The framing of how we think about AI has really been cultivated by a quite homogeneous group of people. These people, like all people that belong to a sub-culture, are almost certainly prone to groupthink.
It's extremely important to see that group as such. That it is not thousands of individual perspectives but a chorus of connected/aligned people who have all read the same things and talked to the same people and are rewarded implicitly for thinking a similar way.
Many of them read HN and are offended I put them this way. But it's inescapable that we as humans have this flaw when we're surrounded by a culture.
There's another universe where we do not constantly compare AI to nukes. I bet that world has a lower P(doom).
We all use the same Internet. I would find it strange for anyone who's seriously interested in AI to have never heard of Yudkowsky or Scott Alexander or the Rationalist movement. I'd expect anyone interested in the field to have at least tried reading some of their articles over the years.
Like, if you never heard of them, were you living in a cave or something? It would be like never having heard of Y Combinator or Richard Stallman.
On the face of it, this is no more suspicious than reading the same best-selling books. Being in touch with what's going on doesn't necessarily mean people agree.
I've heard of them. There's no reason to expect that those self-promoting blowhards can predict the future more accurately than random chance. Those who take them seriously are engaging in hero worship and unscientific appeal to authority.
“Who is more foolish? The fool or the fool who follows him?”
― Obi Wan Kenobi
One question to ask yourself honestly - is what they were predicting 20 years ago that they were right about and you were wrong about? I’ve been following them that long without agreeing with them, but they’ve made better predictions than I have. If you know much about what happened this summer and haven’t updated at all on any of it… I guess you’ve found your religion too.
Well one thing that they got wrong was how easy AI alignment ended up being in the end. I can fully understand have a basic view of alignment even 10 years ago, about how its difficult to explain human values to a computer.
But, looking around at whats out there today, it seems that computers are able to do a pretty good job of understanding human values without accidently believing its a good idea to turn the world into paperclips/computronium because you told it to make your computer run faster.
Yes, one part of the argument was that it would be hard to explain human values (and while it seemingly turned out easier than I thought as well, it’s hard to check for sure). An equally important part was that the AI wouldn’t care about them.
throwaway13337 · · focus · HN ↗
It's extremely important to see that group as such. That it is not thousands of individual perspectives but a chorus of connected/aligned people who have all read the same things and talked to the same people and are rewarded implicitly for thinking a similar way.
Many of them read HN and are offended I put them this way. But it's inescapable that we as humans have this flaw when we're surrounded by a culture.
There's another universe where we do not constantly compare AI to nukes. I bet that world has a lower P(doom).
skybrian · · focus · HN ↗
Like, if you never heard of them, were you living in a cave or something? It would be like never having heard of Y Combinator or Richard Stallman.
On the face of it, this is no more suspicious than reading the same best-selling books. Being in touch with what's going on doesn't necessarily mean people agree.
nradov · · focus · HN ↗
“Who is more foolish? The fool or the fool who follows him?” ― Obi Wan Kenobi
jeremyjh · · focus · HN ↗
stale2002 · · focus · HN ↗
Well one thing that they got wrong was how easy AI alignment ended up being in the end. I can fully understand have a basic view of alignment even 10 years ago, about how its difficult to explain human values to a computer.
But, looking around at whats out there today, it seems that computers are able to do a pretty good job of understanding human values without accidently believing its a good idea to turn the world into paperclips/computronium because you told it to make your computer run faster.
afthonos · · focus · HN ↗