4 ms·

What sort of regulation do you think is needed for this?

SpicyLemonZest 6mo ago
I think frontier AI research should be outlawed until such time as there's a broad consensus on how society ought to deal with it. This would have to be coordinated internationally to be effective, but I think that would be achievable if the US sent a credible signal by forcibly shutting down any one of the major labs.
- neonstatic 6mo ago
  This is never going to happen. Is something can be done, it will be done.
  - happytoexplain 6mo ago
    >If something can be done, it will be done. What does this mean? It's obviously false on its face.
    - neonstatic 6mo ago
      It means that if something is physically possible, someone will be doing it, regardless of legal, moral, or social barriers. False on its face? Not that long ago, global public opinion was mortified at the news, that newborn twins in China have been genetically modified. I am old enough to remember the outrage in the late 90s as the world watched the first cloned sheep grow up, get sick, and die. It was possible to do, so someone had done it. The point is - with the use of law, morality, social pressure, we can moderate the frequency and scale of some phenomena, but we cannot stop it. I think this idea is what prevents some bans. "If the Chinese can do it, and we stop ourselves from doing it, they will gain an advantage and we would lose". Substitute "the Chinese" with whoever is the opponent at any given point in time and you have a rather plausible explanation for why things were the way they were.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6mo ago
    There were historical worries about whether a ban would be feasible, but frontier AI research as we understand it today requires large amounts of specialized compute. Even if we couldn't or wouldn't destroy the chips, we could imprison anyone who tries to start a large training run, the same way we imprison anyone who tries to buy enriched uranium.
    - neonstatic 6mo ago
      Yes, that is true, but it's not my point. I am not saying it'd be impossible to find people who are doing it. My point is that there will always be a group of people, who'd be willing to do potentially dangerous things as long as those things are possible and are believed to provide some sort of advantage. For that reason, those people would either be in decision making positions or have a good enough offer to decision makers. Speaking of uranium - I don't think AI is anything like it (although the AI industry propaganda really wants us to believe that), but even there we have examples of countries that were pursuing nuclear weapons both successfully and unsuccessfully as well as countries that could have them, but choose not to. So the ban itself isn't necessarily the main point here.
- cortesoft 6mo ago
  Even supposing we could somehow get the political will to do this, how would you write such a law? What counts as “AI frontier research”? How would you write a regulation around that that isn’t trivial to bypass without banning general computing itself?
  - SpicyLemonZest 6mo ago
    As I said in a sibling comment, we're fortunate that training modern AIs requires large quantities of specialized compute. We just have to restrict GPU sales and outlaw GPU farms. I don't deny that it would be a seismic, controversial change, but I don't think it's terribly hard to implement if we can reach a consensus that we want to implement it.
- joquarky 6mo ago
  How do you enforce this "should" globally?
joquarky 6mo ago
Substantially increase the capital gains tax and cap inheritance to only enough wealth for a single generation to get by without performing any real work. This might also come with the benefit of reducing the number of nepo-imbeciles running things now.
Yizahi 6mo ago
The easiest (and hardest) solution ever - fucking ban "offshores". So for example a UN session convenes and passes an extremely simple resolution - all members are instituting a minimum tax (say 15%, for example) for literally everyone and everything. And all countries non-complying must be completely sanctioned a-la Iran. This would take less space than a A4 page and super easy to draft. But of course absolutely impossible to ever pass, just a fantasy. While this is counter-intuitive, since we are talking about taxing billionaires and megacorps etc. to the tune of >90%, but it would actually make those people and companies part with their gains, unlike 90% tax which will never work. Every single company in the world above certain size and every single millionaire and above, are employing criminal schemes to evade paying taxes, declare funds and participate in the economy in other ways. By enforcing a certain minimal tax and banning all "drains" the amount of accrued money would be astronomical. There would be no need for 90%, instead the crazy 50-60% taxes paid by the fools (actual middle class) could be meaningfully reduced to the levels half a century ago and there would still be money left.
happytoexplain 6mo ago
How would I know what's best? Anything to protect people. There are infinite ways to write regulations/measures, with varying degrees of results, difficulty, and severity. Obviously, while UBI might be a good idea or not in general, in this context it is on the low-results, low-severity, high-difficulty side (probably every solution is on the high-difficulty side, though).

I think frontier AI research should be outlawed until such time as there's a broad consensus on how society ought to deal with it. This would have to be coordinated internationally to be effective, but I think that would be achievable if the US sent a credible signal by forcibly shutting down any one of the major labs.

neonstatic 6mo ago
This is never going to happen. Is something can be done, it will be done.
- happytoexplain 6mo ago
  >If something can be done, it will be done. What does this mean? It's obviously false on its face.
  - neonstatic 6mo ago
    It means that if something is physically possible, someone will be doing it, regardless of legal, moral, or social barriers. False on its face? Not that long ago, global public opinion was mortified at the news, that newborn twins in China have been genetically modified. I am old enough to remember the outrage in the late 90s as the world watched the first cloned sheep grow up, get sick, and die. It was possible to do, so someone had done it. The point is - with the use of law, morality, social pressure, we can moderate the frequency and scale of some phenomena, but we cannot stop it. I think this idea is what prevents some bans. "If the Chinese can do it, and we stop ourselves from doing it, they will gain an advantage and we would lose". Substitute "the Chinese" with whoever is the opponent at any given point in time and you have a rather plausible explanation for why things were the way they were.
- SpicyLemonZest 6mo ago
  There were historical worries about whether a ban would be feasible, but frontier AI research as we understand it today requires large amounts of specialized compute. Even if we couldn't or wouldn't destroy the chips, we could imprison anyone who tries to start a large training run, the same way we imprison anyone who tries to buy enriched uranium.
  - neonstatic 6mo ago
    Yes, that is true, but it's not my point. I am not saying it'd be impossible to find people who are doing it. My point is that there will always be a group of people, who'd be willing to do potentially dangerous things as long as those things are possible and are believed to provide some sort of advantage. For that reason, those people would either be in decision making positions or have a good enough offer to decision makers. Speaking of uranium - I don't think AI is anything like it (although the AI industry propaganda really wants us to believe that), but even there we have examples of countries that were pursuing nuclear weapons both successfully and unsuccessfully as well as countries that could have them, but choose not to. So the ban itself isn't necessarily the main point here.
cortesoft 6mo ago
Even supposing we could somehow get the political will to do this, how would you write such a law? What counts as “AI frontier research”? How would you write a regulation around that that isn’t trivial to bypass without banning general computing itself?
- SpicyLemonZest 6mo ago
  As I said in a sibling comment, we're fortunate that training modern AIs requires large quantities of specialized compute. We just have to restrict GPU sales and outlaw GPU farms. I don't deny that it would be a seismic, controversial change, but I don't think it's terribly hard to implement if we can reach a consensus that we want to implement it.
joquarky 6mo ago
How do you enforce this "should" globally?

joquarky 6mo ago

Substantially increase the capital gains tax and cap inheritance to only enough wealth for a single generation to get by without performing any real work. This might also come with the benefit of reducing the number of nepo-imbeciles running things now.

Yizahi 6mo ago

The easiest (and hardest) solution ever - fucking ban "offshores". So for example a UN session convenes and passes an extremely simple resolution - all members are instituting a minimum tax (say 15%, for example) for literally everyone and everything. And all countries non-complying must be completely sanctioned a-la Iran. This would take less space than a A4 page and super easy to draft. But of course absolutely impossible to ever pass, just a fantasy. While this is counter-intuitive, since we are talking about taxing billionaires and megacorps etc. to the tune of >90%, but it would actually make those people and companies part with their gains, unlike 90% tax which will never work. Every single company in the world above certain size and every single millionaire and above, are employing criminal schemes to evade paying taxes, declare funds and participate in the economy in other ways. By enforcing a certain minimal tax and banning all "drains" the amount of accrued money would be astronomical. There would be no need for 90%, instead the crazy 50-60% taxes paid by the fools (actual middle class) could be meaningfully reduced to the levels half a century ago and there would still be money left.

happytoexplain 6mo ago

How would I know what's best? Anything to protect people. There are infinite ways to write regulations/measures, with varying degrees of results, difficulty, and severity. Obviously, while UBI might be a good idea or not in general, in this context it is on the low-results, low-severity, high-difficulty side (probably every solution is on the high-difficulty side, though).