[HN Gopher] John Carmack on AI
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John Carmack on AI
Author : miohtama
Score : 21 points
Date : 2023-10-03 17:54 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| gary_0 wrote:
| https://nitter.net/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1708905454544282083 (full
| thread for non-Twitter-users)
| RecycledEle wrote:
| After reading that, I now identify as an "Unaligned Human."
| mysterydip wrote:
| "You might be a force to be reckoned with, but there are a lot of
| forces to reckon with."
|
| Younger me needed to hear that. Hopefully it saves someone else
| some time and energy.
| haxiomic wrote:
| I thought the discussion was getting to the important points once
| hyperbole was resolved but Carmack ducks out
|
| Carmack:
|
| > To answer the question directly: there is no way, even with an
| infinitely smart (but not supernatural) oracle, that a teenager
| can destroy all of humanity in six months.
|
| Even the most devastating disasters people imagine will not kill
| every human being even over the space of years. This is a common
| failure of imaginative scope, not understanding all the diverse
| situations that people are already in, and how they will respond
| to disasters.
|
| You could walk it back to "kill a million people" and get into
| the realm of an actual discussion, but it isn't one I am very
| interested in having.
|
| ---
|
| I do think that's a discussion very worth having, asymmetrical
| advantage that AI gives _is_ the concern here. A virus is a
| special arrangement of a few thousand atoms that we can now
| control and design on a computer. The defence is global
| vaccination programs costing billions of dollars and many lives
| in the process
| glonq wrote:
| As is often the case, John is right.
|
| The peasants deserve crossbows ;)
| pixl97 wrote:
| And yet we are not given nukes. Going to be interesting where
| the lines end up in this new world.
| api wrote:
| Language models are not nukes and there is no real world
| evidence that they will become anywhere near this dangerous.
|
| We have people calling for bans on classes of algorithms
| based on sci-fi.
|
| I too agree with Carmack that AI doomerism has a definite
| subtext of concern for changes in power dynamics.
| lakomen wrote:
| I wonder, if I had a child, would it be possible to raise it to
| not outsource the thinking process to a program? With the
| internet, I ask search engines (usually just the one) for answers
| other people might give to a problem I also have. Pre ~y2k that
| yielded great results, because the internet was populated with
| sensible information but smart and educated people.
|
| When the masses came, the results became gradually worse, but I
| still use the internet for answers instead of thinking on my own,
| but in many cases I'm forced to think on my own anyway.
|
| With AI the source information is already polluted and the
| program is fantasizing its answers. But there will be a point
| where it delivers accurate answers.
|
| My child, should I ever have one, would then use AI like any
| other tool. Will it have more resources at its disposal or would
| it be better that it comes up with its own answers?
|
| I am a single child. I spent a lot of time alone, thinking,
| making sense of the world, figuring things out on my own. I
| played C64 games, with terrible graphics, which trained my
| imagination. I learned English by playing those computer games.
| There came a time where I outgrew those simplistic computer
| games, turned to having a social life, going to parties, getting
| into music creation, DJing.
|
| Would that also be something my child would do? Use AI, grow up
| with values the AI suggests to it, abandon it later, search for
| its own way in life? Would it even learn another language, when
| the AI conveniently translates everything on the fly?
|
| I think, before adding yet another thing on our plate most
| people, including me, don't fully understand, maybe we should
| focus on the energy problem and having a sustainable place to
| live.
|
| Amy technological advance is based on having enough energy to
| fuel it, and in the state this planet, our habitat is right now
| because of years of uncontrolled energy use, energy must be a
| priority before anything else.
|
| Unless you believe that AI can solve that riddle. Recently in the
| news Microsoft wanted to build small nuclear reactors to power
| its AI construct, adding a long term health and waste problem.
|
| It's October, it's been over 25degC the recent days, the sea is
| still 21-23degC. Usually it's much colder. The amount of fires
| and floods this year is over the top.
|
| Well sorry if that went all over the place.
| ge96 wrote:
| I am a GPT luddite myself. My coworkers/friends keep using it
| as a base of thought. I ask them "how would you do it
| yourself", don't ask this program to make your program. I'm not
| arguing it's a fast way to learn but still... it's like will
| they be able to imagine on their own how to make something new.
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