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AI companies in race to demonstrate their model most threatening to humanity

441 points · 399 comments · ljewalsh

  1. chasd00 · · focus · HN ↗
    I’ve never seen CEOs work so hard to make the public aware of how dangerous and out of control their flagship product is. It makes me automatically assume they’re scheming about something else like regulatory capture to protect their market.
    1. meowface · · focus · HN ↗
      Or perhaps they've been saying this for literally decades because they earnestly believe it.
      1. ulfw · · focus · HN ↗
        Which CEO said this for 'literally decades'? And if so why are they still pursuing it then?

        Most children have learned touching a hot stove is bad for them. Then why still do it at the age of 40?

        1. frabcus · · focus · HN ↗
          Sam Altman in 2015 - &quot;Development of superhuman machine intelligence (SMI) [1] is probably the greatest threat to the continued existence of humanity&quot; <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.samaltman.com&#x2F;machine-intelligence-part-1" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.samaltman.com&#x2F;machine-intelligence-part-1

          Elon Musk in 2014 - &quot;We need to be super careful with AI. Potentially more dangerous than nukes&quot; <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;x.com&#x2F;elonmusk&#x2F;status&#x2F;495759307346952192" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;x.com&#x2F;elonmusk&#x2F;status&#x2F;495759307346952192

          Dario Amodei in 2017 - &quot;There’s a long tail of things of varying degrees of badness that could happen. I think at the extreme end is the Nick Bostrom&quot; <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;80000hours.org&#x2F;podcast&#x2F;episodes&#x2F;the-world-needs-ai-researchers-heres-how-to-become-one&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;80000hours.org&#x2F;podcast&#x2F;episodes&#x2F;the-world-needs-ai-r...

          They&#x27;re still pursuing it because without an international treaty, they think it is inevitable. In the case of Dario, they want to align it just enough and be first to stop others causing harm (a vainglorious strategy, yet still a strategy). In the case of Musk and Altman, not completely clear to me.

          Google feels less important right now probably, and Demis Hassabis no longer runs Deep Mind as CEO. However, he talked about this early too, and his reason for proceeding was he was only doing narrow AI (e.g. protein folding) which is fundamentally less dangerous.

          1. thfuran · · focus · HN ↗
            &gt;In the case of Musk and Altman, not completely clear to me.

            They probably just want to ensure that the first AGI is a nazi.

            1. meowface · · focus · HN ↗
              While Musk is now far-right (albeit seemingly not a Hitlerist - yet), Altman is pretty much a liberal.
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