Why AI is still dumb and not scary at all (pt. 1)

A gun is not smart or magical but is nevertheless a powerful tool that can be scary depending on who is holding it. Accordingly, I worry less about my occupation and more about the moral character of those wielding it. Further i worry about "smart" people who have not been acquainted with the dark side of human nature facilitating bad actors.

Statistically speaking though if you leave guns lying around everywhere or introduce guns as a service for only $10/month and tell everyone that guns will solve all your problems, then you’re going to end up with fuckwits with guns.

My issue with this line of thinking is not that it's wrong but it's being manipulated by silicon valley.

Open AI is not arguing that AI is harmless they are agreeing it's dangerous. They are using that to promote their product and hype it up as world changing. But more worrying they're advocating for regulations, presumably the sort that would make it more difficult for competition to come in.

I think we can talk about the potential dangers of AI. But that should include a discussion on how to best deal with that and consciousness of how fear of AI might be manipulated by silicon valley.

Especially when that fear involves misrepresentation - eg. AI being presented to the public as self directed artificial consciousness rather than algorithms that mimic certain reasoning capabilities

A gun’s purpose isn’t to be smart. The gun equivalent of this post would be “Why guns still aren’t very good at killing” and that would be a serious problem for guns if that were true.

They're not good at killing. They do nothing in their own. People are very good at killing using guns. The analogy is actually perfect.

If you hold a gun and point it at me I'd be more scared of that then you holding AI and pointing it at me.

AI right now is not powerful and not scary.

But follow the trendlines. AI is improving. From 2010 to now the pace is relentless with multiple milestones passed constantly. AI right now is a precursor to something not so dumb and not so "not scary" in the future.

When a toddler can pull the trigger and kill someone, you may argue guns are pretty good at killing. Key point being, people don't have to be good at guns to be good at killing with guns. Pulling the trigger is accessible to anyone.

I think the acknowledgement of danger by various companies is definitely a marketing tactic to a degree, and it's important to see the actions of those companies for what they are.

But then there's whatever danger actually exists regardless of the business maneuvering.

I'm not saying this is what you're doing, but I've been in numerous discussions where where someone will point to this maneuvering and then conclude that virtually all danger is manufactured/nonexistent and only exists for marketing purposes.

> eg. AI being presented to the public as self directed artificial consciousness rather than algorithms that mimic certain reasoning capabilities

I think the fact that these tools can be presented in that way and some people will believe it points to some of the real dangers.

What’s the AI equivalent to point a gun, pull the trigger, and it kills the target? Something, something, and it’s smart, what are the somethings?

How often does that actually happen? It's only when a fun owner was irresponsible, leaving a loaded gun in an accessible place for the toddler.

Similarly, AI can easily sound smart when directed to do so. It typically doesn't actually take action unless authorized by a person. We're entering a time where people may soon be willing to give that permission in a more permanent basis, which I would argue is still the fault of the person making that decision.

Whether you choose to have AI identify illegal immigrants, or you simply decide all immigrants are illegal, the deciding is made by you the human, not by a machine.

Not the OP, but my best guess is it’s an alignment problem, just like gun killing what the owner is not intending to. So the power of AI to make decisions that are out of alignment with society’s needs are the “something, something’s.” As in the above healthcare examples, it can be efficient at denying healthcare claims. The lack of good validation can obfuscate alignment with bad incentives.

I guess it depends on what you see as the purpose of AI. If the purpose is to be smart, it’s not doing very well. (Yet?) If the purpose is to deflect responsibility, it’s working great.