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I'm glad to see that people like you are replying to some of the misinformation that occurs in threads like these. It's a shame that on HN the people with the l

I'm glad to see that people like you are replying to some of the misinformation that occurs in threads like these. It's a shame that on HN the people with the least knowledge are the most likely to cast their opinions in broad sweeping statements grounded in hyperbole rather than fact, particularly when the topics of AI and ML come up. In fact a number of the signatories that Luke cites are quoted as saying on no uncertain terms that fear of AI is widely out of proportion to its capabilities now and for the foreseeable future. The most prominent I'm aware of saying thing to this effect are Yoshua Bengio, Geoff Hinton, and Yann LeCun.

AndrewKemendo 12y ago
At the risk of falling into "ad hominem" territory, it is disheartening that Altman (Or Muehlhauser or most of the MIRI people for that matter) gets any play at all on this topic. The fact that Altman thanks Luke in his blog for review just gives you a sense of the "blind leading the blind" here. I think however that says more about the lack of awareness on the part of the readers than anything. That combination is a sure sign of a very narrow field of study with big political footprint and is typical of similar fields such as climatology, macroeconomics etc... where rank amateur thinks they have insight to the same degree as expert by virtue of "just thinking about it."
- rl3 12y ago
  >At the risk of falling into "ad hominem" territory, ... I wouldn't worry, you and the parent already have solid footing in "appeal to authority" territory.
  - AndrewKemendo 12y ago
    The problem with this debate currently is that none of the people talking about it, Altman, Musk, Hawking (like the climate debate) etc... are anything near competent to be talking about it, so they must reference something implicitly like Bostrom. They aren't making individually cogent thought out and articulated arguments, they are all just saying "LOUD NOISES, this is a scary thing that someone said could be bad, therefore I think it's a scary thing." If they could give some good timelines, facts and steps toward AGI then we could debate that on merits. As it is no one is doing that, the whole thing is an appeal to authority from the beginning. So yes, the sources for these people need to be inspected further.
    - rl3 12y ago
      It is arrogant to make sweeping statements wherein one presumes to be an arbiter of competence. If you think their arguments aren't sufficiently cogent or articulated, then suggest a counterargument rather than dismissing them on the basis of something other than their words. Unlike climatology, superintelligence is not yet an established scientific field. It does not currently exist to study. There are no experts. There is no consensus to be had. Everyone is technically unqualified to speak on the subject. Artificial intelligence experts today may be able to render guesses more accurate than most as to the arrival of superintelligence via the AGI path. However, this does not confer upon them any sort of authoritative high ground on the matter, nor does it place the issue squarely in their domain. Doing so would be analogous to trusting a group of explosives experts circa 1944 in saying that we have nothing to fear from atomic weapons, because such devices are to utilize conventional explosive mechanisms in their operation.
      - AndrewKemendo 12y ago
        Your post says too much, basically: "Nobody is an expert therefore everyone can add to the debate." Sorry, not the case. There are actually people who are studying AGI full time and have made it their life work, regardless of whether you know about it or not. Unlike climatology, superintelligence is not yet an established scientific field. It does not currently exist to study. There are no experts. There is no consensus to be had. Everyone is technically unqualified to speak on the subject. How do you figure? There are AGI journals[1], conferences[2], speaker circuits, hackathons etc...So I think you just don't know about them. Doing so would be analogous to trusting a group of explosives experts circa 1944 in saying that we have nothing to fear from atomic weapons, because such devices are to utilize conventional explosive mechanisms in their operation. This is a great analogy and I often make the comparison between nuclear technologies (power, radiometry, weapons) to AGI because of scope and potential. The problem however with your analogy is that the current experts aren't analogous to explosives experts, they are more analogous to Szilárd/Einstein. This is why I advocate for an AGI Manhattan project. We need about between 5-10 years of the smartest people alive working on building it. Not thinking about it, building towards it. [1]http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/jagi http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/jagi [2]http://agi-conf.org/ http://agi-conf.org/

AndrewKemendo 12y ago

At the risk of falling into "ad hominem" territory, it is disheartening that Altman (Or Muehlhauser or most of the MIRI people for that matter) gets any play at all on this topic. The fact that Altman thanks Luke in his blog for review just gives you a sense of the "blind leading the blind" here. I think however that says more about the lack of awareness on the part of the readers than anything. That combination is a sure sign of a very narrow field of study with big political footprint and is typical of similar fields such as climatology, macroeconomics etc... where rank amateur thinks they have insight to the same degree as expert by virtue of "just thinking about it."

rl3 12y ago
>At the risk of falling into "ad hominem" territory, ... I wouldn't worry, you and the parent already have solid footing in "appeal to authority" territory.
- AndrewKemendo 12y ago
  The problem with this debate currently is that none of the people talking about it, Altman, Musk, Hawking (like the climate debate) etc... are anything near competent to be talking about it, so they must reference something implicitly like Bostrom. They aren't making individually cogent thought out and articulated arguments, they are all just saying "LOUD NOISES, this is a scary thing that someone said could be bad, therefore I think it's a scary thing." If they could give some good timelines, facts and steps toward AGI then we could debate that on merits. As it is no one is doing that, the whole thing is an appeal to authority from the beginning. So yes, the sources for these people need to be inspected further.
  - rl3 12y ago
    It is arrogant to make sweeping statements wherein one presumes to be an arbiter of competence. If you think their arguments aren't sufficiently cogent or articulated, then suggest a counterargument rather than dismissing them on the basis of something other than their words. Unlike climatology, superintelligence is not yet an established scientific field. It does not currently exist to study. There are no experts. There is no consensus to be had. Everyone is technically unqualified to speak on the subject. Artificial intelligence experts today may be able to render guesses more accurate than most as to the arrival of superintelligence via the AGI path. However, this does not confer upon them any sort of authoritative high ground on the matter, nor does it place the issue squarely in their domain. Doing so would be analogous to trusting a group of explosives experts circa 1944 in saying that we have nothing to fear from atomic weapons, because such devices are to utilize conventional explosive mechanisms in their operation.
    - AndrewKemendo 12y ago
      Your post says too much, basically: "Nobody is an expert therefore everyone can add to the debate." Sorry, not the case. There are actually people who are studying AGI full time and have made it their life work, regardless of whether you know about it or not. Unlike climatology, superintelligence is not yet an established scientific field. It does not currently exist to study. There are no experts. There is no consensus to be had. Everyone is technically unqualified to speak on the subject. How do you figure? There are AGI journals[1], conferences[2], speaker circuits, hackathons etc...So I think you just don't know about them. Doing so would be analogous to trusting a group of explosives experts circa 1944 in saying that we have nothing to fear from atomic weapons, because such devices are to utilize conventional explosive mechanisms in their operation. This is a great analogy and I often make the comparison between nuclear technologies (power, radiometry, weapons) to AGI because of scope and potential. The problem however with your analogy is that the current experts aren't analogous to explosives experts, they are more analogous to Szilárd/Einstein. This is why I advocate for an AGI Manhattan project. We need about between 5-10 years of the smartest people alive working on building it. Not thinking about it, building towards it. [1]http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/jagi http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/jagi [2]http://agi-conf.org/ http://agi-conf.org/