[HN Gopher] NIST AI Risk Management Framework
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       NIST AI Risk Management Framework
        
       Author : ftxbro
       Score  : 45 points
       Date   : 2023-04-09 21:08 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.nist.gov)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.nist.gov)
        
       | mitthrowaway2 wrote:
       | Nothing in here about existential risk, as far as I can tell.
        
       | ilaksh wrote:
       | Does the NIST actually say anything here? Looks like mainly meta-
       | level BS frameworks with no teeth.
        
       | hrpnk wrote:
       | I am generally frightened by the readiness of people to send data
       | to solutions like ChatGPT or by running open source projects that
       | result in running "AI agents" that execute arbitrary code on
       | one's machine. What can we do to drive more awareness about
       | running these experiments in a responsible way, like a sandboxed
       | environment?
        
         | ilaksh wrote:
         | In my opinion this type of comment is the core problem with AI
         | alignment these days.
         | 
         | The current GPT models are not going to "wake up" or
         | accidentally take over the world. This is very obvious.
         | 
         | Forcing everyone who is conscientious to copy and paste the
         | output of these relatively weak models is not going to save us
         | from anything.
         | 
         | If you want people to take AI regulations seriously, you have
         | to do it in a reasonable way. Which means understanding the
         | nuance of the dangers.
         | 
         | Executing "arbitrary code" that InstructGPT models outputs
         | based on your instructions is not a danger.
         | 
         | People need to be able to distinguish different levels of
         | autonomy and speed.
         | 
         | It's when we get to high levels of autonomy and performance
         | that we run into danger. Which we are really at the cusp.
         | 
         | But when you fail to differentiate between systems that are
         | obviously not dangerous and future/more autonomous agents that
         | possibly are, that makes it impossible to take the concerns
         | seriously. And actually harder for people to understand the
         | problems with full autonomy and superintelligent models.
        
           | ekidd wrote:
           | > _The current GPT models are not going to "wake up" or
           | accidentally take over the world. This is very obvious._
           | 
           | It's pretty obvious that GPT-4 isn't consistently coherent
           | enough to carry out complex plans or to do serious scientific
           | research. There are several other major shortcomings which
           | also prevent this from being viable, too. And of course, it's
           | possible that some of these shortcomings are _very_ hard to
           | "fix." We've had AI winters before, and self-driving seems to
           | have stalled.
           | 
           | However, I strongly suspect that it's theoretically
           | _possible_ to build a machine that  "thinks" as well as a
           | human. And I no longer have any solid idea how far we are
           | from that point, especially if we make certain architectural
           | changes. We _might_ be closer than we think. Or at least we
           | should stop assuming that next-gen models are _obviously_
           | safe.
           | 
           | nVidia's hope to increase training performance 1 million
           | times in 10 years seems potentially dangerous to me.
           | Anthrophic's plan to spend over $1 billion training next gen
           | models seems awfully sketchy as well.
        
         | ben_w wrote:
         | If they weren't paying attention to Black Mirror, the BSG
         | reboot, the Terminator franchise, the Replicator arc of
         | Stargate, every episode of Star Trek where the
         | computer/Data/the holodeck/nanites went wrong, Ex-Machina, The
         | Matrix franchise, Age of Ultron, basically any Asimov AI story,
         | Blade Runner, 2001, or any folk tale about being careful what
         | you ask of powers that take you literally from Midas to
         | Fantasia...
         | 
         | "Oh, they're just fictional!"
         | 
         | ...then I suggest attaching a rusty metal spike to the
         | keyboard.
         | 
         | It won't _do_ anything, it 's easy to avoid, it'll just sit
         | there looking dangerous.
         | 
         | Hopefully that would be enough just by itself.
         | 
         | And yes, this is a reference to a similar suggestion for making
         | drivers pay more attention behind the wheel.
        
           | mrob wrote:
           | There is no sci-fi story that details a realistic scenario of
           | AI existential risk, because sci-fi stories are written by
           | and for humans. The potential danger of AI comes from the
           | combination of superhuman abilities and profoundly alien
           | mind. No human can predict any specific behavior of a
           | superhuman intelligence, only that it will probably succeed
           | in its goals, whatever those goals happen to be. And out of
           | all possible goals, only a small proportion are compatible
           | with life continuing to exist. This is especially true when
           | you consider only simple goals, and simple things are
           | generally easier to make.
           | 
           | Sci-fi is a distraction. There can be no heroic human
           | resistance like in the stories. If an AI is intelligent
           | enough to be dangerous, it's intelligent enough to conceal
           | its intentions until it's too late. The only way to beat a
           | superhuman AI is by not making it in the first place.
        
             | mitthrowaway2 wrote:
             | Yes, an AI apocalypse is not depicted in any science
             | fiction because it would make for terrible fiction. Good
             | stories depict relatable characters engaged in a battle
             | between near-equals that ends in victory after terrifying
             | odds. Not "someone saying 'oops' and then everyone falling
             | over dead", which is the Yudkowsky scenario.
        
             | blibble wrote:
             | maybe something like the BBC Threads film is the way to go?
             | 
             | plot of threads:                   - nuclear war happens
             | - all humanity suffers horribly         - ends with scene
             | of deformed stillborn child
             | 
             | plot of artificial super intelligence:                   -
             | tech company creates super-intelligence         - idiot CEO
             | enters badly thought out goal in an attempt to capture 2%
             | more search market share         - super-intelligence
             | executes goal         - all life on earth is casually
             | exterminated by the AI as it attempts to reach its goal
             | - ends with scene of 100% of the earth's surface converted
             | to NVIDIA GPUs
        
           | flangola7 wrote:
           | "The sorcerer's apprentice mop scene, but there's no master
           | sorcerer to save us and the mops are making more and better
           | mops."
           | 
           | One of the better non science fiction analogies I've heard.
        
         | whatever1 wrote:
         | eventually we will have our personal AI tuned on our own data
         | over time. Maybe we will be upgrading the foundation model, but
         | the tuning would be personal.
         | 
         | At least I hope so.
        
           | sixothree wrote:
           | I fear the world will be structured such that we don't get
           | that kind of liberty. Surveillance capitalism has made me
           | more pessimistic. Or realistic.
        
             | ben_w wrote:
             | I don't see liberty in having an AI tuned to me. Rather, I
             | see that as being the exact surveillance you're
             | pessimistic/realistic about.
        
         | atleastoptimal wrote:
         | People are usually driven by basic operant conditioning, not
         | safety-aware abstract principles.
         | 
         | In the 2000s everyone was hyper aware of privacy issues,
         | putting personal information online, safety, etc. However the
         | last 15 years of people doing more and more risky stuff with
         | allowing systems and computers to store and use their data and
         | only getting benefits and more fun videos to watch, there's no
         | internal shared concern to act in accordance to every possible
         | safety principle.
         | 
         | People just want the cool chatbot to do their work for them.
         | Especially with the scale of FOMO with these things, no one is
         | going to sit back and not be risky when they read that other
         | people are saving many hours a day letting ChatGPT do their
         | work for them. Until something really bad happens people aren't
         | going to change their behavior.
        
       | smitec wrote:
       | This looks good as an overarching framework but will likely fall
       | into the same bucket as a lot of regulation in cutting edge
       | fields (if this ever becomes mandatory). These are only as good
       | as the quality of the people doing the assessment.
       | 
       | I've worked with a lot of people in the medical world while
       | developing SaMD (software as a medical device) in the past that
       | had little to no idea about software. They can apply the
       | principles in the abstract but will likely not dig deep enough to
       | catch some very major issues.
       | 
       | In the medical world, things like post market surveillance and
       | notification of adverse events help to at least create a public
       | feedback loop here. I think we will need something similar in
       | this space if we really want to see more than a surface level,
       | checklist ticking exercise.
        
         | ftxbro wrote:
         | > software as a medical device
         | 
         | I had a question about this earlier, if a doctor uses Google to
         | look up something, then is Google being used in some legal or
         | regulatory sense as a medical device?
        
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       (page generated 2023-04-09 23:00 UTC)