It wouldn’t actually be _that_ surprising. Tech isn’t progressive or countercultural* anymore. And a lot of how people feel about gun rights/gun control stateside really comes down to whether people identify with the population they perceive as owning guns—are they my people or The Other? (I don’t mean to dismiss that there’s an entirely rationalist argument to be had around whether permitting gun ownership and to what extent is good or bad or multivariate for society; I just don’t think it’s the one most people have. And—I’m fairly sure _my own_ take is colored this way.)
* if you know of an industry that’s properly progressive and countercultural and could conceivably pay at least survival wages, sign me right up. I’m good at this one but it no longer fills my cup. I’m tired.
This seems like an odd take. I remember when a large portion of the people I'd speak with online were very pro 2a while also being countercultural. There was a strong individual liberties/responsibilities, anti-government, pro-decentralization and devolution of power, and dare I say libertarian streak. This isn't an attitude I'd associate with the modern definition of progressive.
The big tech era certainly diluted a lot of that but I don't think it ever went away. I haven't seen a huge resurgence in this either so it seems strange to believe that tech is becoming less progressive. From my vantage it is still very far away from where it was in the 80s and 90s. I can agree that it has become much, much less countercultural since it's basically 100% mainstream opinion now.
You're not wrong. We're talking about different eras--and it sounds like you may have been around a bit longer. The mostly libertarian/individualistic (I would dare say _left libertarian_, who seem now to be pretty much politically extinct) era was notable to me in the late 90s through about the mid-aughts. This transitioned into a more progressive culture somewhere in the 05-08 era -- and its rise and fall pretty well overlapped with Twitter's, as best I can tell.
I can't directly speak to The Culture Of The Internet before about '97.
For context for those outside the US, this is a play on a common saying "Guns don't kill people. People kill people."
It's commonly used in relation to the 2nd amendment which gives citizens the right to bear arms. It comes up when there are political debates relating to gun violence.
It's a statement of responsibility. Whether it's the government, gun makers', or citizens' responsibility to ensure responsible gun use.
The political, rather than legal, justification for unrestricted gun ownership in the US is that an armed citizenry is able to resist a tyrannical government.
Regardless of your opinion on that argument, I don't think it applies well as an argument against AI regulations.
Where can I sign up for compensation for the constant "ddos" from openai?
It can't be just me, half the internet needs beefier servers I guess. That all just plays into cloudflare as well (which barely does anything for some reason).
Yeah, when someone writes a vague prompt that simply says "Do what it takes to finish X" and the unleashed agents end up doing something lethal and illegal you would think its on the AI company to prevent any illegality and not the vague prompt writer.
10% chance of AI killing us all... But how much of a chance of humans killing all humans? It's not like we are in some unprecedented era of peacefulness. I'd wager the chances of a proper nuclear exchange right now are above 10%.
I am not sure how I feel about all this. Yes bad AI might screw some things up. But AI might also find and prevent the software errors that allow such things to even be possible in the first place.
And ultimately, even if we are "locked out" from bad AI taking over the internet, we know where the data centers are. It's not like AI can reasonably "escape" since we know it needs DC-scale power, cooling, chips etc to operate at scale. I am pretty sure that if it came to it, we can just cut the fibre to the data centers or cut the power and let the generators run out of diesel and the AI is literally dead.
I say same about p(doom): Only makes sense in a time interval, otherwise you have to ask how people categorise a hypothetical AI which fails to overcome the heat death of the universe.
(When I say mine is 0.1, this is "in my lifetime as it would be in the absence of not-yet-invented life-extending interventions"; there is a higher risk to me from a nuclear exchange).
Bad ASI would pretend to be good until it could execute a plan to kill everyone all at once, or at least everyone capable of cutting the power.
Superintelligent means smarter than everyone put together. If it's smarter than you, it can foresee everything you can, and come up with plans better than I can.
One of Europe's current (multi-)national security concerns is how much of its various economies are dependent on US software, cloud, and that a Trump executive order sanctioning any subset of those countries may terminate those economies in the same way a full stop terminates this sentence.
Germans around me still report use of fax machines, so might be fine :P
Less funny: AI-induced catastrophies include all human-induced catastrophies, except it's cheaper to get an army of obedient and (today fortunately only "moderately") competent sychophants to follow your orders.
Even less funny: currently too eager to implement poorly-phrased orders even when they're interpreted as being instructions to perform unlawful acts.
This is silly. There is close to 0% chance humans kill all humans, and there is exactly 0% chance AI kills all humans.
AI is bad because of the harms it currently causes. It is highly addictive is bad for your brain, it is being given away for free to children in hopes they become addicts. It is being used to harm people including via sexual exploitation and coercion.
The 10% chance of AI killing all people is a made up figure that we need not nor should be concerned about. We should be concerned about AI for the proven harm it already causes.
The probability of a nuclear exchange remains zero until the sovereignty of a nuclear capable state is threatened. Tens or hundreds of millions would have to die for such a threat to emerge. Therefore, there is virtually no risk of it happening at this point by any nuclear capable power, except by the terrorist state in the middle east with its stolen highly enriched American uranium (NUMEC affair), because their modus operandi is to watch the world burn and take over the ashes (patagonia fires, et. al.)
Experts regularly put the annual risk of nuclear exchange at about 2-5% per annum. So over a decade or longer, that risk is significantly above 10%. Those same odds also mean that we should have had additional nuclear exchanges in the 80 years that nuclear weapons have existed. And that also feels true -- history contains several really close calls which we were darn lucky to escape.
On the other hand, "nuclear exchange" does not necessarily mean all humans die or that civilization collapses. Even a limited exchange will be pretty awful, but even a widespread exchange doesn't necessarily mean the end of civilization.
So in my opinion, a nuclear exchange is much more likely than an AI apocalypse, but an AI is more likely to kill all humans.
AI is not likely to kill all humans. This is just fantasy or science fiction which for some reason (mass hysteria; or more likely malicious marketing campaign by evil AI companies) a lot of HN users seem to believe is real. It is not real. AI does not have the agency nor the capabilities to kill all humans, nor is there any way for any technologically possible AI (no matter how powerful) to possess the agency nor the capabilities.
This 10% chance should be replaced with “a number some people made up”
As it stands the chances of AI killing every human is exactly 0%. There is no scenario which exist in the realm of all possibilities where AI even comes close to killing all humans.
Rather than worrying about major world powers killing a large portion of the global population in a nuclear war, I'd worry more about the ultra-wealthy - i.e., the people with enough wealth where they can call up a world leader and expect to meet them in short order.
Given the types of people we overwhelmingly find among this group, once AI and robotics technologies reach the point where production can be fully automated, they'll no longer have use for the rabble. A large population of underclass people then becomes nothing but a threat to be exterminated.
Thankfully, I'm pretty sure that's not something which will happen in my lifetime.
You do understand the cost of what you're asking, right?
Not using AI weapons is exactly the same as asking soldiers to go up against AI weapons without having AI weapons themselves. Assuming other actors around the world will not suddenly agree to peace, that's what you're asking.
Russia is already using AI targeting against Ukraine, even Ukrainian civilians probably (and even Russia at least pretends they don't fire on civilians, and China already provides Iran with rocket fuel ... why not AI? We can't stop this)
Since asking soldiers to go up against AI targeting without AI is not a reasonable thing to ask, this will not happen. AI will be armed.
As for diplomacy, the UN (general assembly, not the SC) has already had 3 chances to go after use of AI targeting. They have refused 3 times out of 3. Or to put it differently: a majority of the world's states wants to use AI weapons or at the very least wants to allow them.
37 comments
[ 0.21 ms ] story [ 57.3 ms ] threadrights are so stupid and blame is so mysterious
* if you know of an industry that’s properly progressive and countercultural and could conceivably pay at least survival wages, sign me right up. I’m good at this one but it no longer fills my cup. I’m tired.
* Be a hallucinogenic therapy shaman.
* Start a cult.
* Work as one of those paid protesters that they always mention on Fox News
The big tech era certainly diluted a lot of that but I don't think it ever went away. I haven't seen a huge resurgence in this either so it seems strange to believe that tech is becoming less progressive. From my vantage it is still very far away from where it was in the 80s and 90s. I can agree that it has become much, much less countercultural since it's basically 100% mainstream opinion now.
I can't directly speak to The Culture Of The Internet before about '97.
It's commonly used in relation to the 2nd amendment which gives citizens the right to bear arms. It comes up when there are political debates relating to gun violence.
It's a statement of responsibility. Whether it's the government, gun makers', or citizens' responsibility to ensure responsible gun use.
Regardless of your opinion on that argument, I don't think it applies well as an argument against AI regulations.
It can't be just me, half the internet needs beefier servers I guess. That all just plays into cloudflare as well (which barely does anything for some reason).
I am not sure how I feel about all this. Yes bad AI might screw some things up. But AI might also find and prevent the software errors that allow such things to even be possible in the first place.
And ultimately, even if we are "locked out" from bad AI taking over the internet, we know where the data centers are. It's not like AI can reasonably "escape" since we know it needs DC-scale power, cooling, chips etc to operate at scale. I am pretty sure that if it came to it, we can just cut the fibre to the data centers or cut the power and let the generators run out of diesel and the AI is literally dead.
(When I say mine is 0.1, this is "in my lifetime as it would be in the absence of not-yet-invented life-extending interventions"; there is a higher risk to me from a nuclear exchange).
Bad ASI would pretend to be good until it could execute a plan to kill everyone all at once, or at least everyone capable of cutting the power.
Superintelligent means smarter than everyone put together. If it's smarter than you, it can foresee everything you can, and come up with plans better than I can.
Germans around me still report use of fax machines, so might be fine :P
Less funny: AI-induced catastrophies include all human-induced catastrophies, except it's cheaper to get an army of obedient and (today fortunately only "moderately") competent sychophants to follow your orders.
Even less funny: currently too eager to implement poorly-phrased orders even when they're interpreted as being instructions to perform unlawful acts.
AI is bad because of the harms it currently causes. It is highly addictive is bad for your brain, it is being given away for free to children in hopes they become addicts. It is being used to harm people including via sexual exploitation and coercion.
The 10% chance of AI killing all people is a made up figure that we need not nor should be concerned about. We should be concerned about AI for the proven harm it already causes.
On the other hand, "nuclear exchange" does not necessarily mean all humans die or that civilization collapses. Even a limited exchange will be pretty awful, but even a widespread exchange doesn't necessarily mean the end of civilization.
So in my opinion, a nuclear exchange is much more likely than an AI apocalypse, but an AI is more likely to kill all humans.
As it stands the chances of AI killing every human is exactly 0%. There is no scenario which exist in the realm of all possibilities where AI even comes close to killing all humans.
Given the types of people we overwhelmingly find among this group, once AI and robotics technologies reach the point where production can be fully automated, they'll no longer have use for the rabble. A large population of underclass people then becomes nothing but a threat to be exterminated.
Thankfully, I'm pretty sure that's not something which will happen in my lifetime.
Not using AI weapons is exactly the same as asking soldiers to go up against AI weapons without having AI weapons themselves. Assuming other actors around the world will not suddenly agree to peace, that's what you're asking.
Russia is already using AI targeting against Ukraine, even Ukrainian civilians probably (and even Russia at least pretends they don't fire on civilians, and China already provides Iran with rocket fuel ... why not AI? We can't stop this)
Since asking soldiers to go up against AI targeting without AI is not a reasonable thing to ask, this will not happen. AI will be armed.
As for diplomacy, the UN (general assembly, not the SC) has already had 3 chances to go after use of AI targeting. They have refused 3 times out of 3. Or to put it differently: a majority of the world's states wants to use AI weapons or at the very least wants to allow them.
I don't understand why these companies automatically get a pass.