[gooseus]

That's weird, because I just got to the part in Pinker's Enlightenment Now where he says the large majority of experts in both artificial and human intelligence are not concerned.

Who is misrepresenting the expert consensus? Or are they both misrepresenting the fact that there is a consensus?

[ollin]

"""Things AI researchers agree on:

- that documentary was pretty unhelpful

- Terminator images are usually inappropriate

- AlphaGo Zero (if not other Alpha•s) was pretty cool"""

(https://twitter.com/Miles_Brundage/status/983063456424308736)

I don't have any survey results to point to, but my impression from following AI researchers from industry/academia is:

* Modern methods are many leaps of understanding behind anything resembling AGI, so any concern about research groups developing a sentient computer program behind close doors with no warning is probably misplaced.

* AI/ML causing large-scale unemployment will be a serious issue eventually, but it's difficult to make a strong case that's it's happening right now.

* The ability to monitor and manipulate individuals using ML/AI is dangerous, doesn't depend on particularly advanced technology, and is already being used by corporations and governments right now. It's a lot easier to get the public worried about terminator-style robots than about (what appear to be) simple advances in advertising or law enforcement.

* There's a strong incentive for those selling "AI technology" to oversell its ability to generalize/improve automatically. To quote Elon (of all people), "It's a mistake to think that technology automatically improves. It does not automatically improve. It only improves if a lot of people work hard to make it better."–this applies to "deep neural networks" as much as anything else.

[dredmorbius]

Given that it's the experts themselves talking in Do You Trust This Computer, and Pinker describing experts in his own work, I'd give stronger credit to the former, more direct, evidence. That is: letting the experts express their views directly.

There remains the possibility that there is a difference between "the set of top experts in the field included in this documentary" and "a survey or statement from the larger share of practitioners within the field". This ... runs into a few additional problems.

Documentaries can (and with some frequency are) selective and nonrepresentational. That is, a documentary's goal is not to Reveal The Statistical Truth, but To Tell a Specific Story. Documentaries are driven by narrative, not random sampling and statistical analysis.

That said, stats can lie and crafted stories can be quite useful.

A large-scale sampling of opinion is also ... largely just that. A large-scale sampling of opinion. Even if that's expert opinion. It is not the same as arriving at a truth (unless the truth you're seeking to arrive at is "what is the typical or general opinion held on some matter by some population?").

The views and concerns of top practitioners within a field is often highly significant. It may still be inaccurate (or be inaccurately portrayed). But these are the people who've worked with a thing for a long time, who've seen what does and doesn't work, what is or isn't hyped. And you'll often find exceptionally strong critics of various fields or technologies.

Leading atomic scientists in the U.S. and USSR both came to oppose nuclear weapons: Robert J. Oppenheimer and Andrei Sakharov. The Father of the Nuclear Navy, USN Admiral Hyman Rickover, came to oppose nuclear power. There are numerous technologists who are now questioning the goal of universal connectivity (myself included, though my qualifications are expressly not available for or any basis for credence). And in the field of AI, there are numerous significant, long-term, and leading researchers who are raising profound questions of advisability and risk.

Or, you know, you could go with the Good Humour guy, Pinker.

[dredmorbius]

I find Pinker an unreliably and highly biased narrator.