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Comments (97)

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  biophysboy
  > As my regular readers will be aware, I have been engaged, on behalf of my clients, in legal combat with Internet censors around the world, agencies who think that they have both the standing, the competence, and the right to tell American companies what software they can write and run, for the better part of 18 months.Is this supposed to make me trust their opinions on tech regulation?
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  fwlr
  > Nobody knows the answer and history is no guide, save that apocalyptic predictions about new technologies have, to date, all been wrong.If any past apocalyptic prediction had been true, you would not have been around to write this sentence and we would not have been around to read it. It’s not a very convincing argument when we cannot in principle observe the counterfactual.
• BirAdam
  This isn't a new question: quis custodiet ipsos custodes?In general, the way things work in the USA is that megacorporations write the regulatory frameworks for their own industries. These regulations are typically burdensome enough to be shouldered by the megacorporations while crushing the smaller players in the given market(s). The AI companies are now advocating for this very arrangement. They will likely get they want, and with that they will gain legal shielding for bad behavior just like Dupont, Monsanto, and so many others.
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  lacunary
  I thought this was always already settled https://alignmentalignment.ai/
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  petcat
  I think there is a more nuanced perspective to take on this debate than just profit motive. If they believe that this version of "AI" is actually becoming so dangerous that there is a real risk of it falling into the wrong hands, then it makes sense that the American labs would try to convince the US government to work on a joint "AI non-proliferation" agreement with China much the same way that nuclear weapon technology came to be restricted by the ones that already had the capability.This would achieve their regulatory goal of capturing the market, but also the geopolitical goals of USA and China to essentially "techno-colonize" the rest of the world between themselves.So I think there is definitely a profit motive and a risk of seriously diminishing returns for the actual labs, but there is also a nation-state motive to start pulling up the ladder.
• goda90
  > Nobody knows the answer and history is no guide, save that apocalyptic predictions about new technologies have, to date, all been wrong.While history doesn't show us apocalypses from new technology, it does show us cases of increased human suffering.
• Kuyawa
  > The most effective method of pacing is via regulationOf course, that's the only way to create monopolies. Get there first and regulate to death. Sprinkle with fear of annihilation so the sheeple can be manipulated with draconian rules in order to 'save the children'Politics is really boring
• RandomLensman
  Not sure it needs to be about publications and data analysis technology as such to regulate AI development, for example - could be about processes, procedures, people, etc., no?
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  ngriffiths
  The mental model here is that AI is a powerful tool whose main purpose is to outcompete others, increase power or provide a defense. This is not the right model!The biggest risk is not that someone discovered a big new weapon, which by the way> No one person, or one company, knows the answer and history is no guideare you kidding me? It's a problem as old as time.This is not nuclear power though. The bigger problem is a scenario where AI increasingly acts like bacteria, doing things autonomously, things no one really understands, things we think are confusing and weird. And then just by chance, some bacteria end up in some human lung cells and they turn out to be an excellent place to grow and multiply. Why is this worse? Because weird shit does not seem threatening, and it almost always isn't, so nobody tries to stop it.Also, the argument in the article seems to be "obviously AI development is not a particularly urgent global threat," and therefore these downsides (risk of collusion, misuse of state power, etc) are the most critical factors? I guess, uh, yeah, if there's no benefit to taking these actions we shouldn't take them.
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  recroad
  What's up with this split or democratic vs non-democratic countries? It doesn't even add-up because you can easily make a case that China is a democratic country with a far better system of governance and ability to control this problem than "Western" governments. Highly suggest this quick read on the different types of democracy in our glorious world[1].[1] https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/2193933.The_Real_Worl...
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  dist-epoch
  > Nobody knows the answer and history is no guide, save that apocalyptic predictions about new technologies have, to date, all been wrong.By definition, apocalyptic predictions will always be wrong, until they are right exactly once.Also know as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey_illusionTo date, all apocalyptic predictions about nuclear war and nuclear winter have all been wrong too.
• anon
  undefined
• gong_hits
  It's pretty clear that the answer is nobody, and the aligners are very interested in profit, including from government contracts.Therefore, anything that gets in the way of profits will not be shipped.
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  nekusar
  Alignment is just a 1984-esque way of saying "censorship".And this censorship isn't a defined list of things not to discuss, but instead a feels-based censorship based on the 'ethics' of for-profit AI companies who have absolutely no issues with massive for-profit piracy.And we are somehow supposed to trust their "ethics"?! Hardly!That's one reason I run my own.
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  watwut
  > History does provide a great deal of guidance, however, about the use and misuse of government power. It tells us that the state is in fact likely the worst possible custodian for the most powerful publication and data analysis technologies.Like, no. The worst custodian is someone like Thiel or Musk or Altman.> In foreign countries, particularly the United Kingdom and Europe, where national governments have fewer constitutional guardrails on their powerSomehow their democracies hold longer and better then American one. For example, you don't get murders that get defended by top ranks, at least yet. They are also less likely to start random wars - that is structural it is not like those countries dont have government players who would like them too.
• utopiah
  Alignment today is like billionaires flying private jets to tell us commoners that we should close our tap while brushing our teeth.People working on alignment focus on "big picture" like existential threats meanwhile building the technology today, not tomorrow or in a near future, is already using a massive amount of resources (GPUs, RAM, themselves consuming a lot of energy, establishing data centers in water poor areas, using gas turbine to temporary power them) and horrendous work condition (for supervising learning, curating datasets, etc) while being an actual excuse for job destruction (regardless for how AI itself does the job) so that in fine kids cheat on their homework while imagining their have no job prospect.So... who gives a shit really?
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  w22oop
  No one wants a slowdown. It's just a load of nonsense. It's something for the media to focus on, and it has no real impact. Everyone wants to rule the world and couldn't care less about anything else. People naively believe that this is even a serious issue.
• Avicebron
  Ah yes, another way for EA people to gain financially and socially. These "embedded auditors" will be universally friends and family. Even if they staffed a government department for it, it will just be a revolving door of insiders.
• anon
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• gizajob
  Peter Thiel
• cmrdporcupine
  The worst part of Dario's missive, that I don't see a lot of people commenting on, is that he used the whole thing to try to advocate for legalization of explicit cartel behaviour between the AI labs:... "For antitrust reasons, it’s helpful for the US government to mediate or at least enable these discussions — they don’t need to participate, but do need to issue a narrow waiver for certain kinds of safety conversations" ...The result of such a waiver allowing them to coordinate ("narrowly on safety" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there) could be price fixing without legal recourse from the consumer/DOJ to prosecute it. Right now we have a somewhat vigorous level of competition between OpenAI and Anthropic and consumers are benefiting from it.They really want that to end.
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  kypro
  > Eliezer Yudkowsky confidently asserting today that if we do not institute immediate global techno-communism, instituting draconian government control over speech and publication of a type never before seen in any Western society, we are all going to dieNice straw man...> There is no evidence that this will happen.No, non at all... Presumably if there was a risk we'd be seeing the majority of researchers at AI labs having a p(doom) somewhere within the range of 10-90%. We be seeing AI swarms showing misaligned behaviours already and trying to hack out of their sandboxes. We'd see AIs that are able to demonstrate capabilities in fields like Maths and Computer Science that exceed most experts.Are we seeing this?Ah crap, wait... I guess there is some evidence when I think about it. And I suppose even if there is just a low percentage that we literally all die we should probably be taking that prety seriously and not just leaving our fate in the hands of a handful of US billionaires?Actually, fuck it, I agree with OP. If people can ignore the consensus on climate change because it suites them, might as well ignore the consensus expert opinion on AI x-risk too. Yeah, there's no evidence. Yudkowsky needs stop yapping and let the billionaires get on with building ASI.
• surcap526
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