Man who helped develop AI warns about it & its potential challenges and pitfalls

[PoetPhilosopher]

Article:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/02/tech/hinton-tapper-wozniak-ai-fears/index.html

My comments: It's an interesting thing to ponder - what will become of AI, and how things will change with it, for better & worse. I admit that I have some caution when it comes to AI and its blending in with regular society, as it stands, too - as well as how it's used.

 

[Heyo]

Article:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/02/tech/hinton-tapper-wozniak-ai-fears/index.html

My comments: It's an interesting thing to ponder - what will become of AI, and how things will change with it, for better & worse. I admit that I have some caution when it comes to AI and its blending in with regular society, as it stands, too - as well as how it's used.

It's not the AI that's dangerous, it's the people who use it. We don't have to fear AI becoming conscious, it's surviving until then.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Article:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/02/tech/hinton-tapper-wozniak-ai-fears/index.html

My comments: It's an interesting thing to ponder - what will become of AI, and how things will change with it, for better & worse. I admit that I have some caution when it comes to AI and its blending in with regular society, as it stands, too - as well as how it's used.

The danger here is the unethical practices of companies like Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc...
Their business model is a poison for society and democracy in particular.

Mixing AI in their algorithms is only going to make sure they become even better then they already are in their unethical ways.
Doing so would destroy western secular democracy, I have no doubt about that.

Consider the damage done to democracy by the current practices already (Q anon, Trump, Brexit,.. to name just a few).
Mix AI into those practices and you can take those 3 and multiply them by 100.

 

[icehorse]

I did a 90 minute experiment with ChatGPT. It was a very polite, pathological liar.

 

[Copernicus]

These chatbots won't scale up to real intelligence. Basically, they just shuffle word tokens around on the basis of statistical relationships. They don't actually understand the input texts or their own responses to the texts. However, the hype surrounding them has been off the charts. People can use them to do bad things, but that is pretty much true of most advances in computing technology. They are extremely costly to train up to the level of ChatGPT 3 and 4, and even OpenAI admits that the technology has plateaued. Nevertheless, they make fantastically good clickbait because of all the killer robot movies people have seen. We even have people predicting that they will bring on an apocalypse.

 

[F1fan]

It's not the AI that's dangerous, it's the people who use it. We don't have to fear AI becoming conscious, it's surviving until then.

My cynical view of AI:

Ned, lead designer:
Well, we have designed this AI machine, and we have programmed it in a way that could lead to it thinking for itself, and we will have no control over it. We're not sure yet. But, we designed it, and built it, and we just plugged it in, so we have no choice but to turn it on.

Jeremy, a journalist:
Excuse me, if it could have such dire consequences is it really smart to turn it on?

Ned:
We don't know yet. We need to turn it on to discover if it was a bad idea to turn it on.

Sima, another journalist:
But it's a risk, yes? I mean, if it all goes bad, it's bad.

Ned:
Well that's just speculation. Get back to me if things go bad.

Sima:
But things will be bad, I don't think we will be here asking questions, but trying to survive.

Ned:
Well that's an assumption. You might be dead already.

Jeremy:
Why do we need AI?

Ned:
To help us with basic human tasks, like writing.

Jeremy:
But we already have writers.

Ned:
But AI will make it cheaper.

Sima:
So human writers will be out of jobs?

Ned:
Ummm

Jason, another journalist:
Is AI a necessity or just an exercise in what humans can do?

Ned:
Well both. AI can do many tasks that humans do, but faster and cheaper.

Jason:
Why is that necessary?

Ned:
Ummm

Jason:

Sima:
Is there any chance your job could be eliminated by AI?

AI:
Yes.

Ned:
Ummmm

Jason:
Ned, maybe you should unplug the machine.

Ned:
What, and ruin my work?

 

[Heyo]

My cynical view of AI:

Ned, lead designer:
Well, we have designed this AI machine, and we have programmed it in a way that could lead to it thinking for itself, and we will have no control over it. We're not sure yet. But, we designed it, and built it, and we just plugged it in, so we have no choice but to turn it on.

Jeremy, a journalist:
Excuse me, if it could have such dire consequences is it really smart to turn it on?

Ned:
We don't know yet. We need to turn it on to discover if it was a bad idea to turn it on.

Sima, another journalist:
But it's a risk, yes? I mean, if it all goes bad, it's bad.

Ned:
Well that's just speculation. Get back to me if things go bad.

Sima:
But things will be bad, I don't think we will be here asking questions, but trying to survive.

Ned:
Well that's an assumption. You might be dead already.

Jeremy:
Why do we need AI?

Ned:
To help us with basic human tasks, like writing.

Jeremy:
But we already have writers.

Ned:
But AI will make it cheaper.

Sima:
So human writers will be out of jobs?

Ned:
Ummm

Jason, another journalist:
Is AI a necessity or just an exercise in what humans can do?

Ned:
Well both. AI can do many tasks that humans do, but faster and cheaper.

Jason:
Why is that necessary?

Ned:
Ummm

Jason:

Sima:
Is there any chance your job could be eliminated by AI?

AI:
Yes.

Ned:
Ummmm

Jason:
Ned, maybe you should unplug the machine.

Ned:
What, and ruin my work?

"Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans."


Douglas Adams

 

[The Hammer]

"Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans."


Douglas Adams

I'd go back if I could.

 

[Heyo]

I'd go back if I could.

"For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons."


Douglas Adams

 

[Twilight Hue]

Article:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/02/tech/hinton-tapper-wozniak-ai-fears/index.html

My comments: It's an interesting thing to ponder - what will become of AI, and how things will change with it, for better & worse. I admit that I have some caution when it comes to AI and its blending in with regular society, as it stands, too - as well as how it's used.

I think the real problem will begin if open ai (machine learning) becomes fully autonomous and finally let loose on its own accord without no more human control and interaction.

 

[Twilight Hue]

"For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons."


Douglas Adams

Yet tuna nets continually befuddle them.

 

[Copernicus]

My cynical view of AI:

Ned, lead designer:
Well, we have designed this AI machine, and we have programmed it in a way that could lead to it thinking for itself, and we will have no control over it. We're not sure yet. But, we designed it, and built it, and we just plugged it in, so we have no choice but to turn it on.

This describes the point of any AI program, not just his. Autonomy is the whole point. He acts as if he is surprised.

Jeremy, a journalist:
Excuse me, if it could have such dire consequences is it really smart to turn it on?

Ned:
We don't know yet. We need to turn it on to discover if it was a bad idea to turn it on.

Not really. The history of chatbots goes back to Joseph Weizenbaum's simple ELIZA pattern matcher, and that's why they built disclaimers into the chatbot's responses. They knew that people would confuse coherent replies with actually sentience and intelligence. Even some of their own programmers were taken in. They should have known better, but it is often the case that those working on such programs don't really have an in-depth understanding of the history and theories behind Natural Language Processing. LLM researchers work in just one subfield of AI research. There are lots of autonomous machines out there that clearly are not intelligent.

Sima, another journalist:
But it's a risk, yes? I mean, if it all goes bad, it's bad.

Ned:
Well that's just speculation. Get back to me if things go bad.

Sima:
But things will be bad, I don't think we will be here asking questions, but trying to survive.

Ned:
Well that's an assumption. You might be dead already.

Ned is being very coy and leading the misguided interviewer on. Maybe Ned enjoys freaking him out a little?

Jeremy:
Why do we need AI?

Ned:
To help us with basic human tasks, like writing.

Not a major goal of AI. It's just something that his program can help with.

Jeremy:
But we already have writers.

Ned:
But AI will make it cheaper.

Not going into the enormous cost of developing and training up such programs on large textbases...

Sima:
So human writers will be out of jobs?

Ned:
Ummm

The Luddites are gathering in a corner and beginning to mutter. Whatever happened to the use of horse-drawn buggies? A lot of people suffered unemployment when new technology came along.

Jason, another journalist:
Is AI a necessity or just an exercise in what humans can do?

Ned:
Well both. AI can do many tasks that humans do, but faster and cheaper.

Jason:
Why is that necessary?

Ned:
Ummm

Jason:

Sima:
Is there any chance your job could be eliminated by AI?

AI:
Yes.

No, sadly. His job is safe, but he should do fewer interviews, if he wants to keep it safer.

Ned:
Ummmm

Jason:
Ned, maybe you should unplug the machine.

Ned:
What, and ruin my work?

Ha. Ha. But he asked for it.