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There's some good comments about some new AI tools; it's a shame that the article's premise is a straw man. The fears of machine superintelligence are based on
by aamar 12y ago
There's some good comments about some new AI tools; it's a shame that the article's premise is a straw man.
The fears of machine superintelligence are based on the belief that true AI is just around a corner. After all, we’re so advanced and the progress is only accelerating, it’s probably a few years away, at most.
Analogously, public figures started warning us about climate change, so it must be just a few years before the earth is uninhabitable. It should be pretty obvious that if we start worrying about significant threats only a "few years" before they kill us, that will be as a rule too late.
Carbon-driven global warming ("the greenhouse effect") was gathering support in the 60s, followed by consensus in the 80s. Yet we are just now experiencing the first years of growth without increased carbon output.
The claim by the concerned parties with respect to harmful AI is that it may be a threat in the next 25 to 50 years: 2043 and 2065 are common estimates. "A few years" isn't a good way to characterize that, interpret Gates, etc., or a reasonable understanding of when we start worrying.
- higherpurpose 12y agoAgreed. If we are to worry about it, then we need to do it now, not when major corporations are 2 quarters away from mass producing said robots. By then the investment of those companies and governments would be too great to just suddenly terminate all the programs. Think about all the jobs lost, corporate lobbying, etc. It would be too late.
- pqomdv 12y agoThe global warming comparison isn't very good. We had the capabilities for carbon output 50 years ago and it has slowly been increasing. But we don't yet have an AI. So there is no need to warn anyone, except out of irrational fear. Once we actually get it, it would make sense to start warning about its applications, so it doesn't get out of control. If I apply your analogy correctly, then warning about AI now, is the same as it would be warning about global warming in the 19th century. Not very logical and certainly very paranoid.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- one-more-minute 12y agoIf people had started to worry about the long-term effects of carbon output before it was already widespread, a lot of the damage it has caused could have been limited. I don't see what's irrational about trying to solve problems before they become problems, rather than trying to do damage control after the fact.
- AndrewKemendo 12y agoYou aren't getting the comparison. It's akin to someone back then worrying about the long-term effects of steam/water vapor. You don't know if vapor is actually a problem, or will become one, and you don't have any data in any field to back up your concerns.
- Thrymr 12y agoArrhenius predicted global warming in 1896: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius#Greenhouse_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius#Greenhouse_eff...
- AndrewKemendo 12y agoAh, Fantastic! He led the creation of the field of climatology if I recall. If someone can do forecasting of AGI with similar empiricism that would be revolutionary and welcomed.
- aamar 12y agoArrhenius probably did no empirical research in this field. He devised a generalized formula based on theoretical considerations and indirect measurements (of the moon's appearance). It would take ~60 years before a quorum of researchers believed his formula could provide accurate real-life predictions. Moravec's 70s papers are roughly comparable to Arrhenius's formula. The basic computational power predictions (a minor extension of Moore's law) still seem to be basically correct. There's a reasonable debate to be had about whether more interesting predictions made by Moravec/Kurzweil/etc. have been validated or not.
- AndrewKemendo 12y agoHow about this instead: Current AI technologies give us no insight about the probability of an AGI Because that is exactly the point. We can't look at what we have built today and extrapolate that AGI will come from it. All anyone can do is speculate wildly on AGI just as they were able to in 1956 [1]. The difference is that we see automation/computing as ubiquitous (smartphones/computers in 2015), rather than around the edges (Radio/TV 1956). Which brings it closer to home in some ways. [1] I chose 1956 because of the dartmouth conference on AI
- aamar 12y agoWell, yes, but that's still a straw man. It's not as if Hawking and Gates and so on saw an Atari-bot and on that basis came to worry about AGI. Current AI technologies shouldn't update our estimates much about AGI, unless they push us way off of Kurzweil's (or someone else's) chart. I do agree that we lack evidence of a broad community of AI experts who have been able to make good predictions, which potentially puts AI research even behind economists! Nonetheless, we'd expect there to be a period between "wild guessing" and "good and reliable models"; Gates and Hawking either think we're in that middle ground, or they think the risks are considerable enough that it's worth pushing towards it now.
- AndrewKemendo 12y agoOr the third option: they want to get in on the AI buzz that is happening.
- csallen 12y agoI think that in any debate, you have a responsibility to respond to the strongest version of the opposing argument. Even if your "third option" is correct and the specific aforementioned people just "want to get in on the AI buzz", that still doesn't justify ignoring the argument itself.
- waterlesscloud 12y agoBecause Hawking, Gates, and Musk needed more buzz? Whatever buzz AI has is nothing compared to what these guys have had for years.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]