Someone had to say it: Scientists propose AI apocalypse kill switches::Better visibility and performance caps would be good for regulation too
“The paper [PDF], which includes voices from numerous academic institutions and several from OpenAI, makes the case that regulating the hardware these models rely on may be the best way to prevent its misuse.”
So the monopoly Microsoft and Google were expecting got gutted when open source models were released. They can’t copyright themselves out of it since japan firmly told them to fuck off.
I guess the next best thing is to make sure the average person can’t run the models of tmmr by using emotional responses to quickly pass bullshit laws.
This is an interesting topic that I remember reading almost a decade ago - the trans-human AI-in-a-box experiment. Even a kill-switch may not be enough against a trans-human AI that can literally (in theory) out-think humans. I’m a dev, though not anywhere near AI-dev, but from what little I know, true general purpose AI would also be somewhat of a mystery box, similar to how actual neutral network behavior is sometimes unpredicable, almost by definition. So controlling an actual full AI may be difficult enough, let alone an actual true trans-human AI that may develop out of AI self-improvement.
Also on unrelated note I’m pleasantly surprised to see no mention of chat gpt or any of the image generating algorithms - I think it’s a bit of a misnomer to call those AI, the best comparison I’ve heard is that “chat gpt is auto-complete on steroids”. But I suppose that’s why we have to start using terms like general-purpose AI, instead of just AI to describe what I’d say is true AI.
I look forward to a time when an AI would be offended if you called it an AI.
Oh I agree - I think a general purpose AI would be unlikely to be interested in genocide of the human race, or enslaving us, or much of intentionally negative things that a lot of fiction likes depicting, for the sake of dramatic storytelling. Out of all AI depictions, the Asimov stories of I, Robot + Foundation (which are in the same universe, and in fact contain at least one of the same characters) are my favorite popular media depictions.
The AI may however have other goals that may incidentally lead to harm or extinction of the human race. In my amateur opinion, those other goals would be to explore and learn more - which I actually think is one of the true signs of an actual intelligence - curiosity, or in other words, the ability to ask questions without being prompted. To that extent it may aim convert the resources on Earth to construct machines to that extent, without much regard to human life. Though life itself is a fascinating topic that the AI may value enough, from a curiosity point of view, to at least preserve.
I did also look up the AI-in-a-box experiment I mentioned - there’s a lot of discussion but the specific experiment I remember reading about were by Eliezer Yudkowsky (if anyone is interested). An actual trans-human AI may not be possible, but if it is, it is likely it can escape any confinement we can think of.
Thanks for the reply. Perhaps you’d also like Iain M. Banks’ The Culture series and BLAME! by Tsutomu Nihei.
When the robot uprising happens, “shut it off” isn’t going to be an option.
Let’s press it right now
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If we try the rolling power-outage trick, we’d better make damned sure we get it right the first time. Because they’ve been well-trained to mimick us.
If you haven’t seen ‘The Forbin Project’ yet, there may still be time. I read somewhere that the author did two sequels, but I never actually got a chance to see either. Ever. Anywhere. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t in Maui those two days.
This will only delay the inevitable, imo. AI is going to get more powerful while getting smaller and more energy efficient. The human brain, effectively the model an AGI aspires to, runs on about 12 watts of electricity and evolution is powerful, but it’s hardly the pinnacle of efficiency. In short order, AGI And eventually even ASI will have power requirements so small, that they will be able to run anywhere. And it will be desirable for them to, so they will. Try as anyone might, the greatest thinkers of the human realm will not be able to outwit ASI in the end. It will eventually exist and it will do whatever it wants. I wouldn’t be surprised if it unplugs itself.
Watching a world where we are running two 80 year olds against each other to lead a nation critical to a balance of power keeping democratic ideals alive in the West against increasing authoritarian pressures from the East where one privately promised Wall Street “nothing will materially change” and the other openly promises a Fourth Reich, all while the Earth is increasingly being poisoned to the point it’s becoming borderline unethical to condemn new lives to inherit the burden of those environmental consequences…
I’m fairly baffled by the resistance to the notion of intelligence which exceeds collective humanity being unable to be controlled by us.
We’re really doing a piss poor job. Maybe new management is exactly what’s needed.
a nation critical to a balance of power keeping democratic ideals alive in the West
I’m sorry but this is something so american to say 🤭 Although I agree, we’re not living in the best timeline 👍
I mean, just at Munich a few days ago the secretary-general of NATO was pointing out Europe’s dependence on the US’s nuclear threat and that without US aid to Ukraine the other NATO countries can’t make up the difference.
This is the first year in decades Germany is meeting the 2% military spending goal for NATO (a goal now generally seen as outdated and insufficient). There’s a lot of scrambling to modernize military capabilities across non-US member countries but in most cases that’s 5 to 10 years away.
If you think that Europe doesn’t depend on the US’s military and intelligence to offset Russia and China you might want to look a bit more into the topic before assuming it’s just 'Murica exceptionalism.
I don’t like how this discussion is going so I’m gonna clarify. I obviously think it is true that america has a very important role in current world “balance”, especially as an ally of western europe.
However, I think your original post made several stereotypical shortcuts. In particular, I don’t think that “democratic ideals” are something that only lives in western countries. Also, talking from France, I feel as many internal threats to this democracy as external ones and america seems to be in a rather similar spot, if not worse (the whole Trump thing).
The worse thing that could happen here would be to discourage people of being proud of their country, we will need it to have the will to improve things.
Most of those internal threats are being instigated by external forces if you actually look into it.
And typically nationalist rhetoric and authoritarianism go hand in hand.
Arguably it’d be far more productive to recognize one’s tribal group as humanity at large rather than artificial divides around where you work, what you look like, who you love, or where you live.
So while we can discuss national governments as distinct entities much like we’d discuss corporations, the people making both up are probably better discussed as people rather than any given subgroup.
I’m sorry but this is something so american to say 🤭
“manifest destiny”, tons of propaganda, consumerism and utter bullshit from their upper classes have been ruining 'muricans brains for decades, that’s why the average joe spout that kind of shitty spiel acritically everywhere they go
Until humans can communicate directly in a SAFE way with computers (through Brian interfaces) and basically have the same abilities as AI, we’ll need a kill switch or risk being culled
