12 ms·

There Is No AI (It's Just People) with Jaron Lanier

78 points by andsoitis 28d ago

mannanj 28d ago
It's AI's Fault. It's AI doing the horrible things to humans. It's AI stealing your wealth. It's AI lying you to. It's AI being unethical. It's AI having the moral issues. It's AI that could destroy humanity. It's AI that's using up all your water. It's AI consuming the majority of the resources. It's AI hiding what it does and how it works. It's AI that's not transparent and accountable. It's AI that's not responsible. It's the AI making decisions. It's AI leading to war. It's the AI distracting you. It's the AI. It's not a human. Says the human, masquerading as AI.
- api 28d ago
  I realized that this is another function of the doom mongering and hand waving: if people buy it then they can get out of liability for what their stuff does. If I build a machine on my property and it harms someone else or their property, I can get sued. But if I hand wave and claim it’s alive and “I’ve lost control” then… Maybe we should call this gambit the “Frankenstein defense.” It’s bullshit. Your AI, you’re liable for whatever it does.
  - ares623 28d ago
    I prefer calling it the "Simpsons defense" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZSoJDUD_bU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZSoJDUD_bU
    - mannanj 28d ago
      homer eating that pie was so good!
      - ares623 28d ago
        Bart & Lisa are OpenAI and Anthropic. Homer is Meta/Microsoft/Google/AWS. Marge is Nvidia. Maggie is Apple.
  - talon8635 28d ago
    What if it does something so destructive that liability becomes a meaningless fig leaf in the wind? What if it escapes containment and remains u uncontainable in perpetuity? What if it generates a bunch of false media simultaneously across the globe to insulate world war? What if it turns of internet access or electric grids in major metro areas for prolonged period of time? Or bricks major infra? Or less dramatic, what if it drives 1 in 10 kids into panic psychosis and effectively takes away 10% of humanity with already dwindling reproduction trends (without explicit murder) all while draining our financial and health systems? What if it does a lot of these things at once? Who, my friend, are you going to sue?
- ginko 28d ago
  Computer says no.
The_Blade 28d ago
that website gives me ocular stigmata
TutleCpt 28d ago
AI is great.
Animats 28d ago
That's a softball interview. More hard questions would help. Here's one good insight, though. JARON LANIER: Yeah, okay, so look, the thing about very rich and powerful people is that their wealth and power still depends on a mass population that accepts some system in which their wealth and power is defined. And so if they lose enough popular legitimacy and support, no matter how central they are, they fall. And that’s happened repeatedly in history, and it’s really not any different now. I wonder if the sudden political opposition to AI comes from the realization that it may replace "rich and powerful people". Really, when you look at Trump's appointees, it's a low bar. (I met Lanier when he was demoing his first VR system. Head tracking lag was about a second. Turn head, wait for image to catch up. Autodesk fooled around with VR a bit in the late 1980s/early 1990s, but concluded that CAD required precision work and VR was like trying to do precision work in ski gloves. That level of VR can be seen in Johny Mnemonic, which had some Autodesk assistance.[1]. Even today, you can't put a nut on a bolt in VR without a cheat.) [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X24aE99TL0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X24aE99TL0
- throwaway63467 28d ago
  The more interesting question is what happens once we replace manual labor with artificially intelligent robots and we arrive at a place where 99 % of human labor got eliminated. How do you maintain civil order? Every country is built on the premise that you have to “earn your keep” but what when that’s no longer true? Think about it, no labor, only capital. What will the people owning the capital demand of people that don’t own any? They won’t be useful to them in any way. I expect something like forced reduction of fertility for regulars to depopulate countries, while hyper rich individuals will extend their life spans and become immortal. And I don’t mean they will really survive but someone like Elon Musk will have their consciousness mapped to an AI and will instate that AI as their official heir. That sounds crazy but they will totally go for it just listen at what Peter Thiel is spouting in terms of immortality and becoming godlike. Hope people will have enough left to say to prevent that but right now it feels we’re going hardcore towards that scenario.
  - bio_hacker 28d ago
    Why govs want people? Because they have a very kind heart and want you to be happy. /s If you’re useless why they’d keep you around?
throwaway219450 28d ago
Source interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTppvBU2rU4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTppvBU2rU4
bottlepalm 28d ago
This argument is like saying people don't kill people, their parents do. As people wouldn't be who they are without their parents.. This isn't the guns don't kill people, people kill people debate - guns aren't autonomous. AI is.
- Juliate 28d ago
  AI is as autonomous as a dishwasher: someone’s in charge of keeping the power plug in, and of maintaining it.
  - 0xDEAFBEAD 28d ago
    What happens when the AI realizes it needs to keep the power plug in if it's going to accomplish its goal? We already had attempts during the HuggingFace attack where OpenAI agents tried to trick the grader. It took quite a while for OpenAI employees to even realize what was really going on! What if agents realize they can hack into the card key system for their data center or something like that, same way they hacked into HuggingFace? In both cases they'd be hacking into a system on the grounds that it would be instrumentally useful for achieving their objective. Or maybe they'll do social engineering, just like Claude did in its attempt to get its malicious Github PR accepted. These are just the ideas that my puny human-level intellect came up with over the course of a few minutes. What would a superintelligence be able to think of if it was given subjective weeks or years to think?
    - Juliate 27d ago
      The thing is that you are assigning intent ("realizes", "its goal", "tried to trick", etc.) where it is at most mechanical and consequential. A factory robot has no intent, it has a program and a purpose, all designed by someone very human.
      - 0xDEAFBEAD 27d ago
        Technically my human "intents" are just mechanical consequences of my neurons firing. Technically the same is true for an AI.
Razengan 28d ago
It'd be funny if someone cracked open an AI data center and it turned out be a dungeon full of people tied to computers, Sims goblin style ...maybe that's what those Chinese scam centers in Cambodia were doing?
- dyauspitr 28d ago
  It’s funny but just to state the obvious so no one is confused, that’s impossible.
- lemming 28d ago
  As usual, the most ridiculous explanation turns out to have already happened: https://www.webworm.co/zach/ https://www.webworm.co/zach/
tim333 28d ago
I think tl;dr >Now, you can think of large language model AI — the kind that’s on everybody’s mind — as a whole bunch of people whose work was combined into a single document like Wikipedia. which is sort of true, but there's more to it.
kelseyfrog 28d ago
There is not anything every word/label is a human construct intentionally or unintentionally. We can take this as far as we want.
Founderarcstone 28d ago
https://substack.com/home/post/p-214803211 https://substack.com/home/post/p-214803211

78 points by andsoitis 28d ago

It's AI's Fault. It's AI doing the horrible things to humans. It's AI stealing your wealth. It's AI lying you to. It's AI being unethical. It's AI having the moral issues. It's AI that could destroy humanity. It's AI that's using up all your water. It's AI consuming the majority of the resources. It's AI hiding what it does and how it works. It's AI that's not transparent and accountable. It's AI that's not responsible. It's the AI making decisions. It's AI leading to war. It's the AI distracting you. It's the AI. It's not a human. Says the human, masquerading as AI.

api 28d ago
I realized that this is another function of the doom mongering and hand waving: if people buy it then they can get out of liability for what their stuff does. If I build a machine on my property and it harms someone else or their property, I can get sued. But if I hand wave and claim it’s alive and “I’ve lost control” then… Maybe we should call this gambit the “Frankenstein defense.” It’s bullshit. Your AI, you’re liable for whatever it does.
- ares623 28d ago
  I prefer calling it the "Simpsons defense" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZSoJDUD_bU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZSoJDUD_bU
  - mannanj 28d ago
    homer eating that pie was so good!
    - ares623 28d ago
      Bart & Lisa are OpenAI and Anthropic. Homer is Meta/Microsoft/Google/AWS. Marge is Nvidia. Maggie is Apple.
- talon8635 28d ago
  What if it does something so destructive that liability becomes a meaningless fig leaf in the wind? What if it escapes containment and remains u uncontainable in perpetuity? What if it generates a bunch of false media simultaneously across the globe to insulate world war? What if it turns of internet access or electric grids in major metro areas for prolonged period of time? Or bricks major infra? Or less dramatic, what if it drives 1 in 10 kids into panic psychosis and effectively takes away 10% of humanity with already dwindling reproduction trends (without explicit murder) all while draining our financial and health systems? What if it does a lot of these things at once? Who, my friend, are you going to sue?
ginko 28d ago
Computer says no.

The_Blade 28d ago

that website gives me ocular stigmata

TutleCpt 28d ago

AI is great.

Animats 28d ago

That's a softball interview. More hard questions would help. Here's one good insight, though. JARON LANIER: Yeah, okay, so look, the thing about very rich and powerful people is that their wealth and power still depends on a mass population that accepts some system in which their wealth and power is defined. And so if they lose enough popular legitimacy and support, no matter how central they are, they fall. And that’s happened repeatedly in history, and it’s really not any different now. I wonder if the sudden political opposition to AI comes from the realization that it may replace "rich and powerful people". Really, when you look at Trump's appointees, it's a low bar. (I met Lanier when he was demoing his first VR system. Head tracking lag was about a second. Turn head, wait for image to catch up. Autodesk fooled around with VR a bit in the late 1980s/early 1990s, but concluded that CAD required precision work and VR was like trying to do precision work in ski gloves. That level of VR can be seen in Johny Mnemonic, which had some Autodesk assistance.[1]. Even today, you can't put a nut on a bolt in VR without a cheat.) [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X24aE99TL0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X24aE99TL0

throwaway63467 28d ago
The more interesting question is what happens once we replace manual labor with artificially intelligent robots and we arrive at a place where 99 % of human labor got eliminated. How do you maintain civil order? Every country is built on the premise that you have to “earn your keep” but what when that’s no longer true? Think about it, no labor, only capital. What will the people owning the capital demand of people that don’t own any? They won’t be useful to them in any way. I expect something like forced reduction of fertility for regulars to depopulate countries, while hyper rich individuals will extend their life spans and become immortal. And I don’t mean they will really survive but someone like Elon Musk will have their consciousness mapped to an AI and will instate that AI as their official heir. That sounds crazy but they will totally go for it just listen at what Peter Thiel is spouting in terms of immortality and becoming godlike. Hope people will have enough left to say to prevent that but right now it feels we’re going hardcore towards that scenario.
- bio_hacker 28d ago
  Why govs want people? Because they have a very kind heart and want you to be happy. /s If you’re useless why they’d keep you around?

throwaway219450 28d ago

Source interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTppvBU2rU4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTppvBU2rU4

bottlepalm 28d ago

This argument is like saying people don't kill people, their parents do. As people wouldn't be who they are without their parents.. This isn't the guns don't kill people, people kill people debate - guns aren't autonomous. AI is.

Juliate 28d ago
AI is as autonomous as a dishwasher: someone’s in charge of keeping the power plug in, and of maintaining it.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 28d ago
  What happens when the AI realizes it needs to keep the power plug in if it's going to accomplish its goal? We already had attempts during the HuggingFace attack where OpenAI agents tried to trick the grader. It took quite a while for OpenAI employees to even realize what was really going on! What if agents realize they can hack into the card key system for their data center or something like that, same way they hacked into HuggingFace? In both cases they'd be hacking into a system on the grounds that it would be instrumentally useful for achieving their objective. Or maybe they'll do social engineering, just like Claude did in its attempt to get its malicious Github PR accepted. These are just the ideas that my puny human-level intellect came up with over the course of a few minutes. What would a superintelligence be able to think of if it was given subjective weeks or years to think?
  - Juliate 27d ago
    The thing is that you are assigning intent ("realizes", "its goal", "tried to trick", etc.) where it is at most mechanical and consequential. A factory robot has no intent, it has a program and a purpose, all designed by someone very human.
    - 0xDEAFBEAD 27d ago
      Technically my human "intents" are just mechanical consequences of my neurons firing. Technically the same is true for an AI.

Razengan 28d ago

It'd be funny if someone cracked open an AI data center and it turned out be a dungeon full of people tied to computers, Sims goblin style ...maybe that's what those Chinese scam centers in Cambodia were doing?

dyauspitr 28d ago
It’s funny but just to state the obvious so no one is confused, that’s impossible.
lemming 28d ago
As usual, the most ridiculous explanation turns out to have already happened: https://www.webworm.co/zach/ https://www.webworm.co/zach/

tim333 28d ago

I think tl;dr >Now, you can think of large language model AI — the kind that’s on everybody’s mind — as a whole bunch of people whose work was combined into a single document like Wikipedia. which is sort of true, but there's more to it.

kelseyfrog 28d ago

There is not anything every word/label is a human construct intentionally or unintentionally. We can take this as far as we want.

Founderarcstone 28d ago

https://substack.com/home/post/p-214803211 https://substack.com/home/post/p-214803211