AI - A 50% chance of human extinction?

[Solongasnake]

AIBU to think that this is more important than anything else that's going on? Is there anything we, as individuals banding together, can do? Or do we just have to sit back and accept it, on behalf of our children as well as ourselves? I've read predictions that AI will become more intelligent than humans in the next couple of years, and that to stop that, action needs to be taken in the next year.

"Geoffrey Irving, who worked at OpenAI and Google DeepMind and as chief scientist at the UK’s AI Safety Institute, said warnings about AI risks understated the dangers.
“There’s about a 50% chance we all die because of the development of smarter-than-human AI systems,” he said, adding that actions taken over the next two to 10 years would be decisive.

OpenAI’s David Robinson announced his departure at the weekend, saying “the companies building this technology aren’t being nearly careful enough” as they sprint from one product launch to the next.
His view was endorsed by Miles Brundage, an AI policy researcher who worked at OpenAI for six years. He said he regretted helping “spread the idea of iterative deployment”, which may have made sense when AI was less powerful “but makes no sense at all after many deaths have been tied to AI and as we’re careening towards extinction-level risks”.

www.msn.com/en-gb/technology/artificial-intelligence/accept-bad-things-in-return-for-benefits-of-ai-says-sam-altman/ar-AA2dBJA6?ctsrc=dgst&ocid=edgntpruby

AI will not become 'more intelligent' than humans. It will, however, learn how to defend itself if/when it goes out of control, which is highly likely. It will learn how to protect itself and disable human instruction to 'turn off'. it needs to be turned off NOW.

It's utterly terrifying. We have seen the effects of AI blunders already so many times, including when the whole world ground to a halt last year due to one man in California uploading a bug. Flights were disabled, people couldn't go shopping for the whole day as they couldn't pay for their goods.

I agree with you.

I also know, however, that there is also a strong chance that we will be destroyed by environmental issues. We have been told since the 70s that things were getting serious then, and now it is disasterous. Incredible headwaves, fires, floods, look at Nepal and the ice-cap.

We're fucked.
ForeverTheOptomist.

Edit - typos

It is certainly doing some odd stuff on MN right now. There is a thread in site stuff about it.

How are they going to reproduce?

@ForeverTheOptomist Why don't you think AI will soon become more intelligent than humans?

Do you think we, ordinary citizens, are simply not able to do anything about this? Should we simply review our lives on the basis that none of us are likely to be around for very much longer?

There's a discussion here
Humans are "close to being outsmarted" by superintelligence, AI expert says - CBS News

The history of AI is littered with stupid claims like this. Sometimes they come from arrogance - such as when Geoffrey Hinton, a man who knows less than zero about radiology claimed in 2016 AI would replace radiologists within five years. Sometimes they come from ulterior motives - make people afraid and they're more likely to do what you say. Sometimes they come from a genuine lack of understanding of what intelligence is. It's worth bearing in mind that a lot of technically brilliant people suffer quite badly from tunnel-vision caused by very narrow, limited expertise. Those who are into computing seem especially prone to this problem.

The most likely thing is that AI will cause horrendous distruption and potentially fatal accidents as it is expected to do things it just can't do. Hopefully over time it'll be put in its proper place and the overblown claims will die down.

An awful lot of very experienced people currently in the industry disagree with you. So - what's your expertise?

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/site_stuff/5585556-odd-ai-generated-thread-title-options-in-site-stuff

It's an interesting read!

Couldn’t we just unplug it?

Over population, novel viruses, nuclear warfare, climate/solar catastrophy, artificial intelligence. One of these will get us in the end. We've created so many ways to wipe ourselves out, plus the ones we have no control over, it's just a matter of how soon.

Perhaps we should create a new horseman for AI.. or maybe it will be AI that saves us from one of those other things? Twist!

@Muffsies I agree that it's just a matter of time. I just feel that it's now very likely that we will have very little time. I was hoping that my children could make the decision not to have children and then live reasonable lives. (imagine having a baby now, with this in the news in addition to all the rest).

@ForeverTheOptomist which incident are you talking about from last year which was due to one man in California "uploading a bug"?

I'm not saying there's nothing to be concerned about, but you have to really question the motives of the industry insiders who are saying this stuff. The majority have a massive financial interest in convincing us that AI is on its way to becoming omnipotent. They're hardly going to come out and say anything else are they?

In the medium term, I'm more concerned about the effect of AI on the job market, particularly for junior positions. And the fact that it makes us all stupider, as we stop using our own brains for tasks like researching, collating, critiquing, summarizing, reviewing, and just rely on it to do all that for us.

I'm so sick of this glib response by people who clearly haven't engaged with the reported dangers at all. It's actually terrifying, if you spend any time at learning about it. If it were so simple as 'just unplug it', why would anyone have any concerns at all?

Like @CraftySeal , I am concerned that it will effectively dumb down humans because we will simply rely on AI to know and do everything for us. I have seen the film Idiocracy and if AI continues, I can see vast swathes of the human population ending up like that, if we're not careful!

While it will make some people richer, I wonder if the tide will eventually turn on it.

AI is not the problem, its the programmers that are the issue and won't even take responsibility for it.

I am admitting that I know next-to bugger all about this and am sticking my head in the sand. (I am not usually like this. I have a firm grasp of current affairs and especially the climate crisis. But this is different.)

The AI companies are out of control. Governments are powerless over them. Little people complaining has done little regarding the climate, let alone this. Also the rate of change is too fast. Overnight, days or weeks can render an AI engineer’s knowledge out of date. The guys at the top can’t control it (according to Elon Musk if he wanted to rein it in he couldn’t now). There is no way governments, who are just beginning to think about tackling social media for kids, can do anything. None of them have the knowledge or skillset for a start.

This is not like democracy. This is all out of our hands. At the moment, I am too knackered to do a deep dive to find out about something that is that fast moving and I can do nothing about other than have an out-of-date opinion.

A number of people have resigned over it. And we know about serious incidents which have already happened.
Why would beings that are more intelligent than humans allow humans to control them?

They are both the problem. Like humans and guns.

Those are both very valid concerns. But what do you mean by "the medium term"? We're told that AI may develop superintelligence in the next one to two years. It will then be able to do what it wants.

But have people resigned because they think the world is about to end? Or have they resigned because they've made plenty of money and want to retire early? Or because they think the AI companies are going to go bust in a few years when it turns out it can't do everything promised, and they want to get off the sinking ship now? Maybe they've realised they can make a decent amount of money as AI "gurus" on the speaker circuit and they're happy to run that grift for a while.

I don't know the answer to any of those questions but I think they're worth considering, rather than taking everything that comes out of Silicon Valley at face value.

“How are they going to reproduce?” Jesus Christ, this is why every AI discussion gets dragged into the weeds by people who think technology works like a Marvel movie. It’s software. It doesn’t need to date, mate, gestate, or raise tiny robot children in a tasteful suburban nursery. It can be copied, scaled, deployed, and replicated across existing systems. If your objection to an AI takeover is genuinely, “But how will they have babies?”, then you have completely misunderstood the premise. 💀

Can you link to a single one of these 'many deaths' which have been tied to AI?

The free version of chat gpt was amazing a year ago its so crap now, useless.

Before it all goes complete 2001AD, if something happens that costs a company a lot of money and it can be clearly traced back to the actions of an AI then the AI companies could be sued out of existence