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Although I don't think communism is a good idea, we find ourselves facing a danger and a menace much more potent than communism IMHO, so I would warmly welcome
by hollerith 1y ago
Although I don't think communism is a good idea, we find ourselves facing a danger and a menace much more potent than communism IMHO, so I would warmly welcome a communist takeover of my country (the US) if it would reliably stop AI research in my country and keep it stopped. (I'm OK with people's continuing to use models that have already seen widespread usage: it's the training of large new models I want to stop -- that and any attempts to improve human understanding of the fundamentals of machine learning.)
But I tend to think that most communists are neutral or positive in their attitude toward AI research. For example, according to a credible China expert, Xi Jinping has directed China to pursue AI research very aggressively.
- saubeidl 1y agoIn my ideal world, the main priority post-revolution would be to freeze development and prioritize saving our climate so we keep having a livable planet - green energy, public transport, etc etc. Once that monumental task is done (and this is where we might disagree, but I'd be curious to hear your thoughts - my position there is not very firm!) I feel like looking at AI again - while keeping environmental constraints in mind, might be worth a try. The end goal would be utopian star trek post-resource-constraint society, a classless, socialist society in the humanistic sense - where everyone's needs are met and conflicts around resource allocation are a thing of the past. Re your last edit - ask three socialists and you will get five conflicting takes, I definitely disagree with Xi on most things, though I do think he's doing a good job in things like building the Chinese high speed rail network.
- hollerith 1y agoIf some bright young person (or more realistically some sequence of bright young people building on each other's work) were to devise a plausible method to control an AI such that it stays under human control even if it become much more cognitively capable than the most capable people, then I would be OK with going ahead with AI research. I don't think most readers here realize just how little control the AI labs have over their creations and how reliant they are on trial and error for implementing what control they do have. Of course, as soon as it becomes critical to keep an AI under control (namely, when its capabilities start to exceed human capabilities) is exactly when a lab will stop being able to rely on trial and error: specifically, the next time the lab makes an unsuccessful try, the AI will tend to arrange things so that the lab doesn't get any more tries.