If theranos can hallucinate magic blood testing machines for juicy investor dollars, why can't AI hallucinate magic energy storage devices for same, but faster!
They missed "AI analysis implemented as an infinite number of authoritarian servants documenting the physical traits, locations, behaviors and associations of all people 24/7" in the "really bad" column.
I understand and maybe even agree with the general “vibes” here, but I think we need to be careful about making the assumption that AI will just figure out every style of “hard problem.”
It’s been really great for certain problems. It may even “cure cancer.” As it stands, AI is good at specific things and not all types of things. Yet.
A single AI will never be a universal solution because there is no universal problem.
Optimistically, and IMO very likely, AI will allow us to continue to create progressively better tools to solve particular problems, however, which is more useful.
Pessimistically, and also IMO very likely, AI will allow us to continue to create progressively bigger problems by allowing us to reach further beyond our grasp, amplifying our abilities without necessarily amplifying our understanding of the consequences of our actions.
On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
Hand-waves the negatives and the positives. Makes no real effort to contend with the drawbacks of AI, and leaves out the biggest one (IMO) - the potential harm created via delegation of arbitrary authority/capability to AI, whether in government, industry, or military. But we've apparently solved alignment, so maybe it's OK.
The rest is essentially just a short list of consequential problems facing the world, with "maybe AI will help us fix it" tacked on to each paragraph.
The last two problems don't even mention the role AI would play in their solution. That's a bit of a tell.
> But we've apparently solved alignment, so maybe it's OK.
Yeah and it is such an absurd point. You take a brief look at world right now and the history and you find ... constant fight over what exactly "the values" should be. There is no single human aligned answer to "what we should do". There is no way to align AI simultaneously with liberals, transhumanists, right wing, tech CEOs and all the world religions.
And there, I am even ignoring situations where interests of one group go against another group.
> There is no way to align AI simultaneously with liberals, transhumanists, right wing, tech CEOs and all the world religions.
Well, the real problem isn't about "humans aligning LLMs" it's about "LLMs aligning humans" according the values and desires of the LLM's masters - that kind of alignment is entirely possible, proven by history on the human side and by current LLMs on the technology side.
Will be used for mass surveillance and for further destruction of the democracy. Will be used to create powerful monopoly. Will make climate change worst due to huge energy consumption. This will be unfixable, because tech CEOs who will have more power do not care at best and are far right actors at worst. "The alignment" will be defined by the people who already shown themselves sociopaths.
This is obviously written by a sycophant with major issues in magical thinking. The basic idea of this article is
"What if AI could make everything good happen and nothing bad?"
The ideas in "the great" section are laughable and sound like they're written by an overly optimistic undergrad
- Fusion Reactor / Battery Density / Carbon Capture
It's hilarious to believe that a language model is simply going to solve these problems. While it does make a number of lab tasks simpler for folks this isn't some super intelligence that can just "think" its way into new solutions. And the author doesn't provide a single reason they believe this could happen just the "maybe AI could do it", the new battle cry of the intellectually weak.
- Sustainable Mass Food Production
The problem as stated here shows an individual with zero understanding of the current food production problems. They major problems are not that we couldn't have a more sustainable food production model. One that focuses on environmentally friendly practices, protein sources that require much less energy to mature, eating more seasonally and locally to reduce the impact of large scale refrigeration. It's that people want meat with every meal and limes in the winter.
Seeing something this childish and frankly stupid make it to the front page HN makes me really sad for what was a pretty useful site for folks to keep up to date with actual tech news and discussion.
> Seeing something this childish and frankly stupid make it to the front page HN makes me really sad
Quite a lot of people active on this site and/or working in that industry believe in this nonsense. It’s really not that far from what the AI leadership is pushing, but written by a 14yo who watched a few videos on libertarianism. At least Amodei’s essays are well written
I think its very reasonable for AI to speedup superconductor finding which will make medical scanning a lot cheaper, easier and better.
It will also allow for massive and easy energy transportation for large distances like afrika/spain <> europe.
In medicin understanding DNA and the results of it could lead to solving cancer and dementia.
New better batery chemicals will help us for solid state batteries. no AAA version of this but up to 1000kwh/kg + low temp and high temp stability and very stable against burning.
The materials science and biology part yes, it will be awesome.
but the question is always qui bono.
First we will have the end of propriatry software and everything moving to the cloud. Even PC will end to exist with Microsoft pushing hard on their M365 virtual computers.
Who will receive these new materials.
I am looking forward to "Diamond Age" becoming reality. But it will be hell of a ride
"Everything moving to the cloud" is far from inevitable, and represents a concentration of power. Of course existing tech corps want that, they proposed it and have pushed it in the first place, but I strongly disprefer my personal things being on someone else's computer, don't need a ton of computer to host them on the internet myself for my own purposes, and am far from alone in this. The logical endpoint of priorities of large businesses and governments are not inherently inevitable
> "Everything moving to the cloud" is far from inevitable, and represents a concentration of power. >The logical endpoint of priorities of large businesses and governments are not inherently inevitable
Conversely, the present concentration of power, and the lack of any viable effort to reduce it, can be used to force moving everything-that-matters to the cloud. Not a good outcome but inevitable if things stay the same.
Biggest danger of LLMs as they currently fit into society: the radical consolidation of information flow through corporate-controlled bottlenecks that make current generation algorithmic social media (rancid as it is) look like child's play. When people no longer "search" for things, but simply "ask ChatGPT", the lever of social control is nearly absolute.
(Of course, all this is up in the air. If LLMs become commodities, the situation becomes very complex; the information flow doesn't get quite so consolidated, but it still becomes impossible to tractably analyze, as all the LLMs train off each other)
They forgot this bullet for the "seriously great things on the horizon":
* Those fucking annoying workers, we don't need them anymore! Most of them can go FOAD, literally. That leaves even more money and resources for the only ones who really deserve it: the extremely wealthy.
This is perhaps the most ill informed and misguided thing I’ve read on the internet this year. Within the span of a few sentences the author states that humanity ending bioweapons are no big deal and that LLMs are perfectly suited to solving nuclear fusion? Atrocious
38 comments
[ 1.4 ms ] story [ 28.4 ms ] thread"Designing energy stores the size of an AAA battery, but with the capacity to power a cruise ship, is hard, but possible."
is false.
It’s been really great for certain problems. It may even “cure cancer.” As it stands, AI is good at specific things and not all types of things. Yet.
Optimistically, and IMO very likely, AI will allow us to continue to create progressively better tools to solve particular problems, however, which is more useful.
Pessimistically, and also IMO very likely, AI will allow us to continue to create progressively bigger problems by allowing us to reach further beyond our grasp, amplifying our abilities without necessarily amplifying our understanding of the consequences of our actions.
On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
The rest is essentially just a short list of consequential problems facing the world, with "maybe AI will help us fix it" tacked on to each paragraph.
The last two problems don't even mention the role AI would play in their solution. That's a bit of a tell.
Yeah and it is such an absurd point. You take a brief look at world right now and the history and you find ... constant fight over what exactly "the values" should be. There is no single human aligned answer to "what we should do". There is no way to align AI simultaneously with liberals, transhumanists, right wing, tech CEOs and all the world religions.
And there, I am even ignoring situations where interests of one group go against another group.
Well, the real problem isn't about "humans aligning LLMs" it's about "LLMs aligning humans" according the values and desires of the LLM's masters - that kind of alignment is entirely possible, proven by history on the human side and by current LLMs on the technology side.
Will be used for mass surveillance and for further destruction of the democracy. Will be used to create powerful monopoly. Will make climate change worst due to huge energy consumption. This will be unfixable, because tech CEOs who will have more power do not care at best and are far right actors at worst. "The alignment" will be defined by the people who already shown themselves sociopaths.
"What if AI could make everything good happen and nothing bad?"
The ideas in "the great" section are laughable and sound like they're written by an overly optimistic undergrad
- Fusion Reactor / Battery Density / Carbon Capture
It's hilarious to believe that a language model is simply going to solve these problems. While it does make a number of lab tasks simpler for folks this isn't some super intelligence that can just "think" its way into new solutions. And the author doesn't provide a single reason they believe this could happen just the "maybe AI could do it", the new battle cry of the intellectually weak.
- Sustainable Mass Food Production
The problem as stated here shows an individual with zero understanding of the current food production problems. They major problems are not that we couldn't have a more sustainable food production model. One that focuses on environmentally friendly practices, protein sources that require much less energy to mature, eating more seasonally and locally to reduce the impact of large scale refrigeration. It's that people want meat with every meal and limes in the winter.
Seeing something this childish and frankly stupid make it to the front page HN makes me really sad for what was a pretty useful site for folks to keep up to date with actual tech news and discussion.
Quite a lot of people active on this site and/or working in that industry believe in this nonsense. It’s really not that far from what the AI leadership is pushing, but written by a 14yo who watched a few videos on libertarianism. At least Amodei’s essays are well written
I never wanted to end up in the social sciences. I wanted to work on growing big trees. But people keep getting in the way.
I think its very reasonable for AI to speedup superconductor finding which will make medical scanning a lot cheaper, easier and better.
It will also allow for massive and easy energy transportation for large distances like afrika/spain <> europe.
In medicin understanding DNA and the results of it could lead to solving cancer and dementia.
New better batery chemicals will help us for solid state batteries. no AAA version of this but up to 1000kwh/kg + low temp and high temp stability and very stable against burning.
Physical ai will solve human labor.
It just basically ignores all the issues and goes "guys, it will be great, stop worrying! There's nothing to worry about!"
Pure schlock.
The materials science and biology part yes, it will be awesome. but the question is always qui bono.
First we will have the end of propriatry software and everything moving to the cloud. Even PC will end to exist with Microsoft pushing hard on their M365 virtual computers.
Who will receive these new materials.
I am looking forward to "Diamond Age" becoming reality. But it will be hell of a ride
Conversely, the present concentration of power, and the lack of any viable effort to reduce it, can be used to force moving everything-that-matters to the cloud. Not a good outcome but inevitable if things stay the same.
https://www.latin-is-simple.com/en/vocabulary/search/?q=cui
https://www.latin-is-simple.com/en/vocabulary/search/?q=qui
But what if i ment "Good with Whom?" XD
(Of course, all this is up in the air. If LLMs become commodities, the situation becomes very complex; the information flow doesn't get quite so consolidated, but it still becomes impossible to tractably analyze, as all the LLMs train off each other)
* Those fucking annoying workers, we don't need them anymore! Most of them can go FOAD, literally. That leaves even more money and resources for the only ones who really deserve it: the extremely wealthy.