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by afthonos 4 days ago
I can give many examples of where I think they’ve been vindicated. But actually, the real question is: what would suffice to convince you? Can you come up with a scenario that is horrific enough to you and that isn’t so far gone that the ship has sailed and there is nothing more we can do, that will make you say “OK, not gonna try to rationalize why this was not actually that bad, just gonna scream stop”?
1 comments

Your question is unclear. Are you asking if I can scare myself with a made-up hypothetical that overwhelms reason with emotion? I think most humans can do that. Too many do it as a matter of routine. I try to avoid it when possible.

I would require at this point very, very compelling evidence to justify the self-serving restrictions legacy AI labs want to put on their competition. I have seen nothing coming even remotely close to this threshold.

> Are you asking if I can scare myself with a made-up hypothetical that overwhelms reason with emotion?

No. I am asking if you are able to articulate at least one example of the “very very compelling evidence” you demand. Or do you want to maintain the ability to move the goal posts?

(I recognize our situations are not symmetric, but here is a variation for me: if the consensus of people who are currently sounding the alarm on AI changes to “it was actually fine”, I’ll change my mind and say we’re good to go full speed ahead. I’d add something about being personally convinced by the evidence, but the evidence would have to come in the form of a mathematical proof that I do not believe myself capable of following. If I’m wrong and such a proof appears, I would also gladly take it.)

> I would require at this point very, very compelling evidence to justify the self-serving restrictions legacy AI labs want to put on their competition. I have seen nothing coming even remotely close to this threshold.

How about evidence that people other than the AI labs want restrictions that the AI labs don't? This isn't regulatory capture, it's public safety.

Social proof won’t cut it for me, personally. Again, this “public safety” panic drum was beaten at a feverish pace in the era of GPT-4. A model well surpassed by local MacBook-level models today.

What I do support is robust downstream regulations on the deployment of black box algorithms in particular settings such as employment, housing, credit decisions, etc. Interestingly, the labs and their proxies in government don't want this.