this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2023
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This is the most compelling explanation I've seen: https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2023/11/18/pivot-to-ai-replacing-sam-altman-with-a-very-small-shell-script/?n=@
Thanks for sharing. That is... Weird in ways I didn't anticipate. "Weird cult of pseudointellectuals upending the biggest name in silicon valley" wasn't on my bingo board.
IMO there are some good reasons to be concerned about AI, but those reasons are along the lines of "it's going to be massively disruptive to the economy and we need to prepare for that to ensure it's a net positive", not "it's going to take over our minds and turn us into paperclips."
The author did a poor job of explaining that. He’s referencing the thought experiment of a businessman instructing a super effective AI to make paperclips. Given a terse enough objective and an effective enough AI, one can imagine a scenario in which the businessman and the whole world in fact are turned into paperclips. This is obviously not the businessman’s goal, but it was the instruction he gave the AI. The implication of the thought experiment is that AI needs guardrails, perhaps even ethics, or else it can unintentionally result in a doomsday scenario.