[the8472]

... after regulation, court orders and fines have failed. Which under the premise that AGI is an existential threat would be far more reasonable than many other reasons for raids.

If the premise is wrong we won't need it. If society coordinates to not do the dangerous thing we won't need it. The argument is that only in the case where we find ourselves in the situation where other measures have failed such uses of force would be the fallback option.

I'm not seeing the odiousness of the proposal. If bio research gets commodified and easy enough that every kid can build a new airborne virus in their basement we'd need raids on that too.

[raxxorraxor]

To be honest, I see summoning the threat of AGI to pose an existential threat to be on the level with lizard people on the moon. Great for sci-fi, bad distraction for policy making and addressing real problems.

The real war, if there is one, is about owning data and collecting data. And surprisingly many people fall for distractions while their LLM fails at basic math. Because it is a language model of course...

[the8472]

Freely flying through the sky on wings was scifi before the wright brothers. Something sounding like scifi is not a sound argument that it won't happen. And unlike lizard people we do have exponential curves to point at. Something stronger than a vibes-based argument would be good.

[dvdkon]

I consider the burden of proof to fall on those proclaiming AGI to be an existential threat, and so far I have not seen any convincing arguments. Maybe at some point in the future we will have many anthropomorphic robots and an AGI could hack them all and orchestrate a robot uprising, but at that point the robots would be the actual problem. Similarly, if an AGI could blow up nuclear power plants, so could well-funded human attackers; we need to secure the plants, not the AGI.

[cjbprime]

It doesn't sound like you gave serious thought to the arguments. The AGI doesn't need to hack robots. It has superhuman persuasion, by definition; it can "hack" (enough of) the humans to achieve its goals.

[stale2002]

AI mind control abilities are also on the level of an extraordinary claim, that requires extraordinary evidence.

It's on the level of "we better regulate wooden sticks so Voldemort doesn't use the imperious curse on us!".

That's how I treat such claims. I treat them the same as someone literally talking about magic from Harry potter.

There isn't nothing that would make me believe that. But it requires actual evidence and not thought experiments.

[the8472]

Voldemort is fictional and so are bumbling wizard apprentices. Toy-level, not-yet-harmful AIs on the other hand are real. And so are efforts to make them more powerful. So the proposition that more powerful AIs will exist in the future is far more likely than an evil super wizard coming into existence.

And I don't think literal 5-word-magic-incantation mind control is essential for an AI to be dangerous. More subtle or elaborate manipulation will be sufficient. Employees already have been duped into financial transactions by faked video calls with what they assumed to be their CEOs[0], and this didn't require superhuman general intelligence, only one single superhuman capability (realtime video manipulation).

[0] https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/04/asia/deepfake-cfo-scam-ho...

[FeepingCreature]

Less than a month ago: https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.14380 "We found that participants who debated GPT-4 with access to their personal information had 81.7% (p < 0.01; N=820 unique participants) higher odds of increased agreement with their opponents compared to participants who debated humans."

And it's only gonna get better.

[cjbprime]

What do you think mind control is? Think President Trump but without the self-defeating flaws, with an ability to stick to plans, and most importantly the ability to pay personal attention to each follower to further increase the level of trust and commitment. Not Harry Potter.

People will do what the AI says because it is able to create personal trust relationships with them and they want to help it. (They may not even realize that they are helping an AI rather than a human who cares about them.)

The normal ways that trust is created, not magical ones.

[CamperBob2]

Then it's just a matter of evolution in action.

And while it doesn't take a God to start evolution, it would take a God to stop it.

[hollerith]

You might be OK with suddenly dying along with all your friends and family, but I am not even if it is "evolution in action".

[the8472]

You say you have not seen any arguments that convince you. Is that just not having seen many arguments or having seen a lot of arguments where each chain contained some fatal flaw? Or something else?

[pixl97]

> I see summoning the threat of AGI to pose an existential threat to be on the level with lizard people on the moon.

I mean to every other lifeform on the plant YOU are the AGI existential threat. You, and I mean homosapiens by that, have taken over the planet and have either enslaved and are breeding any other animals for food, or are driving them to extinction. In this light bringing another potential apex predator on to the scene seems rash.

>fall for distractions while their LLM fails at basic math

Correct, if we already had AGI/ASI this discussion would be moot because we'd already be in a world of trouble. The entire point is to slow stuff down before we have a major "oopsie whoopsie we can't take that back" issue with advanced AI, and the best time to set the rules is now.

[Aerroon]

>If the premise is wrong we won't need it. If society coordinates to not do the dangerous thing we won't need it.

But the idea that this use of force is okay itself increases danger. It creates the situation that actors in the field might realize that at some point they're in danger of this and decide to do a first strike to protect themselves.

I think this is why anti-nuclear policy is not "we will airstrike you if you build nukes" but rather "we will infiltrate your network and try to stop you like that".

[wongarsu]

> anti-nuclear policy is not "we will airstrike you if you build nukes"

Was that not the official policy during the Bush administration regarding weapons of mass destruction (which covers nuclear weapons in addition to chemical and biological weapons). That was pretty much the official premise of the second Gulf war

[FeepingCreature]

If Israel couldn't infiltrate Iran's centrifuges, do you think they would just let them have nukes? Of course airstrikes are on the table.

[tomoyoirl]

> ... after regulation, court orders and fines have failed

One question for you. In this hypothetical where AGI is truly considered such a grave threat, do you believe the reaction to this threat will be similar to, or substantially gentler than, the reaction to threats we face today like “terrorism” and “drugs”? And, if similar: do you believe suspected drug labs get a court order before the state resorts to a police raid?

> I'm not seeing the odiousness of the proposal.

Well, as regards EliY and airstrikes, I’m more projecting my internal attitude that it is utterly unserious, rather than seriously engaging with whether or not it is odious. But in earnest: if you are proposing a policy that involves air strikes on data centers, you should understand what countries have data centers, and you should understand that this policy risks escalation into a much broader conflict. And if you’re proposing a policy in which conflict between nuclear superpowers is a very plausible outcome — potentially incurring the loss of billions of lives and degradation of the earth’s environment — you really should be able to reason about why people might reasonably think that your proposal is deranged, even if you happen to think it justified by an even greater threat. Failure to understand these concerns will not aid you in overcoming deep skepticism.

[the8472]

> In this hypothetical where AGI is truly considered such a grave threat, do you believe the reaction to this threat will be similar to, or substantially gentler than, the reaction to threats we face today like “terrorism” and “drugs”?

"truly considered" does bear a lot of weight here. If policy-makers adopt the viewpoint wholesale, then yes, it follows that policy should also treat this more seriously than "mere" drug trade. Whether that'll actually happen or the response will be inadequate compared to the threat (such as might be said about CO2 emissions) is a subtly different question.

> And, if similar: do you believe suspected drug labs get a court order before the state resorts to a police raid?

Without checking I do assume there'll have been mild cases where for example someone growing cannabis was reported and they got a court summons in the mail or two policemen actually knocking on the door and showing a warrant and giving the person time to call a lawyer rather than an armed, no-knock police raid, yes.

> And if you’re proposing a policy in which conflict between nuclear superpowers is a very plausible outcome — potentially incurring the loss of billions of lives and degradation of the earth’s environment — you really should be able to reason about why people might reasonably think that your proposal is deranged [...]

Said powers already engage in negotiations to limit the existential threats they themselves cause. They have some interest in their continued existence. If we get into a situation where there is another arms race between superpowers and is treated as a conflict rather than something that can be solved by cooperating on disarmament, then yes, obviously international policy will have failed too.

If you start from the position that any serious, globally coordinated regulation - where a few outliers will be brought to heel with sanctions and force - is ultimately doomed then you will of course conclude that anyone proposing regulation is deranged.

But that sounds like hoping that all problems forever can always be solved by locally implemented, partially-enforced, unilateral policies that aren't seen as threats by other players? That defense scales as well or better than offense? Technologies are force-multipliers, as it improves so does the harm that small groups can inflict at scale. If it's not AGI it might be bio-tech or asteroid mining. So eventually we will run into a problem of this type and we need to seriously discuss it without just going by gut reactions.

[eek2121]

Just my (probably unpopular) opinion: True AI (what they are now calling AGI) may never exist. Even the AI models of today aren't far removed from the 'chatbots' of yesterday (more like an evolution rather than revolution)...

...for true AI to exist, it would need to be self aware. I don't see that happening in our lifetimes when we don't even know how our own brains work. (There is sooo much we don't know about the human brain.)

AI models today differ only in terms of technology compared to the 'chatbots' of yesterday. None are self aware, and none 'want' to learn because they have no 'wants' or 'needs' outside of their fixed programming. They are little more than glorified auto complete engines.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not insulting the tech. It will have it's place just like any other, but when this bubble pops it's going to ruin lives, and lots of them.

Shoot, maybe I'm wrong and AGI is around the corner, but I will continue to be pessimistic. I am old enough to have gone through numerous bubbles, and they never panned out the way people thought. They also nearly always end in some type of recession.

[pixl97]

Why is "Want" even part of your equation.

Bacteria doesn't "want" anything in the sense of active thinking like you do, and yet will render you dead quickly and efficiently while spreading at a near exponential rate. No self awareness necessary.

You keep drawing little circles based on your understanding of the world and going "it's inside this circle, therefore I don't need to worry about it", while ignoring 'semi-smart' optimization systems that can lead to dangerous outcomes.

>I am old enough to have gone through numerous bubbles,

And evidently not old enough to pay attention to the things that did pan out. But hey, those cellphone and that internet thing was just a fad right. We'll go back to land lines at any time now.

[im3w1l]

> I'm not seeing the odiousness of the proposal. If bio research gets commodified and easy enough that every kid can build a new airborne virus in their basement we'd need raids on that too.

Either you create even better bio research to neutralize said viruses... or you die trying...

Like if you go with the raid strategy and fail to raid just one terrorist that's it, game over.

[the8472]

Those arguments do not transfer well to the AGI topic. You can't create counter-AGI, since that's also an intelligent agent which would be just as dangerous. And chips are more bottlenecked than biologics (... though gene synthesizing machines could be a similar bottleneck and raiding vendors which illegally sell those might be viable in such a scenario).

[s2l]

Time to publish the next book in "Stealing the network" series.