Some users support implementing an AI infrastructure off-switch to address risks, while many others dismiss the underlying x-risk arguments as religious doctrine, misjudgments, or overstated analogies with no real-world harm shown.
Based on 6 visible X reactions from 21 accounts; directional sample.
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@ramez @slatestarcodex Having the option to disable AI infrastructure seems like something we should be as ready as we can be to implement (even if we don't), as the time between getting definitive evidence and needing options could be short. Doing too little is also quite able to lead to regret.
@slatestarcodex @ramez Scott I'm a bigger fanboy of you than most Elon fans are of Elon so it's super reassuring when I see you make catastrophic misjudgments like the one you are doing now, comparing known unknowns (pandemics) to unknown unknowns (AI stuff)
@ramez @slatestarcodex X-risk is basically a religious doctrine for atheists at this point. I regret my own role in launching that religion. I’m a lot more careful about discussing thought experiments for entertainment these days.
@slatestarcodex @ramez Those books are still in print and not killing anyone, so I think you are leaving out a another factor.
Bensinger urges proactive risk planning while Barnett warns of overreaction.
@ramez @slatestarcodex Having the option to disable AI infrastructure seems like something we should be as ready as we can be to implement (even if we don't), as the time between getting definitive evidence and needing options could be short. Doing too little is also quite able to lead to regret.
@slatestarcodex @ramez Scott I'm a bigger fanboy of you than most Elon fans are of Elon so it's super reassuring when I see you make catastrophic misjudgments like the one you are doing now, comparing known unknowns (pandemics) to unknown unknowns (AI stuff)
@ramez @slatestarcodex X-risk is basically a religious doctrine for atheists at this point. I regret my own role in launching that religion. I’m a lot more careful about discussing thought experiments for entertainment these days.
@slatestarcodex @ramez Those books are still in print and not killing anyone, so I think you are leaving out a another factor.
@slatestarcodex @ramez So far the graphs show that zero people have been killed by text.
I tried to respond to an argument like this at https://blog.aifutures.org/i/168032563/5-that-we-can-carve-out-a-category-of-speculative-risk-then-deprioritize-that-category (if the internal link doesn't work, it's Part 5: "Can We Carve Out A Category Of Speculative Risk And Then Ignore That Category?") I think the reason this keeps coming up is that your position can't survive putting a probability estimate on the risk. If you say some normal probability like 5%, then it becomes obvious that it's worth putting a lot of effort into preparing. If you say some crazy low probability like 0.00001%, then it becomes obvious that you're the overconfident one and not us. So the only solution is to make some kind of argument that it's preemptively banned from discussion because it's "speculative", as if ignoring the possibility of black swans was some sort of principled rule of good decision-making. I think something might have escaped a conditional here. You seem upset as if we're instituting chip regulations now. But the chip regulations only happen after there's political will, which only happens if AI proves to be scary. What AIFP wants now is to "build a pause button", a low-risk endeavor which mostly involves designing technology to switch data centers from training to inference (we don't have to install the technology!) and starting negotiations with the Chinese where we set mutual red lines. Maybe the most useful thing to do here is: what's your red line? What would have to happen for you to support Plan A? What (short of the very catastrophe we're hoping to prevent) would move this out of the "speculative" category for you, and make it seem worthwhile to put more effort into preparing for?
@ramez @slatestarcodex The argument from ignorance isn't much of an excuse here. There was strong theory explaining why we should have expected failures such as superhuman cybersecurity capability, and it's been empirically validated by the misuse cases we see in models. Again: https://x.com/davidmanheim/status/2076013476279968249
@slatestarcodex @ramez After the initial outbreak became uncontainable, the world largely overreacted to Covid. And the rationalist community, having called it earlier than most, overreacted more than most. The most straightforward lesson to draw here is the opposite of your conclusion.
Some users support implementing an AI infrastructure off-switch to address risks, while many others dismiss the underlying x-risk arguments as religious doctrine, misjudgments, or overstated analogies with no real-world harm shown.
Based on 6 visible X reactions from 21 accounts; directional sample.
Ask a question below.
Published answers will appear here.
I tried to respond to an argument like this at https://blog.aifutures.org/i/168032563/5-that-we-can-carve-out-a-category-of-speculative-risk-then-deprioritize-that-category (if the internal link doesn't work, it's Part 5: "Can We Carve Out A Category Of Speculative Risk And Then Ignore That Category?") I think the reason this keeps coming up is that your position can't survive putting a probability estimate on the risk. If you say some normal probability like 5%, then it becomes obvious that it's worth putting a lot of effort into preparing. If you say some crazy low probability like 0.00001%, then it becomes obvious that you're the overconfident one and not us. So the only solution is to make some kind of argument that it's preemptively banned from discussion because it's "speculative", as if ignoring the possibility of black swans was some sort of principled rule of good decision-making. I think something might have escaped a conditional here. You seem upset as if we're instituting chip regulations now. But the chip regulations only happen after there's political will, which only happens if AI proves to be scary. What AIFP wants now is to "build a pause button", a low-risk endeavor which mostly involves designing technology to switch data centers from training to inference (we don't have to install the technology!) and starting negotiations with the Chinese where we set mutual red lines. Maybe the most useful thing to do here is: what's your red line? What would have to happen for you to support Plan A? What (short of the very catastrophe we're hoping to prevent) would move this out of the "speculative" category for you, and make it seem worthwhile to put more effort into preparing for?
@ramez @slatestarcodex The argument from ignorance isn't much of an excuse here. There was strong theory explaining why we should have expected failures such as superhuman cybersecurity capability, and it's been empirically validated by the misuse cases we see in models. Again: https://x.com/davidmanheim/status/2076013476279968249