It seems like this situation is serious enough that we cannot let this kind of work be privatized.
Not interested in entertaining all the "this is the norm" arguments, that's just an attempt at getting people to normalize this behavior.
Does anyone know if the Center of AI Safety acting for the public good and is this on their radar?
OpenAI is making people rich and America look good, all while not doing anything obviously harmful to the public interest. They’re not a juicy target for anyone in the public sphere. If any one of those changes, OpenAI and possibly its leadership are in extremely hot water with the authorities.
Yeah, gonna have to challenge that:
1. We don't really if what they are doing is harming public interest, because we dont have access to much information about whats happening behind the scenes.
2. And there is enough information about this tech that leads to the possibility of it causing systemic damage to society if its not correctly controlled.
That’s potentially harmful.
> is enough information about this tech that leads to the possibility of it causing systemic damage
Far from established. Hypothetically harmful. Obvious harm would need to be present and provable. (Otherwise, it’s a political question.)
As for "too important to privatize"... practically all the important work in the world is done by private companies. It wasn't the government who just created vaccines for Covid. It isn't the government producing weapons for defense. It's not Joe B producing houses or electricity or cars or planes. That's not to say the government doesn't do anything but the idea that the dividing line for government work is "super important work" is wildly wrong and it's much closer to the inverse.
The only open question is do we want the company that creates AGI to be American or Chinese? Government intervention by people that know nothing about technology (watch any congressional hearing) is not going to help anyone and will only serve to ensure China wins the race.
That's what some people assert, but there's no solid reason to assume that's true. We don't even know if it's in the realm of the possible.
> The only open question is do we want the company that creates AGI to be American or Chinese?
That's far from the only question. I don't even think it's in the top 10 of the list of important questions.
LOL, another one thinks the US is the entire world.
"That's what some people assert, but there's no solid reason to assume that's true. We don't even know if it's in the realm of the possible"
True, but there are a lot of very smart people getting handed huge amounts of money by other very smart people that seem to think it is.
The comment about all the important work in the world being done by private companies was indeed a global comment. You may not realize this, but covid vaccines were made by astrazeneca (UK), BioNTech (Germany), several US companies and others. Defense companies are located in every major economy. Most countries have power systems which are privately owned. Commercial planes are mostly built by one large French company and one large US company. All the large producers of cars around the world are private companies - big ones exist in the US, Japan, various European countries, Korea and China.
https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=39123056
---
Has the following already been addressed, or even generally broached;
Treat AI (or AGI(?) more specifically) as global Utility which needs us to put ALL our Technology Points into the "Information Age Base Level 2" skill points and create a new manner in dealing with the next layer in Human Society, as is rapidly gestating. https://i.imgur.com/P1LBKFL.png
I feel this is different than what is meant by Alignment?
It seems as though general Humanity is not handling this well, but it appears that there is an F-ton of opaque behavior amongst the inner circle of the AI pyramid that we all will just be involuntarily entangled in?
I don't mean to sound bleak - just that feels as though that the reality coming down the conveyor....
So let the fleas look at their feet...
Seriously - AI isnt the demise if Humanity - greed.ai is.
EDIT:
I plugged in the following prompt to my local thingy... It spit this out:
-
>>>P: "AI is not the demise of Humanity, greed.ai is. Show how greedy humans in charge of AI entanglements are holding the entire of earth." - https://i.imgur.com/OmGLYrj.jpg
Isn't there entire processes about "We suspect they doing something illegal behind the scenes so lets go and check"? Isn't that what search warrants for example is all about? Or senate/congress inquiry or whatever they're called?
I think the point is it would be good to investigate future hypothetical harm before it becomes present and provable, at which point it’s too late.
We know it's possible, because you typed it. Unless you believe in the metaphysical, then it is proven possible, with physical systems. The question is then, can the fundamental aspects of intelligence, in the biological systems, be practically emulated in other systems?
With respect to inquries - if congressman X asks Sam Altman for the details of an algorithm at a congressional hearing, he is not obliged to answer. He can get his lawyer and argue the case - this happens and cases go to the supreme court to decide whether the question is in scope of the powers granted to congress under the consitution. The question has to be directly applicable to one of the responsibilities of congress, which are enumerated in the constitution. In practice redacted documents, limiting of question scope etc are discussed and worked around. Also in practice it's a bit of a political circus where most questions are for show rather than substance and you'll not really see them ask questions that would result in confidential information been given.
I don't actually take the stance as you stated it -- but if I did, I'd say that would mean it doesn't matter at all what nation develops it because the consequences would be disastrous no matter who did it first.
> a lot of very smart people getting handed huge amounts of money by other very smart people that seem to think it is.
Ignoring whether or not the people funding this are "very smart" (I don't know if they are or not), there are also a lot of very smart people who think that it isn't. Just the fact that some very smart people think such a thing isn't evidence that they're correct.
You also have to keep in mind that the more intelligent a person is, the easier it is for them to convince themselves of pretty much anything.
Right now, it's all just a battle of opinions.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Palestine/comments/18mvigw/openai_h...
[2] https://twitter.com/ArarMaher/status/1736519079102476766
Sure. That’s why we have the fourth estate. We don’t have anything close to what it would take to launch inquiries.
Specifically, you are confusing all and some.
Nobody can even clearly define what that even means. If we're talking about scifi style AGI we're still very, very far from it.
A basic education in economics (and manners) might be in order.
Oh, I apologize. I have idiotism allergies.
>"practically all" was the initial statement
Yeah, and my original statement still stands.
Go open a history book or something. Or find out what "N" in "NSF" stands for, or realize that China exist.
Of the people, by the people, for the people.
a written grant by a country's legislative or sovereign power, by which a body such as a company, college, or city is founded and its rights and privileges defined. "the town received a charter from the Emperor"
The legislative process for a charter says otherwise. We, the people, define what the government is and by extension what the rights a company has. The fact that states don't enforce the revocation of a company's charter doesn't mean that the power, given by the people, to the government doesn't exist.
My do you have some peculiar ideas.
You were using the NSF budget as a measure of importance of its work.
You also compared it to the GDP, which only makes sense if you think that all work done is equally important. How very socialist of you.
>Add reading comprehension 101 to econ 101 and then it will compute
What you say "computes" only after adding Dunning-Kruger to the mix.
To calculate a %, both the numerator and denominator have to be the same units.
Analytic jurisprudence (which is what I think you are talking about) is something that people think is more important (a belief, codified in law) than Natural Law. But Common Law, derives from Natural Law and it still has a place in this area of focus even though people believe that it doesn't, or it shouldn't. The actual harms in society are caused by the belief that laws can be legislated though power dynamics. Analytic jurisprudence cannot contend with the idea that all law, stems from natural law, and when you deviate from it, it cause harms for society. Plus it's at the whim of people in power. Just because it happens, doesn't make it right or required.
Great, you're simply saying that pretty much all of science has the same importance as 10% of all other work being done. And you consider budget as a measure of output.
All that in the context of a conversation about technological breakthroughs, mind you.
By that metric, someone like Richard Feynman has produced less important work than your average run-of-the-mill engineer with a slightly higher salary.
Did you time-travel here from the USSR? The leadership there had similar ideas back in the day.
This is becoming very entertaining at this point.
Highly recommend, A+++, 10/10.
"Impact is hard to measure, so let's take budget as a proxy" has got to be the hottest take of the year, and yes, I'm aware it's January.
