The A.I. Dilemma - March 9, 2023

Have you watched this video? [VIDEO] (You don't have to, of course. An hour-long video recommended by a stranger on the internet is a big ask) There's a ton of evidence that this is moving way faster than people think. I don't think there's anything particularly special about human intelligence. And time and time again, we've been able to copy things that nature does and make them way more powerful, like planes vs birds. It does the same thing, but in a completely different way. It would be surprising if we couldn't do it with brains. I feel like a lot of people are not going to admit that we have already created AGI until we literally have an unstoppable AI that has taken over everything. It's not human level everywhere , but it's way better than humans in a lot of ways. It's never going to be exactly human, it'll work differently than we do. But if you count intelligence as the ability to achieve goals, which is how most researchers do, then we're already pretty much there.

I agree, insofar that most of the discourse I've seen often neglects fundamental drivers of our economy such as the division of labor and has undue focus on outcomes that are less likely to come to pass, as opposed to risk oriented discussion which is key in risk management. There was a very good video someone posted not too long ago that covers what should be covered as an overview. Link: [VIDEO] Any engineer knows as soon as the rate of change exceeds the reaction time, you can't keep up and failures happen. In the case of systems, the larger the system the bigger and more damaging the failure. We're dealing with societal mechanics, so failures may have global impact.

Pretty much the entire AI industry is like this now. Similar to Web3 industry before it, except AI is potentially far more dangerous. AI Experts have predicted a chance of 10-20% human level extinction from AI, have a history of underestimating AI, but companies are rushing to the precipice, and it is just the early days. Everyone should listen to this warning: [VIDEO]

It's very sad that people lack the imagination for the possible horrors that lie beyond. You don't even need the imagination; Hinton, Bengio, Tegmark, Yudkowsky, Musk, etc. are spelling it out for you. This moment, 80% of comments are derisive, and you actually have zero idea how much is computer generated bot content meant to sway opinion by post-GPT AI industry who see themselves as becoming the next iPhone-era billionaires. We are fast approaching a reality where our information space breaks down. Where almost all text you get from HN, Twitter, News, Substack; almost all video you get from Youtube, Instagram, TikTok; is just computer generated output meant to sway opinion and/or make $. I can't know Altman's true motives. But this is also what it looks like when a frontrunner is terrified at what happens when GPT6 is released and if they don't, the rest of the people who see billionaire $ coming their way are close at your heels trying to leapfrog you if you stop. Consequences? What consequences? We all know social media has been a net good, right? Many of you sound exactly like the few remaining social media cheerleaders (of which there were plenty 5 years ago) who still think Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, isn't causing depression and manipulation. If you appreciated what The Social Dilemma illuminated, then watch the same people on AI: [VIDEO]

"Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin discuss how existing A.I. capabilities already pose catastrophic risks to a functional society, how A.I. companies are caught in a race to deploy as quickly as possible without adequate safety measures, and what it would mean to upgrade our institutions to a post-A.I. world." [VIDEO] A very succinct quote from this presentation, by Yuval Noah Harari: "What nukes are to the physical world... AI is to the virtual and symbolic world."

Been involved with LLMs for the past 2 years, and what I can say is we have no idea what the technology can do, and we have no way of monitoring when it gains new abilities. We're racing towards autonomous everything, and we're too slow and blind to even detect hidden exponential developments. Here's a good overview to get up to speed: [VIDEO]

Surprised there hasn't been more discussion on this on HN. Podcast and transcript: [LINK] Video: [VIDEO] The argument against putting a potential bioweapon (etc.) in everyone's pocket is compelling, but I fear that the cat is already out of the bag.

It's an open secret that social media and engangement metrics has created something that we don't know how to undo now. No media whether it be news or entertainment will show you anything but what they think gets extra engagement. Outrage, clickbait, infinite scrolling, auto-playing content, recommendations etc. Just have a look at r/teachers to see what the next generation of kids look like. They can't concentrate more than 30 seconds. I'm no expert on this subject, so I would just recommend watching the AI Dilemma video which goes a bit into the social media side, but also talks about LLMs. [VIDEO]