I think a lot of people who work on governance, policy, safety etc are genuinely well motivated and sincere. My concerns are not so much about intentions, but more something along the lines of "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" on steroids. That includes my own!
Users agree that good intentions in AI governance are resulting in harmful unintended consequences, pointing to current misguided developments and intellectual missteps.
@sebkrier I would go as far as to say that’s exactly how things are unfolding at the moment. Not on the right path at all. Everyone seems locked into a “control” frame that keeps cracking…
Seb's precisely right here. Or, as my hero Thomas Sowell once said, "If there is any lesson in the history of ideas, it is that good intentions tell you nothing about the actual consequences. But intellectuals who generate ideas don’t have to pay the consequences."
I think a lot of people who work on governance, policy, safety etc are genuinely well motivated and sincere. My concerns are not so much about intentions, but more something along the lines of "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" on steroids. That includes my own!
@sebkrier i'm obsessed with this kind of problems. in general, what i found is that people who are really engaged in a topic rarely suggest moderate/hands off approaches, it's like they have to suggest something! not realizing that doing nothing/not a lot is also always an action
@sebkrier I remember a story, an engineer and a lawyer meeting at a party. The engineer starts excitedly talking about making things with AI, the lawyer starts excitedly talking about regulatory frameworks for AI. Both are excited builders with fresh terrain to build on.
As Sowell elaborated and concluded:
"It may seem strange that so many people of great intellect have said and done so many things whose consequences ranged from counterproductive to catastrophic. Yet it is not so surprising when we consider whether anybody has ever had the range of knowledge required to make the sweeping kinds of decisions that so many intellectuals are prone to make, especially when they pay no price for being wrong."
https://www.dailyrepublic.com/archives/thomas-sowell-good-intentions-bad-results-and-intellectuals/article_e7189040-ca09-5642-9162-0930e70180c9.html
@sebkrier do you mean the law of unintended consequences ? or something akin to the law of unintended 2nd and 3rd order effects of good intentions and their resulting actions or writings ?
@sebkrier At least the governance race dynamics aren't as pronounced as between well-motivated labs employees