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OpenAI safety leader quits, warning AI company's culture is 'broken'

267 points · 3 comments · jethronethro

  1. reducesuffering · · focus · HN ↗
    “I believe there’s about a 50% chance we all die because of the development of smarter-than-human AI systems, and that our actions over the next two to 10 years will determine the outcome.”

    There are a gargantuan number of extremely intelligent AI researchers and Turing Award winners saying the same thing. They are the ones closest to understanding the technology.

    Where there’s smoke there’s fire.

    1. swingandamiss · · focus · HN ↗
      I don't believe it. Ever since I've been alive I was told something would kill us all. This is the new thing that's going to kill us all. I don't believe it.
      1. estearum · · focus · HN ↗
        Do you have some examples?

        There are very very few things that could even hypothetically kill us all, so I'm curious if you grew up being passed around a series of apocalyptic doomsday cults or something?

        1. swingandamiss · · focus · HN ↗
          Y2K, Climate Change (global cooling, global warming), ozone layer, Russians, Muslims, to name a few. Now go ahead and tell me why these don't count.
          1. pcthrowaway · · focus · HN ↗
            Almost no one believed Y2K would kill everyone, or even a significant (>50%) percentage of the population. Beyond a few people talking about a Nostradamus prophecy or some such, people maybe were concerned that airplanes would fall out of the sky and elevators would plummet.
            1. swingandamiss · · focus · HN ↗
              There you go.
          2. estearum · · focus · HN ↗
            Can you link me to any written evidence of someone saying one of these would kill everyone? or are you speaking hyperbolically?

            “Climate change” is a bit squishy since yes obviously a certain intensity of climate catastrophe can kill everyone, but no scientific prediction has said this is likely to be the case.

            1. swingandamiss · · focus · HN ↗
              You guys follow the same playbook. Ever single time. Once I link to something, you come back and tell me why that link is invalid and can't be trusted. You guys are like robots, and you all have done this same playbook on reddit for two decades now.
              1. estearum · · focus · HN ↗
                "My sources go to a different school... in Canada... you wouldn't trust them"
        2. cobzilla · · focus · HN ↗
          Nukes. If you grew up in the 50s, 60s, 70s or 80s the specter of nuclear annihilation was always just around the corner.

          Throw in the occasional bio-weapon scare, internet worm, Y2K, etc. there has always been something dangling over our heads that’s going to end it all.

          But mostly nukes. Full-scale nuclear exchange would have been not much of a surprise had it happened.

          1. estearum · · focus · HN ↗
            Right, and this was and remains a very valid fear.
      2. pixl97 · · focus · HN ↗
        I'm doing that HN snark thing, but you didn't think about what you typed very much.

        It's no different than you living on the side of a very fertile mountain that has been in your family for generations living a peaceful life. Then you hear a few weird rumbles (this is where you are right now) and some odd geologist guy comes and says to run or your going to die soon. But hey, your family live here for so long there aren't even records of when they showed up. That geologist must be trying to trick you. So you stay.

        The next chapter is where you die in a massive volcanic explosion.

      3. dboreham · · focus · HN ↗
        This is the first thing I've been told could kill us all. Granted, I probably first heard about it 20 years ago but still. None of the other things were in the telling going to kill everyone. Make life pretty unpleasant, possibly. Everyone dead? No.
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