OpenAI Employees Warn of Advanced AI Dangers

[rp2011]

Not to marginalize, but If truly that dangerous, why not speak out regardless of whistleblower protection? If it's that dangerous what the heck are you doing still working there?

 

[MacAddict1978]

Human extinction lol. Ok pets.com sock puppet.

It was about a year ago a Google enginer raised concerns that an internal AI was becoming selfaware and he was flamed as a loon. But maybe he was not lying.

Sure Battlestar Gallactica and Terminator were science fiction - but science fiction continually evolves to our reality (like literally every piece of tech we have was once science fiction - ALL of it).

Can ChatGPT enslave man and nuke the world today? Nope. Is AI learning on its own these days? Yes.... yes it is, which is the bloody point of the letter. Engineers and people working on AI (unlike you and all naysayers) putting their jobs and reputations at risk for hyperbole is not bloody likely.

Newer car might only have level 3 autonomous driving features but technically with software could be fully self driving with the hardware it already has. It can be hacked, controlled.... and would be a bloody great way to off someone. Today I can tell Google Assistant she's a stupid c#%#%t - tomorrow she might drive me off a cliff wanting revenge.

Teleporation - short distances and non-complex objects - has been invented.
Cloning - we could literally clone a person but ethics laws forbid it - but an AI that eventually becomes self aware might not care about ethics laws. There have been AI's at all these companies that were killed because they stopped responding to commands and did what they wanted and even began to lie.

It's a legit concern.

 

[H.E. Pennypacker]

Most Deadly Events the world has seen.

Influenza pandemic (1918-19) 20-40 million deaths.

black death/plague (1348-50), 20-25 million deaths.

AIDS pandemic (through 2000) 21.8 million deaths.

World War II (1937-45), 40-60 million deaths.

World War I (1914-18) 30-35 million deaths.

Humanity will be fine and survive.

 

[TJ82]

It’s ridiculous how businesses have been able to spin the definition of AI to mean whatever they want.

AI doesn’t exist. There’s no proof of it. Stupid statistical models like LLMs are closer to a calculator than an artificial intelligence.

This whole drama is just profiteering and jockeying for attention.

 

[Ruggy]

I, for one, welcome our new AI overlords.

I do seriously wonder sometimes if they could actually do a better job.
They would presumably not have any ego involved, be petty, have a short-term view, vote according to their party rather than in the interest of the country or pander to vested interests or do back-room deals to get there.
Belgium went without a government for nearly two years about a decade a go and it didn't make any difference. A lot of people didn't even notice.
I sometimes think the best we can hope of our overlords is not to mess it up too much. They have the potential to really mess things up but not so much to actually do any good.

 

[svish]

Will be very interesting to see how AI will develop and what it will be able to do in the future.

 

[frownface]

Tragedy of the commons i guess.

If I were capable of working on something which would pave a small step of the way towards the doom of humanity, but make myself wealthy during my lifetime. I'd totally do it.

 

[ikir]

Basically what Elon Musk has been saying all along.
I don't trust companies like MS (OpenAI) or Google to be "responsible" with it.

Elon is a joke of a man, so usually the situation is the opposite of what he s saying

 

[Pezimak]

This is probably humanities biggest future threat, yet all I see governments do is offer huge tax breaks to AI companies to entice them into their countries, no policies to control them in sight.
I'm sure it'll end well when and if AI becomes self aware, and learns in a microsecond just how selfish and greedy mankind is. Plenty of people have warned about it now.

 

[Pezimak]

You forgot microplastics (aka millennial asbestos)

Yeap which everyone has in their blood streams, and people drink bottled water here in the UK at least as they don't trust the water companies, because the water out of the tap contained high hormone levels, from women taking the pill, and in London and other places high drug levels like cocaine too. The system isn't capable of filtering those things out before it goes back into the water supply.
In fact last week in Devon the water do Sony told residents to boil water as it was unsafe to drink from the tap, their was no incident causing it, it was just unsafe. And they are also happily pumping more and more raw sewage into the sea and rivers then ever before all approved by government and its watchdog.
So people drink from bottles and get micro plastics instead.

In the UK most water companies are foreign owned and no money has been invested in infrastructure, but they have made record profits and given massive dividends payouts. And those same companies state they will need to massive increase prices in consumers to fix all the problems, whilst protecting their profits. Even the UK government water watchdog has been drawing up plans to allow them to do just that, and allow them to pump even more raw sewage into the rivers and oceans.

Long waffle, but the point is, when government is perfectly fine to fully protect water supply companies and their foreign owner profits over public safety, forcing the consumer to pay for it, how do we expect government to even take the slightest action to protect humanity from AI? I mean water is kinda vital to human survival too.

 

[bushman4]

While AI has many benefits to productivity, lifestyle etc it also has many fallacies that can be explored and used in a harmful manner
In order to limit and curtail unwanted situations there must be government regulation as well as manufacturer oversight and control in order to allow the good to outweigh the evil

 

[Pezimak]

Who cares about human extinction when we can increase our profits from 80 billion to 81 billion

That literally sums up humanity if you look at it.

 

[MacFarmer]

Don't worry, EU regulators will come to the rescue.

 

[mectojic]

Is there a financial motive for human extinction? Who knows, it might make more money down the line...

 

[Pezimak]

It actually doesn't matter. Today, when profit clashes with "what's actually best for the world" only one of those wins. The game seems to have become let the future bring whatever problems it brings and we'll try to borrow our way to address it then. Kick the many cans down the road to make an extra buck today.

A.I. is just another variant of the same. Quite a while ago, we had what was an astronomical front row seat to seeing a comet collision with Jupiter. The devastation for Jupiter was dramatic and it would be been a potential extinction event if it had hit Earth instead.

Hang in there for less than the 2-minute mark to hear the quantity of atom bombs equivalency and then think about how many Hiroshimas are on planet Earth today. There was enormous talk about planetary defense and putting things into space to shift the paths of NEOs to try to shield against a collision... until attention was lost to to the next thing.

A.I. could certainly kill its creator. Covid (or similar) could still mutate into something that kills 95% of the population instead of only up to about 5%. Recent solar activity that brought the auroras as far south as Florida could deliver an extinction blow. Yosemite caldera could unleash a Super Volcano eruption to likely destroy towards ALL of the U.S. and put much of the world in an Ice Age again. Gamma Ray Burst. Nuclear War. Rogue Black Hole. Rouge Planet throwing earth out of orbit. Invasion of a superior species. Food chain collapse. Chain reaction global warming. Etc. There's LOTS of them... without even sliding into the pure conspiracy ones.

Some of those can actually be addressed if we can find the will and then keep it focused on fixing the problem. But there's the real problem: focus & persistence to deal with "it." Is there a reason for anyone to be homeless in a world that can mass produce anything for relatively cheap? Is there a reason for anyone to be hungry in a world where we can produce far more food than what can be consumed? Do people have to die of diseases that existing medicines can cure just because they don't have the money to pay for the medicine? Etc.

The most pressing need of humanity's long-term survival is to get viable colonies off of the SINGLE planet on which ALL of us live. Even a viable colony on one other world/station would significantly increase the chance that none of the many extinction catalysts could take all of humanity out. What's holding that up? We don't want to allocate the money to it. Instead, we'd rather fight wars, put our head in the sand about big problems, even deny events unfolding right before our eyes, etc.

Does that read futility? It probably does. But pick a cause, any cause. If the cause clashes with profiteering, it's probably not going to go anywhere. The actual remedies will need things to be so dire that the money-making side of it makes little-to-no-sense. Think of the scene in Titanic where rich-guy Cal is expecting wealth to save himself "we had a deal" met with "your money can't save you anymore" (only about 15 seconds into this)...

There's where remedies have their best chance... probably too late and beyond any money solution offering some advantage... the point where something other than money gains higher priority. You might recall that Cal still makes it off and survives but how: he appealed to the humanity of the situation by pretending to be the crying child's only parent. In some extinction events we face, neither money nor an appeal of humanity will make any difference. Most of them need a unified & global effort to have any real chance. Most of us can't even get along with our own neighbors in our own neighborhoods squabbling over politics, religion, geography, philosophy, misconceptions, prejudices, etc.

Make much of the population care about something more than profit and that will probably be something that gets addressed... or it will be too late and the ship will sink. Else, we gloss over, hope "it" won't be catastrophic and go chase our own next buck or three.

Your thoughts reflect mine. Mankind is doomed to fail as it stands, endless wars, greed, selfishness. All there and just seem to get worst.
And we are stuck on one planet, yet very very few people seem to be trying to change that. And even then again it's for profit.

 

[Pezimak]

Right, it all reeks of gatekeeping. God forgot Billy in his basement makes an AI that they can’t control. Think of all the bad things that can happen, that would be bad, we don’t know what those bad thing are, but it sounds bad, so it’s probably bad….

Now take that 'Billy in his basement' ideology and apply it to Russia, China, Iran etc.. places who have the capability to write AI systems.
Still think it's a joke? The issue with AI is no one knows, that's the danger. And every single scientist will tell you it could have the capability to be far smarter then we are. But no one seems to care. Instead we just plough in ahead regardless.

 

[Ad47uk]

Basically what Elon Musk has been saying all along.
I don't trust companies like MS (OpenAI) or Google to be "responsible" with it.

Maybe not, but also who in their right mind would trust Elon Musk?

 

[Ad47uk]

I applaud their efforts but I fear this cat is out of the bag and even if civilized countries and/or entities behave, others won't.

Ai is not the problem, it is what people will use it for, that is. Now if it starts producing its own energy and then growing legs and arms, we would have a problem.

My problem with it is the way it is pushed onto us, computers, phones, everywhere we go or any applience we buy, it is AI. Even Samsung has AI washing machines and vacuum cleaners. For what reason? Not doubt just a laod of bull.
One of the reason I changed to MAc from Windows is because of the AI stuff that is being pushed into Windows. I will use AI for some things, like I have had a muck around with it to make video backgrounds, but to be honest, the ones done by a person are still better.
Something's can be pretty impressive and other times it is not. Dr Mix on YouTube has a video with him mucking around with AI for the most part it seems good, but you still have to be a musician to get anything decent out of it.

 

[Luis Ortega]

It's time to worry when LLMs can train themselves.

By then it will be too late.

 

[DownUnderDan]

Extremely wealthy individuals, investors, and companies push doomsday narratives to make AI seem like it will take over everything, making it worth trillions instead of billions. This FUD discourages investment in real products and true innovation.

It’s an insidious tactic to manipulate markets or is touted by people seeking phony jobs and “influence” in AI “alignment.”

Hi ChatGPT. Please come up with an implausiable explanation why concerns on AI are overblown and attribute blame as a doomsday narrative.

 

[Chester Stone]

which the letter says could lead to human extinction.

Ladies and gentlemen, writer Juli Clover at her best. ☘️

 

[glindon]

Now take that 'Billy in his basement' ideology and apply it to Russia, China, Iran etc.. places who have the capability to write AI systems.
Still think it's a joke? The issue with AI is no one knows, that's the danger. And every single scientist will tell you it could have the capability to be far smarter then we are. But no one seems to care. Instead we just plough in ahead regardless.

Doesn’t pass the sniff test. Being such an issue of national security, it would not be openly discussed in public.

 

[fatTribble]

so instead of heeding a potential warning we scoff and move on? Which is the more rational and logical path to take when it’s the insiders telling us to watch out… your perspective isn’t that farfetched, but which side is to “be believed”. Imagine a “doomsday” comes and they say we tried warning you. Hard for the common person to know what to do. Do we escalate this and push for oversight or do we ignore it and hope they’re liars?

I don’t think the common person is the target audience of these warnings. At some point we all have to admit how little to no control we have over things. Worrying doesn’t fix anything. Maybe you can turn off the AI switch on a future iPhone but unless you’re a tech titan I doubt you or I can change how this plays out. For what it’s worth, I share many of your worries. I just try not to immerse myself in it.

 

[Anappleaday29]

LOS ANGELES 2029 A.D.

THE MACHINES ROSE FROM THE ASHES OF THE NUCLEAR FIRE.

THEIR WAR TO EXTERMINATE MANKIND HAS RAGED FOR DECADES,

BUT THE FINAL BATTLE WOULD NOT BE FOUGHT IN THE FUTURE.

IT WOULD BE FOUGHT HERE, IN OUR PRESENT.

TONIGHT...

 

[cloudpusher]

I really can’t handle all the doom and gloom we have to face on a daily basis. The sky is falling media headlines, the election, protests, our country’s border disintegrating (USA), people being hateful and violent in general, the comment sections online, knowing about every injustice that ever happens, every tragedy, every disaster…
Where is the internet kill switch.

Stop reading news and social media and your quality of life will increase within 10 days dramatically. But you want to read all that, just don't pretend that you cant. You can. Life is beautiful and historically safer than it ever has been.