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It’s hard to take seriously a statement like this that’s grounded in “the last three years” when trends have tended to play out over decades. The fact the goal

It’s hard to take seriously a statement like this that’s grounded in “the last three years” when trends have tended to play out over decades. The fact the goal posts have moved from thousands to hundreds to decades to single digit years for massive transformation should give you a moment of pause in your bag saying. I would however agree there are no experts. Not because of some prediction made on a short time scale not landing 100% but that there are literally no experts because expertise takes experience which takes time. There are no experts and no one knows what happens next. We are on the verge of where the foresight of science fiction effectively -ends-, the advent of AI is when things go a thousand possible directions and the stories stop there (sans a few like accelerando, but even then the story just plays out the end of thinking mass). No one knows what’s next, or when. In fact I’d assert in many areas being discussed -it has already happened- and we don’t know it, and by the time we do it’ll be over. Not to be breathless, but there’s no reason to believe today some AI researcher somewhere didn’t build the first AGI and not be totally aware. And once they are there’s no reason to believe it’s going to be on the evening news or hacker news. By the time it’s ready for commercializing and disclosing it’ll be around for a while. Likewise with general purpose robots, autonomous weapons (btw already tested by Ukraine), etc.

bdamm 4mo ago
Autonomous weapons are actually a really interesting branch of this and deserves a little more. Yes, autonomous weapons were explored and were found to be poor performers compared to actual pilots. The breakthrough is in terminal guidance and dozens of other little techniques to get quality human control extended into the far reach of the battlefield. And of course, AI assistance in logistics and analysis. But actual autonomous weapons making any more of a choice beyond "something is moving, kill it" have been, at least for now, mostly a dead end. This is because it's very difficult to economically load the rather sizable compute requirement into the compact one-use weapons, and of course reliable communications aren't assured either. That will probably change some day, but for now, cheap automous command drones making battlefield analysis e.g. mapping out enemy movements from afar and launching cheap autonomous kamikaze drones is not a thing beyond occasional limited testing.
- fnordpiglet 4mo ago
  You don’t need to load the compute onto the platform for autonomy, planning can be done remotely just like with human guidance. The latency is the same.
  - SJC_Hacker 4mo ago
    But if comms get jammed, how will the drone decide what to target ? For that you need inference, which means sizable compute.
    - tancop 4mo ago
      you can put the compute on a big expensive reusable control drone and send commands down with lasers. thats way harder to jam than any form of radio. if thats not enough try fiber optic like they do in ukraine.
      - fnordpiglet 4mo ago
        There are also now drones with long spooling wires. Regardless, autonomous or not, connectivity to home is important. I would note that a lot of drones are quite large too - small airplanes. They can carry more than enough hardware for autonomy. You can also have motherships doing planning and smaller kamikaze drones for combat. These aren’t hard problems to solve, the harder problem is the reluctance to give over to automation. But that’s going to happen faster and faster.
        pfdietz 4mo ago
        > long spooling wires Long spooling optical fibers.
        bdamm 4mo ago
        It is kind of a hard problem to solve. Sure, we can have expensive and custom equipment flying around, but the invasion of Ukraine (and really, any war when it gets bad enough) is all about economic efficiency. The question is not can it be done; the question is, can it be done repeatedly, can it be scaled, and can it be cheap? We will have a fully autonomous Siri that is actually good before Ukraine gets autonomous motherships making targeting choices to repel Russian assault corps. However, given the pace of the war and the pace of AI development, that may actually happen. But it isn't happening today.
al_borland 4mo ago
I said 3 years, because that’s how long ago ChatGPT was released to the public. Since then we’ve been told that all of us should be out of a job in 6 months, every 6 months, for those 3 years. I agree that change happens on a longer timeline. This is why I’m so tired of statements like this… “Within a couple of years, possibly much sooner…” These “experts” are pulling timelines out of the sky, and these predictions are leading to reckless behavior from CEOs and executives which have a material impact on people’s lives. But they get clicks on their blogs and funding for their startup… I guess that’s all that matters.
- frognumber 4mo ago
  Be a Bayesian, and they'll stop annoying you. If you have a 5% chance of thermonuclear war each decade for 10 decades, you'll: - Hear similar annoying statements - They'll be true With AI, we don't know if it's one week or one decade. This means we should assign probabilities and consider all possibilities, not get annoyed.
  - al_borland 4mo ago
    Assigning, and more specifically announcing/reporting on, all possibilities makes all of these predictions meaningless. If I predict the world will end every single day from now until forever, I will most certainly be right eventually. That doesn’t make me an “expert” or someone worth listening to on the topic. That’s the playbook of a doomsday cult, not anyone that should drive world markets.
    - frognumber 4mo ago
      s/all possibilities/all possibilities with odds greater than some threshold/g There's no reason to report on the odds of a meteor falling on my head tomorrow. There is every reason to consider the odds of: - Nuclear apocalypse (esp. Cold War era) - Bioweapon - Climate change leading to disaster - AI apocalypse - Etc. None of those are infinitesimal odds. That contrasts with, say, a zombie virus.
- fnordpiglet 4mo ago

bdamm 4mo ago

Autonomous weapons are actually a really interesting branch of this and deserves a little more. Yes, autonomous weapons were explored and were found to be poor performers compared to actual pilots. The breakthrough is in terminal guidance and dozens of other little techniques to get quality human control extended into the far reach of the battlefield. And of course, AI assistance in logistics and analysis. But actual autonomous weapons making any more of a choice beyond "something is moving, kill it" have been, at least for now, mostly a dead end. This is because it's very difficult to economically load the rather sizable compute requirement into the compact one-use weapons, and of course reliable communications aren't assured either. That will probably change some day, but for now, cheap automous command drones making battlefield analysis e.g. mapping out enemy movements from afar and launching cheap autonomous kamikaze drones is not a thing beyond occasional limited testing.

fnordpiglet 4mo ago
You don’t need to load the compute onto the platform for autonomy, planning can be done remotely just like with human guidance. The latency is the same.
- SJC_Hacker 4mo ago
  But if comms get jammed, how will the drone decide what to target ? For that you need inference, which means sizable compute.
  - tancop 4mo ago
    you can put the compute on a big expensive reusable control drone and send commands down with lasers. thats way harder to jam than any form of radio. if thats not enough try fiber optic like they do in ukraine.
    - fnordpiglet 4mo ago
      There are also now drones with long spooling wires. Regardless, autonomous or not, connectivity to home is important. I would note that a lot of drones are quite large too - small airplanes. They can carry more than enough hardware for autonomy. You can also have motherships doing planning and smaller kamikaze drones for combat. These aren’t hard problems to solve, the harder problem is the reluctance to give over to automation. But that’s going to happen faster and faster.
      - pfdietz 4mo ago
        > long spooling wires Long spooling optical fibers.
      - bdamm 4mo ago
        It is kind of a hard problem to solve. Sure, we can have expensive and custom equipment flying around, but the invasion of Ukraine (and really, any war when it gets bad enough) is all about economic efficiency. The question is not can it be done; the question is, can it be done repeatedly, can it be scaled, and can it be cheap? We will have a fully autonomous Siri that is actually good before Ukraine gets autonomous motherships making targeting choices to repel Russian assault corps. However, given the pace of the war and the pace of AI development, that may actually happen. But it isn't happening today.

al_borland 4mo ago

I said 3 years, because that’s how long ago ChatGPT was released to the public. Since then we’ve been told that all of us should be out of a job in 6 months, every 6 months, for those 3 years. I agree that change happens on a longer timeline. This is why I’m so tired of statements like this… “Within a couple of years, possibly much sooner…” These “experts” are pulling timelines out of the sky, and these predictions are leading to reckless behavior from CEOs and executives which have a material impact on people’s lives. But they get clicks on their blogs and funding for their startup… I guess that’s all that matters.

frognumber 4mo ago
Be a Bayesian, and they'll stop annoying you. If you have a 5% chance of thermonuclear war each decade for 10 decades, you'll: - Hear similar annoying statements - They'll be true With AI, we don't know if it's one week or one decade. This means we should assign probabilities and consider all possibilities, not get annoyed.
- al_borland 4mo ago
  Assigning, and more specifically announcing/reporting on, all possibilities makes all of these predictions meaningless. If I predict the world will end every single day from now until forever, I will most certainly be right eventually. That doesn’t make me an “expert” or someone worth listening to on the topic. That’s the playbook of a doomsday cult, not anyone that should drive world markets.
  - frognumber 4mo ago
    s/all possibilities/all possibilities with odds greater than some threshold/g There's no reason to report on the odds of a meteor falling on my head tomorrow. There is every reason to consider the odds of: - Nuclear apocalypse (esp. Cold War era) - Bioweapon - Climate change leading to disaster - AI apocalypse - Etc. None of those are infinitesimal odds. That contrasts with, say, a zombie virus.
fnordpiglet 4mo ago