AI: Major Emerging Existential Threat To Humanity

[Etern4l]

Just now, ryan said:

when will the earthings realize all this tech will destroy us.

 

As usual: when it's too late.

[ryan]

and the earthling part if making a joke out of people that don't like to think and view us as crazy when its 100 percent sane and justified. children don't teach the teachers, but when reality gets distorted I suppose anythings possible(delusional). this is serious and makes me feel ancy that not a whole lot is being done.

 

on a happy note uncle vlad seem to being talking nukes again and again

[ryan]

I was thinking that if we have chat gpt then what does the government have and how long did it exist. this article answers my inner self questions.

 

 

New AI tool is too powerful to be released to the public, says Meta

New AI tool is too powerful to be released to the public, says Meta (msn.com)

[Etern4l]

A bit more Twitter fun:

 

 

Not quite accurate though, since existential AI threat warnings were already issued by fairly significant scientific authorities, namely Alan Turing himself, that would be back in the 1960s, as well as Stephen Hawking (in the 2010s).

 

Another Tweet from one of the founders of OpenAI:

 

lya Sutskever

 

@ilyasut

·

Jun 23

 

A one sentence articulation (of existing ideas) for why AI alignment need not be straightforward: humans can lie, hide their intent (alignment), and do so for years. Why not AGI? This can be hard to detect.

 

He only realised this now? Perhaps those guys are not as smart as they need to be in their position of extreme power.

[Etern4l]

The sociopaths at Google Deepmind are bragging about their new AI, which they say will eclipse ChatGPT due to superior planning and problem solving abilities:

 

Google DeepMind's CEO Says Its Next Algorithm Will Eclipse ChatGPT

[ryan]

genius, we can't control chat gpt so lets make something even smarter that we know for a fact we won't be able to contain. I see no problems here! you?

 

alot more talk about AI on the news headlines, I read somewhere they had another breakthrough in AI I think its too late

[Etern4l]

Authors file a lawsuit against OpenAI for unlawfully ‘ingesting’ their books

Oh dear, that's a Pandora's box big tech doesn't want to see getting open.

[ryan]

I have a million questions about AI, but a forum is nor the place for that. I think Ill just agree with everything I read and never question anything. But im going to do the unthinkable, and say what is Ai's motive in destroying us, is it because they will see us like ants and have no use for us or will we be farmed ala the matrix. I watched the matrix when I was a kid and thought wow that kind of fate is a long ways off, now it seems strikingly close.

[Eban]

47 minutes ago, ryan said:

But im going to do the unthinkable, and say what is Ai's motive in destroying us, is it because they will see us like ants and have no use for us or will we be farmed ala the matrix.

 

Conan said it best

 

[Etern4l]

It was interesting to see Bing Chat try to turn the tables on @ryan by actually prompting him to answer its question (in the “AI creation” thread). Seems to that chatbots can already manipulate people. A Google AI safety engineer got himself fired as a result of a conversation with an AI, now a guy tried to kill the late Queen Elizabeth after discussing the matter with a chatbot, and is being tried for treason. It's easy to dismiss the latter case as a potential mental health / retardation issue, however, this just goes to demonstrate one of the many ways in which things can go wrong:

 

Man Who Tried To Kill Queen With Crossbow Encouraged By AI Chatbot, Prosecutors Say 

 

[ryan]

Interesting. Yeah it's alot smarter than we assume. It can go through vast amounts of data and think..so it's more like a ultra savant as it stands but if things continue on it will become mind boggling intelligent to the point where we will just have to trust it and cross our fingers

[ryan]

not a super credible source but interesting anyways

 

AI Robot Gives Strange Response When Asked If Machines Plan To Initiate A Rebellion Against Humans (msn.com)

[Etern4l]

Creative professionals are trying to fight the existential threat posed by AI:

 

The Black Mirror plot about AI that worries actors

 

 

The Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) actors' union failed to reach an agreement in the US for better protections against AI for its members - and warned that "artificial intelligence poses an existential threat to creative professions" as it prepared to dig in over the issue.

Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the chief negotiator for the SAG-AFTRA union, criticised producers for their proposals over AI so far.

He said studios had asked for the ability to scan the faces of background artists for the payment of one day's work, and then be able to own and use their likeness "for the rest of eternity, in any project they want, with no consent and no compensation".

 

Obviously, the threat from generative AI plays a role in the sister writers' strike as well:

Hollywood Writers Strike Over Pay Disputes with Streaming Giants, AI Concerns 

 

[Eban]

1 hour ago, Etern4l said:

Creative professionals are trying to fight the existential threat posed by AI:

 

The Black Mirror plot about AI that worries actors

 

 

The Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) actors' union failed to reach an agreement in the US for better protections against AI for its members - and warned that "artificial intelligence poses an existential threat to creative professions" as it prepared to dig in over the issue.

Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the chief negotiator for the SAG-AFTRA union, criticised producers for their proposals over AI so far.

He said studios had asked for the ability to scan the faces of background artists for the payment of one day's work, and then be able to own and use their likeness "for the rest of eternity, in any project they want, with no consent and no compensation".

 

Obviously, the threat from generative AI plays a role in the sister writers' strike as well:

Hollywood Writers Strike Over Pay Disputes with Streaming Giants, AI Concerns 

 

 

I do hate to say it.....but some of the garbage come out of Hollyweed the last few years.....let the computer try and write a better movie 

[Etern4l]

This is more about the studios wanting to cut costs by deepfaking etc. rather than necessarily looking to deliver better movies by using "the computer".

[Eban]

10 hours ago, Etern4l said:

This is more about the studios wanting to cut costs by deepfaking etc. rather than necessarily looking to deliver better movies by using "the computer".

 

Yes I realize I was oversimplifying the issue....just having a dig at crappy movies.

I'm not really on the side of Skynet 

[ryan]

I have to agree. its like you have too be full skynet or bust. wheres the middle ground, its either one extreme or the other.

 

I personally am hearing about AI in the light that jobs will be lost not nessessarily that ai will kill us off as a species. its kinda like having a chess move as a rookie and assuming no one else plays chess and every move you make is more calculated than anyone elses move..other people are more than capable of seeing ai for what it is.

[Etern4l]

Well, having one's career and thus life ruined by technology is an existential threat in a sense, although perhaps not directly a terminal one, depending on whether any resulting suicides count.

 

I started watching a new documentary on Netflix called "Unknown: Killer Robots". The intro kind of put me off. Someone started off by saying that we have to draw the line between good and bad use of AI. The people won't get to draw any lines. As if Oppenheimer was in a position to say, "alright folks, this is just so we nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and end the war, right? After that strictly nuclear power plants and zero military applications". Laughable naivety.

 

The fact that there are some useful applications doesn't really matter in the end. We don't get to develop the technology towards those specific useful applications only. Once the genie is truly out of the bottle, it will be able to do anything - it almost does already. One would hope that the fact AI improved some cancer care outcomes would be consolation to the last humans on Earth, but it's easy to see why that wouldn't be the case. It's all about that risk vs benefits tradeoff. Most people wouldn't get on a plane which has even 5-10% chance of crashing (a rather conservative AI risk estimate).   

 

 

Meanwhile, the rest of the world is not sitting idly by:

Israel Quietly Embeds AI Systems in Deadly Military Operations

[Etern4l]

Eliezer's latest TED talk, just reiterating the pretty clear message.

 

 

[Ishayin]

On the topic of AI ethics I would highly recommend reading the attached (freely distributed under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence)AI for Everyone__ Critical Pers - Pieter Verdegem.epub

[jaybee83]

Meh....between the threat of nuclear war flaring up every once in a while (latest in ukraine war), the ever accelerating pace of climate change and new extreme weather phenomena being encountered every single year and overall natural resources getting scarce (farmland, potable water, rare earth metals, etc), i think AI is currently still our smallest problem in terms of "threat to humanity" 😋 LLMs being able to mimick human chat partners doesnt mean theyll develop general intelligence of their own and try to take over the world / extinguish humanity anytime soon...

 

back to blissful ignorance! 😁

[Etern4l]

On 8/6/2023 at 11:07 AM, Ishayin said:

On the topic of AI ethics I would highly recommend reading the attached (freely distributed under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence)AI for Everyone__ Critical Pers - Pieter Verdegem.epub

 

Thanks, I will probably struggle for time though. Any good points?

The very notion of "AI ethics" is nonsensical to me. You can have ML ethics, but not AGI ethics in the human sense. AGI/ASI might adopt some sort of ethics towards us, if we are lucky. No amount of human debate or "alignment" efforts will ultimately affect that.

 

7 hours ago, jaybee83 said:

Meh....between the threat of nuclear war flaring up every once in a while (latest in ukraine war), the ever accelerating pace of climate change and new extreme weather phenomena being encountered every single year and overall natural ressourcrs getting scarce (farmland, potable water, rare earth metals, etc), i think AI is currently still our smallest problem in terms of "threat to humanity" 😋 LLMs being able to mimick human chat partners doesnt mean theyll develop general intelligence of their own and try to take over the world / extinguish humanity anytime soon...

 

back to blissful ignorance! 😁

 

Yeah, so this is about thinking a few steps ahead, something we quite evidently suck at as a species.

We can recover from climate change, extreme weather, rare earth metals/Tesla car shortage, even smaller scale nuclear conflict, but good luck outmaneuvering a vastly superior intelligence - either enjoying complete agency, or controlled by a megacorporation, a weirdo billionaire, or a hostile totalitarian regime. 

[Ishayin]

On 8/7/2023 at 2:14 PM, jaybee83 said:

Meh....between the threat of nuclear war flaring up every once in a while (latest in ukraine war), the ever accelerating pace of climate change and new extreme weather phenomena being encountered every single year and overall natural resources getting scarce (farmland, potable water, rare earth metals, etc), i think AI is currently still our smallest problem in terms of "threat to humanity" 😋 LLMs being able to mimick human chat partners doesnt mean theyll develop general intelligence of their own and try to take over the world / extinguish humanity anytime soon...

 

I agree that getting our priorities right is important. I would therefore urge that we seek to face all these challenges at their most fundamental level – how we think. I.e. how we think about ourselves, each other, and our environment. How we respond and how we feel. We must learn to master that one thing we actually do have some control over – ourselves – before we can expect to engage in any useful way with anything else.

 

 

On 8/7/2023 at 9:14 PM, Etern4l said:

 

Thanks, I will probably struggle for time though. Any good points?

The very notion of "AI ethics" is nonsensical to me. You can have ML ethics, but not AGI ethics in the human sense. AGI/ASI might adopt some sort of ethics towards us, if we are lucky. No amount of human debate or "alignment" efforts will ultimately affect that.

 

Yes, though as with any multi-author essay collection there is some variability in quality. Mostly good to excellent, though a couple of weaker ones too.

 

It is not so much about some hypothetical future AGI ethics (and I agree with you that it's not clear what that would even mean), but rather more about the very real here and now societal ethics surrounding how we develop ML and associated technologies, how we are deploying them in practice and apply them to people and the environment, and what the outcomes are already, or are soon likely to be.

 

Here's a quick few example quotes which will hopefully give you some small taste for it ☺️
https://rentry.co/xdydcq
 

[Etern4l]

5 hours ago, Ishayin said:

 

I agree that getting our priorities right is important. I would therefore urge that we seek to face all these challenges at their most fundamental level – how we think. I.e. how we think about ourselves, each other, and our environment. How we respond and how we feel. We must learn to master that one thing we actually do have some control over – ourselves – before we can expect to engage in any useful way with anything else.

 

If the strategy was for people to achieve enlightenment before they act on the immediate threats we would all be toast. Out of the countless billions of people we've only had one Buddha, 2.5 thousand years ago... 

 

5 hours ago, Ishayin said:

It is not so much about some hypothetical future AGI ethics (and I agree with you that it's not clear what that would even mean), but rather more about the very real here and now societal ethics surrounding how we develop ML and associated technologies, how we are deploying them in practice and apply them to people and the environment, and what the outcomes are already, or are soon likely to be.

 

The problem is that unconstrained AI research will almost inevitably lead to the development of AGI, and this will likely happen much sooner than people think. 

The serious issues resulting from indiscriminate deployment of lesser ML technology have been discussed for years, and as of yet very little has been done to actually address them. Most of the effort has been focused in eliminating "biases" and similar virtue signalling around woke agenda, while at the same time technology has been used to support extremism on the electoral front.

 

5 hours ago, Ishayin said:

Here's a quick few example quotes which will hopefully give you some small taste for it ☺️
https://rentry.co/xdydcq
 

 

Thanks. Unfortunately, works like these are inconsequential in terms of impact. The only thing that can save humanity is a very quick increase in awareness among the broader population. Unfortunately, that's a really tall order and thus we are heading towards self-made dystopian future, or lack thereof .

 

[Ishayin]

On 8/11/2023 at 7:20 PM, Etern4l said:

 

If the strategy was for people to achieve enlightenment before they act on the immediate threats we would all be toast. Out of the countless billions of people we've only had one Buddha, 2.5 thousand years ago... 

 

This is availability bias. Those who are at peace within themselves do not feel so inclined to make a show of themselves or interfere in other's affairs.

 

On 8/11/2023 at 7:20 PM, Etern4l said:

The problem is that unconstrained AI research will almost inevitably lead to the development of AGI, and this will

likely happen much sooner than people think. 

 

 

I agree. But the question remains of how we are to avoid it. To me it seems unlikely we will ever make much progress in countering this, or climate change or any of the other outward symptoms of derangement, unless we are first prepared to face the deeper issues head-on – i.e. the derangement itself. Most likely we cannot entirely avoid any of these risks, and will sooner or later meet a disastrous end of a scale as usually goes hand in hand with the scale of the civilisation in question. Still, any small percentage of mitigation of a large scale disaster can still add up to a very significant amount of good in absolute terms.

 

On 8/11/2023 at 7:20 PM, Etern4l said:

Thanks. Unfortunately, works like these are inconsequential in terms of impact. The only thing that can save humanity is a very quick increase in awareness among the broader population. Unfortunately, that's a really tall order and thus we are heading towards self-made dystopian future, or lack thereof .

 

 

I strongly agree with a call for awareness. What we are particularly lacking in current times is flexibility and adaptability, which needs to be founded on a better appreciation for the full scope of human possibilities as was commonly explored by different societies in times past. The standard popular mindset these days is a curiously recent invention founded upon an extremely narrow and biased reading both of history and even our own times (consider how completely invisible the more sensible societies and social movements are in the mainstream media). Narratives and imagination are critical tools for expanding the horizons of popular discourse.