Thread

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

441 points · 399 comments · ljewalsh

chasd00 · 1790595720 · 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. hellweaver666 · 1790597785 · focus · HN ↗
  I have a theory... the call to slow down is not because of the true danger of LLM's but because they can't actually deliver the General AI they're promising in the near future. They will use their "caution" to justify their failure to deliver (and then when this excuse is played out they will blame regulation, energy costs or a million other things).
  1. mofeien · 1790599155 · focus · HN ↗
    When, in the past three years, has model progress seemed to decelerate to you, indicating some limit?
    The Statement on AI Extinction Risk is more than three years old, signed by the three CEOs: <a href="https://aistatement.com/work/statement-on-ai-extinction-risk" rel="nofollow">https://aistatement.com/work/statement-on-ai-extinction-risk
    They have been warning about AI extinction risk for years, and AI progress has only been accelerating.
    nkrisc · 1790600646 · focus · HN ↗
    So either they’re full of shit or we need to stop them by any means necessary.
    solenoid0937 · 1790601384 · focus · HN ↗
    Or there's a middle path where you cure most death and disease by ensuring governments and society responsibly regulates superintelligence.
    Actually... nah. Why even try? Trendy cynical hot takes on social media are more fun!
    nkrisc · 1790601789 · focus · HN ↗
    I don’t believe them. I don’t believe that they are truly concerned about much beyond their own self interests.
    esseph · 1790602051 · focus · HN ↗
    > I don’t believe that they are truly concerned about much beyond their own self interests.
    They believe it's real and they MUST be the ones to control it. That's how they keep their self-interests aligned.
    fyltr · 1790602696 · focus · HN ↗
    Fun fact: 'they' are human beings too and some of their interests do allign with yours. They have kids too and might want them to have a proper future, they don't want to fall I'll to cancer either etc
    nkrisc · 1790604250 · focus · HN ↗
    I believe that they believe what they are doing is good.
    solenoid0937 · 1790608723 · focus · HN ↗
    No, they are comically evil mustache twirlers according to HN.
    solenoid0937 · 1790608778 · focus · HN ↗
    Just seems like unwarranted cynicism.
    Timon3 · 1790667640 · focus · HN ↗
    Seems more like pattern recognition to me. What else do you expect from the rich, when our society is explicitly set up to elevate greed to the highest virtue?
    icantevenhold · 1790603937 · focus · HN ↗
    “Curing” death would be the most dystopian devastating outcome i can think of
    solenoid0937 · 1790608901 · focus · HN ↗
    Offered a pill on your deathbed to go back to the vitality of your 20s, you'd take it.
    Given the opportunity to give this pill to a dying loved one, you'd take it.
    The only reason you think that being death-optional is bad, is because the only longevity-related media you've ever consumed has doomer outcomes - because positive sci-fi doesn't sell.
    icantevenhold · 1790609825 · focus · HN ↗
    No it’s because it would enable the very worst people to live perpetually. Despots and dictators are bad enough but luckily they all die eventually.
    Also it cheapens the time you have. Why care about anything if you live forever
    solenoid0937 · 1790609992 · focus · HN ↗
    8 billion innocent people should die because a dictator might live longer? Including your own family members and children? This would essentially be the worst cost:benefit tradeoff ever made in human history.
    You cannot think of other ways to solve societal problems that don't involve killing everyone on the planet?
    "cheapens the time you have" - this is just copium. When you're enjoying a day, you are not thinking "oh geez this day is good because I'm going to fucking die." You're just enjoying the day.
    icantevenhold · 1790619511 · focus · HN ↗
    Well now we have a natural cap on the amount of power and influence a horrible person can have - if we remove death from the equation there is no cap anymore.
    So yea I’m willing to “kill” everyone to prevent the perpetual torment nexus becoming a reality.
    solenoid0937 · 1790622278 · focus · HN ↗
    Death does not have a natural cap on power, you do realize corruption runs in systems? See the power transfer happening in North Korea.
    I wonder how your children would feel if you told them you'd rather kill them than think of other ways in which to solve the problem of a dictator that does not affect their lives in any way.
    To the extent that it is even a "problem", frankly absurd to kill everyone because you're worried about out a few edge cases, and I think you realize it - you're just hanging on. We both know you wouldn't make this decision on your own deathbed.
    icantevenhold · 1790623129 · focus · HN ↗
    Why are you so afraid of death?
    Death is doing a fine job and has so for billions of years.
    The only long-term outcome of immortality i can imagine is either Drukhari-style depravity, where you chase more and more fucked up pleasures because anything else you already did 10 million times in the last couple thousands of years - or something like I have no mouth but I must scream - you can live forever but the AI also tortures you forever.
    Literally cant think of a positive outcome.
    You are right that dynasties exist but that doesn’t mean they are static - the transfer of power of this to the next generation needs to happen.
    Every king has its time to rule and then he dies.
    Sure an evil dictator is just one person but they can inflict untold billions of suffering.
    Just imagine if Hitler (or insert your favourite evil person) would live forever. Do you really think they are going to let go of power or care about anything else but achieving their goals?
    We literally feel the ill effects of the previous generation not passing power onto the next (boomers) right now - imagine that was a perpetual state of society forever.
    And while we are speaking of “killing” kids - what about the unborn ones? What motivation would people have to procreate if they live forever? Create more people to share more and more limited resources with, I don’t think so.
    I think you haven’t quite thought this through; it’s not as easy as “death bad”.
    Now I’m not saying we shouldn’t look for cures of diseases and suffering but striving for immortality is not desirable (tbh it will most likely take the form of “we’re gonna upload your consciousness into a computer” anyway, not physical immortality)

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