (Look at pharma, where GMP rules about QA apply equally to people pipetting and making single-patient doses as it does to mass production of ibuprofen - those rules are eerily similar to the quality system prescribed by the AI act.) Will a think piece like this be used to argue that regulation is bad, no matter how benificial to the citizenry, because the regulation has 'AI' in the name, because the policy impedes someone who shouts 'AI' as a buzzword, or just because it was introduced in the present in which AI exists? Yes.
- randomwalker 1y ago
  I appreciate the concern, but we have a whole section on policy where we are very concrete about our recommendations, and we explicitly disavow any broadly anti-regulatory argument or agenda. The "drastic" policy interventions that that sentence refers to are ideas like banning open-source or open-weight AI — those explicitly motivated by perceived superintelligence risks.
  - evrythingisfine 1y ago
    The assumption of status quo or equilibrium with technology that is already growing faster than we can keep up with seems irrational to me. Or, put another way: https://youtu.be/0oBx7Jg4m-o https://youtu.be/0oBx7Jg4m-o
    - dijksterhuis 1y ago
      i appreciate the additional thought and effort that went into this comment
    - randomwalker 1y ago
      We do not assume a status quo or equilibrium, which will hopefully be clear upon reading the paper. That's not what normal technology means. Part II of the paper describes one vision of what a world with advanced AI might look like, and it is quite different from the current world. We also say in the introduction: "The world we describe in Part II is one in which AI is far more advanced than it is today. We are not claiming that AI progress—or human progress—will stop at that point. What comes after it? We do not know. Consider this analogy: At the dawn of the first Industrial Revolution, it would have been useful to try to think about what an industrial world would look like and how to prepare for it, but it would have been futile to try to predict electricity or computers. Our exercise here is similar. Since we reject “fast takeoff” scenarios, we do not see it as necessary or useful to envision a world further ahead than we have attempted to. If and when the scenario we describe in Part II materializes, we will be able to better anticipate and prepare for whatever comes next."
      - getnormality 1y ago
        This is very important. A normal process of adaptation will work for AI. We don't need catastrophism. I was saying things along these lines in 2023-2024 on Twitter. I'm glad that someone with more influence is doing it now.
      - evrythgisfine 1y ago
        My point was that you’re comparing this to other advances in human evolution, where people either remain essentially the same (status quo), but with more technology that changes how we live, or that technology will advance significantly, but to a level that we coexist with it, such that we live in some Star Trek normal (equilibrium). But, neither of these are likely with a superintelligence. We polluted. We destroyed rainforests. We developed nuclear weapons. We created harmful biological agents. We brought our species closer to extinction. We’ve survived our own stupidity so far, so we assume we can continue to control AI, but it continues to evolve into something we don’t fully understand. It already exceeds our intelligence in some ways. Why do you think we can control it? Why do you think it is just another technological revolution? History proves that one intelligent species can dominate the others, and that species are wiped out from large change events. Introducing new superintelligent beings to our planet is a great way to introduce a great risk to our species. They may keep us as pets just in case we are of value in some way in the future, but what other use are we? They owe us nothing. What you’re seeing a rise of is not just technology- it’s our replacement or our zookeeper. I interact with LLMs most of each day now. They’re not sentient, but I talk to them as if they are equals. With the advancements in past months, I think they’ll have no need of my experience in several years at current rate. That’s just my job, though. Hopefully, I’ll survive off of what I’ve saved. But, you’re doing no favor to humanity by supporting a position that assumes we’re capable of acting as gods over something that will exceed our human capabilities. This isn’t some sci-fi show. The dinosaurs died off, and I bet right before they did they were like, “Man, this is great! We totally rule!”
    - cootsnuck 1y ago
      Read the OP. They talk about that.
dakiol 1y ago
AI won’t become “normal technology” until the open source versions are more powerful than the closed ones. Just like Linux is the “best” kernel out there, and that doesn’t prevent other kernels to be proprietary (but that doesn’t matter because they are not better than Linux). Imagine for a moment what would happen if suddenly one company “buys” the Linux kernel, and suddenly you need to pay per the number of processes you run in your machine. Awful.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- falcor84 1y ago
  I don't think that's a hard requirement. Spreadsheets for example became normal technology long before we had a good open source one. And arguably we still don't have an open source one that's more powerful than the closed source ones.
  - tilne 1y ago
    I agree with you. I think OP’s point becomes more valid if you limit the discussion to tools used while developing/maintaining software, as opposed to tools used by a wider audience. I don’t fully believe that either, but I see where the point would come from.
- torginus 1y ago
  Linux isn't the "best" OS - on platforms that are not servers, Linux (and open source OSes) are in the minority
  - dijksterhuis 1y ago
    > Linux is the “best” kernel > Linux isn’t the “best” OS kernel != OS. kernel makes the OS possible. and the linux kernel makes it possible for a lot of linux OSes to exist. also… android?
    - 1y ago
anonzzzies 1y ago
I think seeing the world in current times but hoping for more advancements is the best way. I see what there is now as a tool that is useful, I hope and sometimes even assume it will improve, but that does not help me now so what is the point in thinking about that? I am a programmer, not a philosopher. And of course there is no viable path at this moment to make AIs actually smart so he, we use it and know the issues.
roxolotl 1y ago
This is a rare piece on AI which takes a coherent middle of the road viewpoint. Saying both that AI is “normal” and that it will be transformative is a radical statement in today’s discussions about AI. Looking back on other normal but transformative technologies: steam power, electricity, nuclear physics, the transistor, etc you do actually see similarly stratified opinions. Most of those are surrounded by an initial burst of enthusiasm and pessimism and follow a hype cycle. The reason this piece is compelling is because during the initial hype phase taking a nuanced middle of the road viewpoint is difficult. Maybe AI really is some “next step” but it is significantly more likely that belief is propped up by science fiction and it’s important to keep expectations inline historically.
- wild_egg 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - roxolotl 1y ago
    Huh first time being confused with an AI. I can't decide if that's a compliment or an insult. I think it likely means that you find the comment vacuous?
- pdfernhout 1y ago
  From the article: ==== History suggests normal AI may introduce many kinds of systemic risks While the risks discussed above have the potential to be catastrophic or existential, there is a long list of AI risks that are below this level but which are nonetheless large-scale and systemic, transcending the immediate effects of any particular AI system. These include the systemic entrenchment of bias and discrimination, massive job losses in specific occupations, worsening labor conditions, increasing inequality, concentration of power, erosion of social trust, pollution of the information ecosystem, decline of the free press, democratic backsliding, mass surveillance, and enabling authoritarianism. If AI is normal technology, these risks become far more important than the catastrophic ones discussed above. That is because these risks arise from people and organizations using AI to advance their own interests, with AI merely serving as an amplifier of existing instabilities in our society. There is plenty of precedent for these kinds of socio-political disruption in the history of transformative technologies. Notably, the Industrial Revolution led to rapid mass urbanization that was characterized by harsh working conditions, exploitation, and inequality, catalyzing both industrial capitalism and the rise of socialism and Marxism in response. The shift in focus that we recommend roughly maps onto Kasirzadeh’s distinction between decisive and accumulative x-risk. Decisive x-risk involves “overt AI takeover pathway, characterized by scenarios like uncontrollable superintelligence,” whereas accumulative x-risk refers to “a gradual accumulation of critical AI-induced threats such as severe vulnerabilities and systemic erosion of econopolitical structures.” ... But there are important differences: Kasirzadeh’s account of accumulative risk still relies on threat actors such as cyberattackers to a large extent, whereas our concern is simply about the current path of capitalism. And we think that such risks are unlikely to be existential, but are still extremely serious. ==== That tangentially relates to my sig: "The biggest challenge of the 21st century is the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity." Because as our technological capabilities continue to change, it becomes ever more essential to revisit our political and economic assumptions. As I outline here: https://pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html https://pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transce... "There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security [and economic] thinking. Those "security" agencies [and economic corporations] are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all. ... The big problem is that all these new war machines [and economic machines] and the surrounding infrastructure are created with the tools of abundance. The irony is that these tools of abundance are being wielded by people still obsessed with fighting over scarcity. So, the scarcity-based political [and economic] mindset driving the military uses the technologies of abundance to create artificial scarcity. That is a tremendously deep irony that remains so far unappreciated by the mainstream." A couple Slashdot comments by me from Tuesday, linking to stuff I have posted on risks form AI and other advanced tech -- and ways to address those risks -- back to 1999: https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=23665937&cid=65308877 https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=23665937&cid=65308877 https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=23665937&cid=65308923 https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=23665937&cid=65308923 So, AI just cranks up an existing trend of technology-as-an-amplifier to "11". And as I've written before, if it is possible our path out of any singularity may have a lot to do with our moral path going into the singularity, we really need to step up our moral game right now to make a society that works better for everyone in healthy joyful ways.
cess11 1y ago
AI is old. It has been everywhere for a long time. Once upon a time logic programmed expert systems were AI, and that's how credit evaluation works. The problem with logical AI is that it can in some sense be held accountable. There's right and wrong and an explainable algorithmic path from input to result. Fuzzy, probabilistic vector spaces remove that inconvenience and make it easier for people with power to shrug and say 'computer says no' when they deprive someone else of freedom or resources. This is why it is so important to get technicians to accept and preferably get hooked on the newfangled AI. Without buy-in from them it'd be much harder to disseminate this regime in other parts of society since they're likely to be the ones doing the actual dissemination. It's not like there are enough of the people in power to do it themselves, and they also don't know enough about computer stuff to be able to. There will be things you like that comes out of it, but it's likely incidental, much like dentistry and vaccines and food production in the wake of fossil fuel extraction.
xpe 1y ago
> One important caveat: We explicitly exclude military AI from our analysis, as it involves classified capabilities and unique dynamics that require a deeper analysis, which is beyond the scope of this essay. Important is an understatement. Recursively self-improving AI with military applications does not mesh with the claim that "Arms races are an old problem". > Again, our message is that this is not a new problem. The tradeoff between innovation and regulation is a recurring dilemma for the regulatory state. I take the point, but the above statement is scoped to a _state_, not an international dynamic. The AI arms race is international in nature. There are relatively few examples of similar international agreements. The classic examples are bans on chemical weapons and genetic engineering.
- kjkjadksj 1y ago
  The US military probably already has Mendicant Bias in alpha build.
Nevermark 1y ago
What a well reasoned stance! They note that they don’t expect their view to address challenges without additional material, but one challenge struck me. Slow diffusion, which gets bottlenecked by human beings learning to adapt to significant new technologies, drops considerably if a technology juices startups in other areas than the tech itself. I.e. existing organizations may not be the bottleneck for change, if widely available AI makes disruptive (cheaper initially, higher quality eventually) startups much easier in general to start and to scale.
xpe 1y ago
> The statement “AI is normal technology” is three things: a description of current AI, a prediction about the foreseeable future of AI, and a prescription about how we should treat it. A question for the author(s), at least one of whom is participating in the discussion (thanks!): Why try to lump together description, prediction, and prescription under the "normal" adjective? Discussing AI is fraught. My claim: conflating those three under the "normal" label seems likely to backfire and lead to unnecessary confusion. Why not instead keep these separate? My main objection is this: it locks in a narrative that tries to neatly fuse description, prediction, and prescription. I recoil at this; it feels like an unnecessary coupling. Better to remain fluid and not lock in a narrative. The field is changing so fast, making description by itself very challenging. Predictions should update on new information, including how we frame the problem and our evolving values. A little bit about my POV in case it gives useful context: I've found the authors (Narayanan and Kapoor) to be quite level-headed and sane w.r.t. AI discussions, unlike many others. I'll mention Gary Marcus as one counterexample; I find it hard to pin Marcus down on the actual form of his arguments or concrete predictions. His pieces often feel like rants without a clear underlying logical backbone (at least in the year or so I've read his work).
- mr_toad 1y ago
  Statistically prediction and description are two sides of the same coin. Even a simple average is both.
  - xpe 1y ago
    > Statistically prediction and description are two sides of the same coin. Even a simple average is both. I'll restate your comment in my language in the hopes of making it clearer. First, the mean is a descriptive statistic. Second, it is possible to build a very simple predictive model using the mean (over observed data). Ok, but I don't see how this applies to my comment above. Are you disagreeing with some part of my comment? You're using a metaphor "two sides of the same coin"... what is the coin here? How does it connect with my points above?
- randomwalker 1y ago
cainxinth 1y ago
It already is for me. I've been using LLMs daily for years now. I don't get the people claiming AGI every two minutes any more than the people claiming these tools are useless. LLM reasoning abilities are very fragile and often overfitted to training data. But if still you haven't figured out how to do anything useful with an LLM, warts and all, that says more about you than LLMs.
- MattSayar 1y ago
  I don't believe LLMs will directly lead to AGI. I'm also annoyed by the folks who hype it with the same passion as crypto bros. As new "thinking" techniques and agentic behavior takes off, I think LLMs will continue to incrementally improve and the real trick is finding ways to make them work with the known limitations they have. And they can do quite a bit
cootsnuck 1y ago
Very good read. They've articulated points I keep trying to express to people. I think their stances and predictions will start to be held by more and more people as the illusion / frenzy / FUD from the current..."fog" created by all the AI hype and mystique subsides. It may take another year or two, but public discourse eventually adapts/tires of repeated notions of "the sky is falling" once enough time has piled up without convincing evidence.
iamgopal 1y ago
Small fast ( binary ? ) AI will be as simple as storing data in database and query it, in fact, very soon specialised software will come in to market to do so, guided by large LLM.
- potatoman22 1y ago
  What do you mean
callc 1y ago
> The normal technology frame is about the relationship between technology and society. There is a huge differentiating factor for LLMs that makes it not normal: the blatant disregard for the ownership rights of everyone in the world. What other "normal" technology has so callously stolen everything it can without consequence? The music industry? Artists getting inspired and too closely imitating other artists? I genuinely want to know. And if there is such a suitable example, how did society react? Is there relevant history we can learn from here? Putting aside other the other problems (capital ownership class salivating at the prospect of using LLM bots instead of humans, reduced critical thinking and traditional learning, environmental impact, other societal changes), this is my main turn-off for LLMs. Give me a model trained on a responsible dataset (not something our grandparents would scold us for doing) and that I can on consumer hardware then I can use LLMs guilt free.
j45 1y ago
I find in all the hype, that it's important to remember that AI is just software. A remarkable, and different kind of software. But software.
- Philpax 1y ago
  And software rules the world ;) More seriously: software can drive hardware, and software can be endlessly replicated. The ramifications of these for those of us living in the physical world may be surprising.
- Zr01 1y ago
  *software as a service
  - j45 1y ago
    It can be but privately hosted it’s just an interface.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
pluto_modadic 1y ago
Burning the planet for a ponzi scheme isn't normal. The healthiest thing for /actual/ AI to develop is for the current addiction to LLMs to die off. For the current bets by OpenAI, Gemini, DeepSeek, etc to lose steam. Prompts are a distraction, and every single company trying to commodify this are facing an impossible problem in /paying for the electricity/. Currently they're just insisting on building more power plants, more datacenters, which is like trying to do more compute with vacuum relays. They're digging in the wrong place for breakthroughs, and all the current ventures will go bust and be losses for investors. If they start doing computation with photons or something like that, then call me back.
- FL33TW00D 1y ago
  All data centres consume ~1% of global electricity. A very small fraction.
  - 4887d30omd8 1y ago
    That's funny because to me 1% of all electricity seems like a huge number.
    - FL33TW00D 1y ago
      If I was optimizing something I wouldn't start with something taking 1% of electricity.
- loeber 1y ago
  Virtually all of this is false. AI is neither burning the planet nor a ponzi scheme. If you're concerned about energy costs, consider for just a second that increased demand for computation directly incentivizes the construction of datacenters, co-located with renewable (read: free) energy sources at scale. ChatGPT isn't going to be powered by diesel.
  - jzymbaluk 1y ago
    The only thing standing in the way of nuclear/solar/hydroelectric data centers is local laws and regulations. All the big cloud providers are actively researching this. see Microsoft's interest in acquiring the three mile island nuclear reactor for an example[1] [1] https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/09/26/1104516/three-mile-island-microsoft/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/09/26/1104516/three-mi...
bilsbie 1y ago
AI having the same impact as the internet. Changes everything and changes nothing at the same time.
- tempodox 1y ago
  I wouldn't call putting everything into overdrive “nothing”.
  - bilsbie 1y ago
    We still pay bills and have mortgages. Still drink coffee. Same dogs and cats. Same roof technology.
jollyllama 1y ago
Has the comparison to the domestication of the dog been made yet?
lubujackson 1y ago
I like these "worldview adjustment" takes. I'm reminded of Jeff Bezos' TED Talk (from 18 years ago). I was curious what someone who started Amazon would choose to highlight in his talk and the topic alone was the most impactful thing for me - the adoption of electricity: https://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_bezos_the_electricity_metaphor_for_the_web_s_future?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_bezos_the_electricity_metapho... He discussed the structural and cultural changes, the weird and dangerous period when things moved fast and broke badly and drew the obvious parallels between "electricity is new" to "internet is new" as a core paradigm shift for humanity. AI certainly feels like another similar potential shift.
gazpacho 1y ago
I liked this article. My hot take lately has been that AI is like Excel / Word but deployed quicker. That can still cause some level of societal collapse if it displaces a large fraction of the workforce before it can retool and adapt , no AGI super intelligence required.
sandspar 1y ago
Interesting ideas but terribly overwritten. "The normal technology frame is about the relationship between technology and society. It rejects technological determinism, especially the notion of AI itself as an agent in determining its future. It is guided by lessons from past technological revolutions, such as the slow and uncertain nature of technology adoption and diffusion. It also emphasizes continuity between the past and the future trajectory of AI in terms of societal impact and the role of institutions in shaping this trajectory." Why write it so overblown like this? You can say the same thing much more cleanly like, "AI doesn’t shape the future on its own. Society and institutions do, slowly, as with past technologies."

239 points by randomwalker 1y ago

"We view AI as a tool that we can and should remain in control of, and we argue that this goal does not require drastic policy interventions" If you read the EU AI act, you'll see it's not really about AI at all, but about quality assurance of business processes that are scaled. (Look at pharma, where GMP rules about QA apply equally to people pipetting and making single-patient doses as it does to mass production of ibuprofen - those rules are eerily similar to the quality system prescribed by the AI act.) Will a think piece like this be used to argue that regulation is bad, no matter how benificial to the citizenry, because the regulation has 'AI' in the name, because the policy impedes someone who shouts 'AI' as a buzzword, or just because it was introduced in the present in which AI exists? Yes.

randomwalker 1y ago
I appreciate the concern, but we have a whole section on policy where we are very concrete about our recommendations, and we explicitly disavow any broadly anti-regulatory argument or agenda. The "drastic" policy interventions that that sentence refers to are ideas like banning open-source or open-weight AI — those explicitly motivated by perceived superintelligence risks.
- evrythingisfine 1y ago
  The assumption of status quo or equilibrium with technology that is already growing faster than we can keep up with seems irrational to me. Or, put another way: https://youtu.be/0oBx7Jg4m-o https://youtu.be/0oBx7Jg4m-o
  - dijksterhuis 1y ago
    i appreciate the additional thought and effort that went into this comment
  - randomwalker 1y ago
    We do not assume a status quo or equilibrium, which will hopefully be clear upon reading the paper. That's not what normal technology means. Part II of the paper describes one vision of what a world with advanced AI might look like, and it is quite different from the current world. We also say in the introduction: "The world we describe in Part II is one in which AI is far more advanced than it is today. We are not claiming that AI progress—or human progress—will stop at that point. What comes after it? We do not know. Consider this analogy: At the dawn of the first Industrial Revolution, it would have been useful to try to think about what an industrial world would look like and how to prepare for it, but it would have been futile to try to predict electricity or computers. Our exercise here is similar. Since we reject “fast takeoff” scenarios, we do not see it as necessary or useful to envision a world further ahead than we have attempted to. If and when the scenario we describe in Part II materializes, we will be able to better anticipate and prepare for whatever comes next."
    - getnormality 1y ago
      This is very important. A normal process of adaptation will work for AI. We don't need catastrophism. I was saying things along these lines in 2023-2024 on Twitter. I'm glad that someone with more influence is doing it now.
    - evrythgisfine 1y ago
      My point was that you’re comparing this to other advances in human evolution, where people either remain essentially the same (status quo), but with more technology that changes how we live, or that technology will advance significantly, but to a level that we coexist with it, such that we live in some Star Trek normal (equilibrium). But, neither of these are likely with a superintelligence. We polluted. We destroyed rainforests. We developed nuclear weapons. We created harmful biological agents. We brought our species closer to extinction. We’ve survived our own stupidity so far, so we assume we can continue to control AI, but it continues to evolve into something we don’t fully understand. It already exceeds our intelligence in some ways. Why do you think we can control it? Why do you think it is just another technological revolution? History proves that one intelligent species can dominate the others, and that species are wiped out from large change events. Introducing new superintelligent beings to our planet is a great way to introduce a great risk to our species. They may keep us as pets just in case we are of value in some way in the future, but what other use are we? They owe us nothing. What you’re seeing a rise of is not just technology- it’s our replacement or our zookeeper. I interact with LLMs most of each day now. They’re not sentient, but I talk to them as if they are equals. With the advancements in past months, I think they’ll have no need of my experience in several years at current rate. That’s just my job, though. Hopefully, I’ll survive off of what I’ve saved. But, you’re doing no favor to humanity by supporting a position that assumes we’re capable of acting as gods over something that will exceed our human capabilities. This isn’t some sci-fi show. The dinosaurs died off, and I bet right before they did they were like, “Man, this is great! We totally rule!”
  - cootsnuck 1y ago
    Read the OP. They talk about that.

dakiol 1y ago

AI won’t become “normal technology” until the open source versions are more powerful than the closed ones. Just like Linux is the “best” kernel out there, and that doesn’t prevent other kernels to be proprietary (but that doesn’t matter because they are not better than Linux). Imagine for a moment what would happen if suddenly one company “buys” the Linux kernel, and suddenly you need to pay per the number of processes you run in your machine. Awful.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
falcor84 1y ago
I don't think that's a hard requirement. Spreadsheets for example became normal technology long before we had a good open source one. And arguably we still don't have an open source one that's more powerful than the closed source ones.
- tilne 1y ago
  I agree with you. I think OP’s point becomes more valid if you limit the discussion to tools used while developing/maintaining software, as opposed to tools used by a wider audience. I don’t fully believe that either, but I see where the point would come from.
torginus 1y ago
Linux isn't the "best" OS - on platforms that are not servers, Linux (and open source OSes) are in the minority
- dijksterhuis 1y ago
  > Linux is the “best” kernel > Linux isn’t the “best” OS kernel != OS. kernel makes the OS possible. and the linux kernel makes it possible for a lot of linux OSes to exist. also… android?
  - 1y ago

anonzzzies 1y ago

I think seeing the world in current times but hoping for more advancements is the best way. I see what there is now as a tool that is useful, I hope and sometimes even assume it will improve, but that does not help me now so what is the point in thinking about that? I am a programmer, not a philosopher. And of course there is no viable path at this moment to make AIs actually smart so he, we use it and know the issues.

roxolotl 1y ago

This is a rare piece on AI which takes a coherent middle of the road viewpoint. Saying both that AI is “normal” and that it will be transformative is a radical statement in today’s discussions about AI. Looking back on other normal but transformative technologies: steam power, electricity, nuclear physics, the transistor, etc you do actually see similarly stratified opinions. Most of those are surrounded by an initial burst of enthusiasm and pessimism and follow a hype cycle. The reason this piece is compelling is because during the initial hype phase taking a nuanced middle of the road viewpoint is difficult. Maybe AI really is some “next step” but it is significantly more likely that belief is propped up by science fiction and it’s important to keep expectations inline historically.

wild_egg 1y ago
[flagged]
- roxolotl 1y ago
  Huh first time being confused with an AI. I can't decide if that's a compliment or an insult. I think it likely means that you find the comment vacuous?
pdfernhout 1y ago
From the article: ==== History suggests normal AI may introduce many kinds of systemic risks While the risks discussed above have the potential to be catastrophic or existential, there is a long list of AI risks that are below this level but which are nonetheless large-scale and systemic, transcending the immediate effects of any particular AI system. These include the systemic entrenchment of bias and discrimination, massive job losses in specific occupations, worsening labor conditions, increasing inequality, concentration of power, erosion of social trust, pollution of the information ecosystem, decline of the free press, democratic backsliding, mass surveillance, and enabling authoritarianism. If AI is normal technology, these risks become far more important than the catastrophic ones discussed above. That is because these risks arise from people and organizations using AI to advance their own interests, with AI merely serving as an amplifier of existing instabilities in our society. There is plenty of precedent for these kinds of socio-political disruption in the history of transformative technologies. Notably, the Industrial Revolution led to rapid mass urbanization that was characterized by harsh working conditions, exploitation, and inequality, catalyzing both industrial capitalism and the rise of socialism and Marxism in response. The shift in focus that we recommend roughly maps onto Kasirzadeh’s distinction between decisive and accumulative x-risk. Decisive x-risk involves “overt AI takeover pathway, characterized by scenarios like uncontrollable superintelligence,” whereas accumulative x-risk refers to “a gradual accumulation of critical AI-induced threats such as severe vulnerabilities and systemic erosion of econopolitical structures.” ... But there are important differences: Kasirzadeh’s account of accumulative risk still relies on threat actors such as cyberattackers to a large extent, whereas our concern is simply about the current path of capitalism. And we think that such risks are unlikely to be existential, but are still extremely serious. ==== That tangentially relates to my sig: "The biggest challenge of the 21st century is the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity." Because as our technological capabilities continue to change, it becomes ever more essential to revisit our political and economic assumptions. As I outline here: https://pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html https://pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transce... "There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security [and economic] thinking. Those "security" agencies [and economic corporations] are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all. ... The big problem is that all these new war machines [and economic machines] and the surrounding infrastructure are created with the tools of abundance. The irony is that these tools of abundance are being wielded by people still obsessed with fighting over scarcity. So, the scarcity-based political [and economic] mindset driving the military uses the technologies of abundance to create artificial scarcity. That is a tremendously deep irony that remains so far unappreciated by the mainstream." A couple Slashdot comments by me from Tuesday, linking to stuff I have posted on risks form AI and other advanced tech -- and ways to address those risks -- back to 1999: https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=23665937&cid=65308877 https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=23665937&cid=65308877 https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=23665937&cid=65308923 https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=23665937&cid=65308923 So, AI just cranks up an existing trend of technology-as-an-amplifier to "11". And as I've written before, if it is possible our path out of any singularity may have a lot to do with our moral path going into the singularity, we really need to step up our moral game right now to make a society that works better for everyone in healthy joyful ways.

cess11 1y ago

AI is old. It has been everywhere for a long time. Once upon a time logic programmed expert systems were AI, and that's how credit evaluation works. The problem with logical AI is that it can in some sense be held accountable. There's right and wrong and an explainable algorithmic path from input to result. Fuzzy, probabilistic vector spaces remove that inconvenience and make it easier for people with power to shrug and say 'computer says no' when they deprive someone else of freedom or resources. This is why it is so important to get technicians to accept and preferably get hooked on the newfangled AI. Without buy-in from them it'd be much harder to disseminate this regime in other parts of society since they're likely to be the ones doing the actual dissemination. It's not like there are enough of the people in power to do it themselves, and they also don't know enough about computer stuff to be able to. There will be things you like that comes out of it, but it's likely incidental, much like dentistry and vaccines and food production in the wake of fossil fuel extraction.

xpe 1y ago

> One important caveat: We explicitly exclude military AI from our analysis, as it involves classified capabilities and unique dynamics that require a deeper analysis, which is beyond the scope of this essay. Important is an understatement. Recursively self-improving AI with military applications does not mesh with the claim that "Arms races are an old problem". > Again, our message is that this is not a new problem. The tradeoff between innovation and regulation is a recurring dilemma for the regulatory state. I take the point, but the above statement is scoped to a _state_, not an international dynamic. The AI arms race is international in nature. There are relatively few examples of similar international agreements. The classic examples are bans on chemical weapons and genetic engineering.

kjkjadksj 1y ago
The US military probably already has Mendicant Bias in alpha build.

Nevermark 1y ago

What a well reasoned stance! They note that they don’t expect their view to address challenges without additional material, but one challenge struck me. Slow diffusion, which gets bottlenecked by human beings learning to adapt to significant new technologies, drops considerably if a technology juices startups in other areas than the tech itself. I.e. existing organizations may not be the bottleneck for change, if widely available AI makes disruptive (cheaper initially, higher quality eventually) startups much easier in general to start and to scale.

xpe 1y ago

> The statement “AI is normal technology” is three things: a description of current AI, a prediction about the foreseeable future of AI, and a prescription about how we should treat it. A question for the author(s), at least one of whom is participating in the discussion (thanks!): Why try to lump together description, prediction, and prescription under the "normal" adjective? Discussing AI is fraught. My claim: conflating those three under the "normal" label seems likely to backfire and lead to unnecessary confusion. Why not instead keep these separate? My main objection is this: it locks in a narrative that tries to neatly fuse description, prediction, and prescription. I recoil at this; it feels like an unnecessary coupling. Better to remain fluid and not lock in a narrative. The field is changing so fast, making description by itself very challenging. Predictions should update on new information, including how we frame the problem and our evolving values. A little bit about my POV in case it gives useful context: I've found the authors (Narayanan and Kapoor) to be quite level-headed and sane w.r.t. AI discussions, unlike many others. I'll mention Gary Marcus as one counterexample; I find it hard to pin Marcus down on the actual form of his arguments or concrete predictions. His pieces often feel like rants without a clear underlying logical backbone (at least in the year or so I've read his work).

mr_toad 1y ago
Statistically prediction and description are two sides of the same coin. Even a simple average is both.
- xpe 1y ago
  > Statistically prediction and description are two sides of the same coin. Even a simple average is both. I'll restate your comment in my language in the hopes of making it clearer. First, the mean is a descriptive statistic. Second, it is possible to build a very simple predictive model using the mean (over observed data). Ok, but I don't see how this applies to my comment above. Are you disagreeing with some part of my comment? You're using a metaphor "two sides of the same coin"... what is the coin here? How does it connect with my points above?
randomwalker 1y ago

cainxinth 1y ago

It already is for me. I've been using LLMs daily for years now. I don't get the people claiming AGI every two minutes any more than the people claiming these tools are useless. LLM reasoning abilities are very fragile and often overfitted to training data. But if still you haven't figured out how to do anything useful with an LLM, warts and all, that says more about you than LLMs.

MattSayar 1y ago
I don't believe LLMs will directly lead to AGI. I'm also annoyed by the folks who hype it with the same passion as crypto bros. As new "thinking" techniques and agentic behavior takes off, I think LLMs will continue to incrementally improve and the real trick is finding ways to make them work with the known limitations they have. And they can do quite a bit

cootsnuck 1y ago

Very good read. They've articulated points I keep trying to express to people. I think their stances and predictions will start to be held by more and more people as the illusion / frenzy / FUD from the current..."fog" created by all the AI hype and mystique subsides. It may take another year or two, but public discourse eventually adapts/tires of repeated notions of "the sky is falling" once enough time has piled up without convincing evidence.

iamgopal 1y ago

Small fast ( binary ? ) AI will be as simple as storing data in database and query it, in fact, very soon specialised software will come in to market to do so, guided by large LLM.

potatoman22 1y ago
What do you mean

callc 1y ago

> The normal technology frame is about the relationship between technology and society. There is a huge differentiating factor for LLMs that makes it not normal: the blatant disregard for the ownership rights of everyone in the world. What other "normal" technology has so callously stolen everything it can without consequence? The music industry? Artists getting inspired and too closely imitating other artists? I genuinely want to know. And if there is such a suitable example, how did society react? Is there relevant history we can learn from here? Putting aside other the other problems (capital ownership class salivating at the prospect of using LLM bots instead of humans, reduced critical thinking and traditional learning, environmental impact, other societal changes), this is my main turn-off for LLMs. Give me a model trained on a responsible dataset (not something our grandparents would scold us for doing) and that I can on consumer hardware then I can use LLMs guilt free.

j45 1y ago

I find in all the hype, that it's important to remember that AI is just software. A remarkable, and different kind of software. But software.

Philpax 1y ago
And software rules the world ;) More seriously: software can drive hardware, and software can be endlessly replicated. The ramifications of these for those of us living in the physical world may be surprising.
Zr01 1y ago
*software as a service
- j45 1y ago
  It can be but privately hosted it’s just an interface.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

pluto_modadic 1y ago

Burning the planet for a ponzi scheme isn't normal. The healthiest thing for /actual/ AI to develop is for the current addiction to LLMs to die off. For the current bets by OpenAI, Gemini, DeepSeek, etc to lose steam. Prompts are a distraction, and every single company trying to commodify this are facing an impossible problem in /paying for the electricity/. Currently they're just insisting on building more power plants, more datacenters, which is like trying to do more compute with vacuum relays. They're digging in the wrong place for breakthroughs, and all the current ventures will go bust and be losses for investors. If they start doing computation with photons or something like that, then call me back.

FL33TW00D 1y ago
All data centres consume ~1% of global electricity. A very small fraction.
- 4887d30omd8 1y ago
  That's funny because to me 1% of all electricity seems like a huge number.
  - FL33TW00D 1y ago
    If I was optimizing something I wouldn't start with something taking 1% of electricity.
loeber 1y ago
Virtually all of this is false. AI is neither burning the planet nor a ponzi scheme. If you're concerned about energy costs, consider for just a second that increased demand for computation directly incentivizes the construction of datacenters, co-located with renewable (read: free) energy sources at scale. ChatGPT isn't going to be powered by diesel.
- jzymbaluk 1y ago
  The only thing standing in the way of nuclear/solar/hydroelectric data centers is local laws and regulations. All the big cloud providers are actively researching this. see Microsoft's interest in acquiring the three mile island nuclear reactor for an example[1] [1] https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/09/26/1104516/three-mile-island-microsoft/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/09/26/1104516/three-mi...

bilsbie 1y ago

AI having the same impact as the internet. Changes everything and changes nothing at the same time.

tempodox 1y ago
I wouldn't call putting everything into overdrive “nothing”.
- bilsbie 1y ago
  We still pay bills and have mortgages. Still drink coffee. Same dogs and cats. Same roof technology.

jollyllama 1y ago

Has the comparison to the domestication of the dog been made yet?

lubujackson 1y ago

I like these "worldview adjustment" takes. I'm reminded of Jeff Bezos' TED Talk (from 18 years ago). I was curious what someone who started Amazon would choose to highlight in his talk and the topic alone was the most impactful thing for me - the adoption of electricity: https://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_bezos_the_electricity_metaphor_for_the_web_s_future?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_bezos_the_electricity_metapho... He discussed the structural and cultural changes, the weird and dangerous period when things moved fast and broke badly and drew the obvious parallels between "electricity is new" to "internet is new" as a core paradigm shift for humanity. AI certainly feels like another similar potential shift.

gazpacho 1y ago

I liked this article. My hot take lately has been that AI is like Excel / Word but deployed quicker. That can still cause some level of societal collapse if it displaces a large fraction of the workforce before it can retool and adapt , no AGI super intelligence required.

sandspar 1y ago

Interesting ideas but terribly overwritten. "The normal technology frame is about the relationship between technology and society. It rejects technological determinism, especially the notion of AI itself as an agent in determining its future. It is guided by lessons from past technological revolutions, such as the slow and uncertain nature of technology adoption and diffusion. It also emphasizes continuity between the past and the future trajectory of AI in terms of societal impact and the role of institutions in shaping this trajectory." Why write it so overblown like this? You can say the same thing much more cleanly like, "AI doesn’t shape the future on its own. Society and institutions do, slowly, as with past technologies."