undefined

points

[-]

I don’t understand why this idea that it’s all just marketing is so prevalent on HN. It doesn’t make any sense. Why would a private company attempt to convince everyone that what it’s building is dangerous to its own customers?Can you think of a single other time in American history where an entire industry was calling to be regulated? I don’t seem to recall Facebook asking for tighter restrictions on social media. I don’t remember Shell telling the federal government that they need to act fast on climate change. Companies do not market themselves by convincing the public that their products might literally kill them all.

The only way this behavior makes sense is if the AI labs believe two things: one, that what they and the other labs are building is legitimately dangerous, and, two, that if they personally stop building then another lab will simply continue (and that lab will be, simply by virtue of not stopping, less safety-concerned than them). This is why they are calling for regulation. Competitive pressure and investor obligations prevents them from unilaterally stopping development. Government regulation is the only (and the most the appropriate) avenue for slowing down AI acceleration.

by macNchz6 hours ago|

parent|

[-]

As others have mentioned there are lots of examples from history of businesses claiming their product is dangerous if not properly regulated, but I think what's interesting in this moment is there appear to be a cohort of true believers who genuinely believe we're headed for apocalyptic AI, and a cohort of win-at-all-costs businessmen who are happy to harness the earnest faith of the true believers in service of becoming (even more) unfathomably rich.

by throwitaway2227 hours ago|

parent|

prev|

[-]

> I don’t seem to recall Facebook asking for tighter restrictions on social media.

It has happened multiple times. Like the story now, it's fake of course.

https://www.thestranger.com/tech/as-zuckerberg-calls-for-new...

by nozzlegear6 hours ago|

parent|

prev|

[-]

> Can you think of a single other time in American history where an entire industry was calling to be regulated?

Several: the railroad industry, oil industry and trucking industry have all done this because it directly benefited them.

> I don’t remember Shell telling the federal government that they need to act fast on climate change.

The oil barons actively lobbied for Federal intervention in the 1930s, to limit supply and raise prices. You're thinking recent history, but the oil industry has been around for over a century.

by Retric8 hours ago|

parent|

prev|

[-]

Industry has often asked for regulations that have nothing to do with the claims being made. Zuck was a recent example in the computer industry. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47762091

Here’s the same viewpoint from well outside the HN bubble. https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/be-wary-of-industries-...

by drob5189 hours ago|

prev|

[-]

I don’t necessarily believe that the AI itself will kill us all. But the AIs are increasingly being baked into complex, even military, systems. That scares me just because the opportunity for complex, cascading failure becomes very difficult to predict and control. These systems are inherently immoral (it’s just a lot of matrix math) and we know these systems “lie” and try to evade detection (see the Huggingface write ups). Now, couple that behavior with a military system (drones, targeting systems, etc.). I’m not suggesting that we’re headed for full-on Terminator land here, but things definitely could go wrong.

by svieira8 hours ago|

parent|

[-]

> These systems are inherently immoral (it’s just a lot of matrix math)

(nit) "immoral" is "anti-moral". I suspect you want "amoral", that is "without" or "separated from" morals.

But, if you wanted "immoral" ... what about matrix math derived from gradient descent is inherently "immoral" in your view?

by drob5185 hours ago|

parent|

[-]

Yes apologies. I did mean amoral. And now I can’t edit it.

by Retric6 hours ago|

parent|

prev|

[-]

Mass adoption of technology always has negative outcomes because any change at scale has negative outcomes. Cars as a technology kill a great number of people and yet few are willing to ban them.

“AI” in the widest definition possible could do while a lot of harm without being a net negative. I’d be way more concerned about the healthcare sector than the military as the military already has significant collateral damage.

by drob5185 hours ago|

parent|

[-]

Sure, but cars weren’t hooked up to weapons systems. They killed as an accidental side effect. That’s why I’m saying I’m not worried about AI in a general sense.

by Retric3 hours ago|

parent|

[-]

Cars were quickly tuned into Tanks, APC’s, etc.

The fear around military AI is more about its failure than anything else, but nobody is trying to make fully automated machines which are manufacturing bombs from raw materials. Blowing up the wrong building matters a great deal to the people in the building, but for humanity a building was going to be destroyed either way. So the risk at any one point ends up being quite limited.

by zamadatix9 hours ago|

prev|

[-]

I think most would think "I can probably do a better job of not shooting myself in the face than some random person not worried about it will" and then proceed to shoot themselves in the face.

That said, I don't buy the companies actually give a damn about the risk either.

by itishappy7 hours ago|

parent|

[-]

Agreed, but most people who care about not getting shot in the face aren't giving away guns to their neighbors.

by zamadatix4 hours ago|

parent|

[-]

Nor are most other neighbors selling guns all day. At some point the analogy breaks down because companies aren't actually people (though this seems to be a divisive take the last few decades).