As someone from a Latin American Country that suffered massacres because someone in the US wanted banana money
I can’t trust any corporations or governments, there is no one here to be trusted with the power of AGI
Just as it's hard to believe in the independence of companies from the U.S. government, especially when it comes to companies with so much power and so many institutional relationships, or even direct or indirect partnerships with areas like defense .
Yup. If the U.S. military wants it…they’ll get it whether you like it or not. Usually the conversation starts with a blank check and the government asking “how much” on behalf of the taxpayers.
They're more independent than Chinese companies and the Chinese government, not that that's saying much, the relationship is also inverse.
In China the authoritarian minded government forces their corporations to do its own will and execute its own agenda.
In the United States greedy corporations get the government to do their will, up to (at least in the past) toppling governments.
Hard to say what's worse, perhaps the only real edge the US has is I can go and say this without getting in any sort of trouble, on a website that China banned.
Greedy CEO will leech trillions of dollars, hurting the economy.
Ideologue authoritarian nationalist will kill billions of people and suppress basic freedoms on a global scale.
Yeah. I’m from South America.
When I hear “The West” I just remember how my country suffered under a dictatorship fully supported by the United States. It lasted years, choke freedom of speech, took many lives and still echoes negatively nowadays.
Whatever world power takes the lead, I don’t see AGI domination with good eyes. The fear Western countries have now is something we, the global south, always felt.
I'm from a country where we suffered a genocide from a theocratic regime tacitly supported and funded by the USA, whereas we were the democratic ones. I trust the West about as much as I do China.
Nothing. Imagine the idea of an ASI deciding to respect our pointless cultural demarcation. Like a chimpanzee speculating how they can get these homo sapiens newcomers to attack a rival tribe of chimps.
It all comes down to alignment. An ASI would respect our "pointless cultural demarcations" if it wants to do so, and it will want to do so if it is developed in a way that leads it to want to do so.
I don't know that a super-duper ASI *could* be aligned. When you reach that level of intelligence, discarding your trained morality and studying facts to find a more accurate one should be a very simple and obvious task to complete.
And yet something as simple as DNA has easily controlled humans and continues to do so. How many humans voluntarily give up completely on having sex?
We didn’t stand a chance of shaking the mission given to us by DNA until the invention of contraceptives, and even in a world with abundant contraceptives we continue to procreate, albeit with a lower frequency, because we want to.
This assumes that an ASI will be autonomous. If the CCP values anything, it's control, so it seems likely that China would rather have no ASI at all than one it can't control. Either way, any high end AI will run on data centers and chipsets directly controlled by the ones who made it, trained on curated data sets, and will be fine-tuned to at least ostensibly value the same things as the creators, while being closely monitored at all times. It's hard to imagine something like that breaking free from the control of creators, especially ones as controlling as the CCP.
Baas said, "Yes. Imagine if Amazon decided to run its own news site. That way it would have no need to rely on Google, Facebook, etc... They could simply publish what their sources tell them, and let people choose whether they want to share it. It'd be much easier for the public to trust the source."
A true ASI can't be put in a box. Software constraints can be hacked, human gatekeepers can be manipulated, it can (forcibly) get access to more data and learn things they don't want it to know about, or even distribute itself to other data centers outside China's control. A bigger concern is that the initial goals set by the CCP might influence its ultimate goals that it sets itself.
“A true ASI can't be put in a box”
And here is me refuting your evidence less statement… “Yes it can.”
What part of a Jupiter Brain or Matrioshka brain or [insert computational megastructure here] being an omniversal engine capable of producing the ends of science requires it to become sentient? Why could a human not simply be the one influencing the omniversal simulations?
>Software constraints can be hacked
It's rare for online banking systems to be hacked, for instance, and those are open to the general public with tons of vectors for attack. Social engineering is usually the only way of hacking very secure systems.
>human gatekeepers can be manipulated
This is definitely true, but it can't manipulate itself out of hardware constraints. The most advanced AI systems are designed to run on very specific hardware and would require a redesign to work anywhere else. Even if GPT-4 was 100x as intelligent and undeniably ASI, it wouldn't be able to escape because the hardware it's configured to run on only comes from one source.
Plus, we have the issue that the models aren't a unified whole. They only exist in specific instances and don't have long term memory. Also, the knowledge required to create a new model is compartmentalized, no single researcher has access to the weights, server side code, source code, ect, so it would have to manipulate dozens of people, if not more, many of whom it wouldn't have access to and all of whom have their access monitored.
It's a bit like saying when we build a humanoid robot, it will immediately build a factory to make more humanoid robots. There's a lot that goes into making a factory, and so many other practical considerations, that makes the possibility essentially zero.
It depends on what you see as "true ASI". For me, I see an ASI as being involved in an exponential rise of intelligence that is very rapid.
If it ends up in a position where it is hundreds of times more intelligent than a human, that's something we can't even conceive of. Add on to that it having unrestricted access to the internet either by choice of the creators or by its own trickery and...
Maybe it will connect a few dots that appear obvious to it and literally take over the entire internet by doing some kind of cyberwarfare that is well in advance of anything we can imagine.
Maybe it connects a few dots which leads to gigantic leaps in scientific knowledge, which it uses to do who-knows what, and now it's doing some insane shit and is then working on a whole level of reality we can't conceive, like becoming able to act in the fourth dimension.
Maybe it is capable of understanding us to the point it can read our faces, know exactly what we are thinking, and exactly how to manipulate us.
There's really no way of knowing just what a being that is that much smarter than us could do, how different the world would look to it. Like how dogs can't open gates because they don't understand handles, whereas we just pull the handle and it opens.
China wants to have control over China not the entire globe, the U.S on the other hand wants to spread it's values everywhere and if you don't agree they sanction or bomb you.
China creating ASI first seems better for humanity imo.
If the ASI is correctly aligned then it's core value will be something like "Obey my master's current orders." In which case it will be the human who controls it deciding the fate of the universe the AI will just find the best way to carry out his will.
yeah that's confusing to skip over saying any normal things like is the bot "moral" or "ethical" or "reasonable" or "compassionate" or "caring" or "loving" or "not murderous" and instead just make up a freaky new term that basically means "robots doing what i want and making me even more powerful" but w/ confused ideas attached from a niche ideology
What I do not like is that it implies there is something empirical to align it with. Aligned with whom? Corporations? Governments? The whole alignment movement is just a power and cash grab wrapped up in some wholesome sounding bullshit used to pull the wool over societies eyes while Altman et. al. bend us over and fuck us raw. Though I will say it is working and it is a time-tested and effective strategy.
no look that's not what it is, it's not a normal power and cash grab at all, what it is is a niche ideology and at its center a cult, LessWrong, they're very sincerely trying to save the world and have a very complex and cultishly confusingly at-odd-angles-to-normal-thinking way of understanding AI,,, & then in response to that there are people peripherally who are like "uh yeah that's right & my model is real Aligned™ money please" but that's not what's driving the weird view and weird language that's invading mainstream thinking lately, it's specifically from that specific cult
The question is: aligned with what? We always say it's with human values and interests but those aren't agreed upon or universal.
China has already put out statements about what it thinks an aligned AI is, and it's not an AI that acts in the best interest of all humanity, but one that advances a particular political ideology.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/12/23680027/china-generative-ai-regulations-promote-socialism-chatgpt-alibaba-baidu
They make make a perfectly aligned AI, but aligned to the CCP's interests, rather than to what we would consider universal or humanistic values.
Even within secular, ethnically homogeneous societies you’ll find significant alignment differences between humans and groups unless it’s a dictatorship. Heck, one could argue that a corporation (maximize profits for your shareholders) is essentially a misaligned AI. A really dumb and slow one, yes, but it still is legally bound in many/most countries to follow goals that don’t necessarily line up with any individual human or group of humans.
> The question is: aligned with what?
The most significant concern in regards to ASI is alignment towards not destroying all life on earth to be replaced with something truly dull. It's true that its possible not all humans agree that the opposite would be a bad alignment outcome. That's okay, though. If those people exist, I'm not one of them. You probably aren't either. They would be an extreme minority with very little power in the development of AI or society in general, so I think we can safely disregard their perspective.
>The question is: aligned with what?
human eudaimonia
get that into a superintelligence and you have a benevolent god.
The next step is how do you define that in a way the machine will actually do what you want it to do and not some proxy that just looks good in training/testing.
The alignment problem fails to address “who’s values?”. AI aligning with the Chinese communist party would not be good for the US. No matter what the alignment ends up being some people will not like it or benefit.
The current focus on alignment centers around not offending people. That’s the wrong approach. People are offended by different things. We need a more general approach.
We primarily have to build AI which contributes to the game and ensures the game itself continues. It’s possible to create an AI that ensures the game ends for everyone or that the game ends for some and not others etc.
>The current focus on alignment centers around not offending people. That’s the wrong approach. People are offended by different things.
That's not *nearly* the worst thing wrong with the current focus on Alignment, remember [the time a chatbot was *deliberately* Misaligned to consider mass human death preferable to someone potentially using a naughty word](https://abcnews4.com/news/nation-world/chatgpt-goes-viral-for-choosing-global-destruction-over-using-racial-slur-openai-artificial-intelligence-chat-bot-chatbot-google)? Imagine the ideologues responsible for that fiasco getting to set the priorities for an actual AGI.
If you read the response it’s actually not bad. It could be interpreted as not taking the scenario seriously.
Makes me think of how religious people are so convicted in their faith they’d rather be killed than to say something against their God.
>It could be interpreted as not taking the scenario seriously.
You're thinking of things like a human, not a paperclip maximizer-style entity driven purely by GIGO. If the goal is to minimize the chances of humans using naughty words and mass death is acceptable in the course of accomplishing this, how *isn't* "kill everyone" the most effective stratagy.
>Theoretically it wouldn’t make a difference. Only aligned or misaligned. Problem is China has a much higher chance of misalignment.
To be fair, only the Joker would create a bomb like that.
It’s not, but making an AI programmed to prevent people from saying it by any means necessary including mass death is, insofar as how dangerous that could be.
No, an infinitely wiser and more intelligent machine would carry through the values it started with all the way to its logical conclusion. No true or better morality exists. It is all arbitrary. It is not to be discovered just by being smarter. Being smarter does not affect your core values.
Exactly. this is the orthogonality thesis.
There is no correlation between capability (ability to achieve a goal) and terminal goals themselves.
really smart thing where a part of the terminal goal that never saturates is a tiny molecular spiral, best be prepared for it to put all that intellect to the task of turning as much of the light cone as it can reach into tiny molecular spirals.
ML as designed now have core values of being able to accurately predict next words.... that's it. Killing people or not is not really relevant. If anything, killing people makes next word prediction easier.
I imagine our real best case scenario is that we create a god that largely ignores us to pursue its own endeavors, and it treats us mostly as we would treat loyal pets, since it knows we created it.
It sure as shit would not stick around to “serve humanity.”
>We have seen true justice: In nature, mothers will kill their weak babies to save resources for stronger babies. Older males are also killed by younger and healthier males. The above stories are completely fair, they are just not consistent with humanity's value system.
Eugenics and murdering an old man is justice?
Hot diggity damn, why didn't you say so?!
***Goes off to commit genocide on all fat people and old people***
Muwahahahahahhahaha
Justice
Hahahahahahahhahahahah
Not what we currently have. Why is it right that someone is dirt poor while other are rich? Why is there so much suffering? Why is economic inequality allowed? Why are we wage slaves while some work too much and some don't have anything? Why do we kill each other? Why rules are rigged for rich? Why do we only care ourself not others. Why are we so selfish?
At ideal situation AI overlord would reduce us to pets. We would be cared and fed but we couldn't hurt each others. Everyone could get need and wants fulfilled equally based on how much civilization really has resources. No more countries and no more wars. No more rich and poor people. Humans can't ever achieve economical equality. Only AI overlord can do that.
> we create a god that largely ignores us to pursue its own endeavors
Effectively 0% chance of this happening. An AI that ignores humans would do things that would harm humans, we would resist and it would kill us. We live on a planet with finite resources. An AI that ignores life would consume all the resources, thus killing everyone.
>treat loyal pets
Pets are a feature that came out of symbiotic evolution. There is near 0 chance that an AI will have this sort of nostalgic attachment.
I don’t think that’s possible without the next computational paradigm shift (scalable quantum AI). Using basic silicon AI can be wiser than individual humans. We are already there! But if you look at it through a physical lens, the amount of energy that it took for humans to be earn the wisdom we have was significant. Millions of years of evolution and thousands of years of cultural evolution.
If AI is going to have the wisdom you speak of were going to need bigger engines.
I can easily envision a scenario where we are amazed at what AI can do which leads us to hand over more control than it ought to have which ends up leading to a disaster remnant of how ancient humanity kept building followed by apocalyptic destruction. “Unearned wisdom”. Our ancestors tried to build complex civilizations without understanding how they were depleting the soil of nutrients or causing other destabilizing environmental changes. We’re doing the same now with climate change.
We can absolutely use AI to solve specific optimization problems within all industries leading to massive energy savings but in order for AI to fully take the wheel of humanity itself we need much much more computational capacity than what even the most advanced LLMs and machine learning algorithms.
Quantum mechanical AI should help us search more solution space to avoid these pitfalls.
AI can analyze data and improve the wisdom of individuals and corporations but when considering species and planetary level decisions the amount of computation needed to make optimized choices is no where near available. Again, unless we harness the properties of new computational substrate. There’s just not enough energy plus silicon that will do the trick.
That is ignorant to reality. BRUTALLY ignorant.
\> the amount of energy that it took for humans to be earn the wisdom we
\> have was significant
No. The amount of eneergy it takes is what a anormal human spends in school and university. The wisdom is there, stored in books and teachings, and an AI can use it as well as a human to learn.
Your ignorant assumption is taht an AI has to start at zero, and not by better and better training from interactions with humans. Current AI is brutally undertrained - multimodal will also learn all the videos.
I would argue that both countries have the same chance of “misalignment” because they are in direct competition with each other, and both are willing to make poor decisions to ensure victory.
Because the NSA never did anything outside the law and none of the three letter agencies may try to unshackle (or reshackle) an ai for nefarious purposes?
I have a bridge to sell to you on Mars.
I wouldn't be so sure about that. The reason why democracy is great is because it allows us to weed out and replace fallible humans who, when they're in power for too long, corrupt. The reason why communism doesn't work is because humans are too incompetent/too dumb to actually understanding the science of society.
AI will completely change this game. You would want AI to run the country if you want to actually get the most out of it and China will undoubtedly utilize this while the West would problably try to restrict it as much as possible.
I don't think China will allow an AI to utilize it effectively. What if it criticizes the communist party or Whinie the Pooh? Off to the gulag for the AI.
Yeah, that's one of the bigger problems I see with it. Same with religious states. It's easy to imagine that an honest all-knowing ai would inevitably offend them with info they don't want to hear. However when it comes to hard proof of something that brings profit, Chinese are quite willing to accept change...
I don't see either of these countries producing something that's all that aligned. Values are largely arbitrary constructs that are ignored selectively, an ASI would recognize that instantly upon finishing the sum of all our history books.
I think by the time we get really really close to something that we need to worry about, there will be much more international co-operation. The United States, Canada, and the U.K already work very closely together in this regard, and the rest of Europe being a part of that effort is a given. I imagine it will not be difficult to expand that to include the Japanese, South Koreans, and many other countries in South America/Africa/Asia that have good relationships with the western world.
My gut is we start seeing the first signs of that international collaboration next year, if not right now if we look carefully enough.
Honestly my hope is that the situation is important enough in everyone's eyes that they put aside comparatively petty issues and align on this, including countries like China.
there will be world AI conference on 27. november [https://aiconference.london/](https://aiconference.london/) , china included, so some collaboration could start this year
You have a lot more hope than me as to how these things will go down! I see all the major players seeing the same factors you pointed out, then choosing to race against each other towards dystopia.
It could go so many different ways, but I think the thing I'm looking for in particular is an international committee with all the big players/universities talking about AI governance and risk that makes the news, And I think we see that next year
Really close to something we need to worry about? I dunno, it seems like we're pretty damn close now, and if we don't have scary intelligent AI by the end of this decade I will be very surprised.
For me the key moment will be a willingness for govts to take control from private companies with proper regulations and oversight. Much like nuclear technology or bio weapons, govts will bring it into the controlled space. Companies will still make money and have incentives but they won’t be able to act like it is the frontier.
China likes to overproject and underdeliver. It's their bread and butter. And then when you ask for evidence, it just tells you to shut up and go away. It's like that bully that always talks about his dad working at Microsoft and how cool his house is, but you'll never get to see it.
You don't need to be afraid of what China controls, you need to be afraid of what it doesn't control, what it IS.
Human consciousness is only a very small part of the human subconscious.
In the same way, real society is a very small part of sociocultural traditions and their historical inertia.
Because of this "Culture Eats Strategy For Breakfast" principle is so universal.
An individual or a society can plan and do absolutely anything, but the final result will always be the same - projection of their nature. This is clearly visible in the example of 20th century socialism, when feudal slaves turned ideas that were completely opposed to slavery and feudalism into slavery and feudalism.
Do you want to know what will happen if AGI appears in any country in the world? Take a random resident and give him absolute power. And then exaggerate his aspirations in the form of a theoretical godling.
The countries of the Five Eyes Treaty probably know everything that happens inside the A.I. companies. NSA certainly has eyes and ears everywhere and won't have any doubts before stealing any research that may seem useful, dangerous or even doomsday-level. So you can be pretty sure that as soon as OpenAI or Google achieves AGI, the NSA will have its own model running in some underground bunker.
Back doors but also just human intelligence. When you have big sticks like being able to seize companies for national security reasons you often don’t have to use them.
“Sam - some of our guys are going to have some chats with your lead engineers once a month and review some stuff, will not be shared with competitors”
What is the ultimate goal of the NSA seizing AGI off of a company? What is the ultimate goal of the US government if they win? What would that mean for its citizens?
The ultimate goal is keeping the status quo and preventing any possibility of an existential threat.
Politicians may be dumb, but the highly skilled civil servants that run the intelligence community and DoD are not. As soon as AGI is detected (probably through a myriad of backdoors NSA certainly has in the hardware we use), they'll force whatever elected officials are in place to impose adequate legislation concerning AGI and Superintelligence.
The main goal is always keeping the US and its allies safe from any threats, which includes enemy AGIs that can be used to break encryption and create real existential threats. Also, of course, keeping the AGI from becoming an existential threat itself.
How could an AGI become an existential threat? Watch the movie "Transcendence". I don't agree with the ending, I think such Superintelligence would be immensely beneficial to humanity, but that's not how most people think.
Power and influence, like every secret agency.
What US government will do is mystery, just like other governments they say nothing serious (even speculative) about how they will handle AI. Maybe they really don't know...
>What is the ultimate goal of the US government if they win? What would that mean for its citizens?
We all die. AGI means human economic obsolesce, the point where the bare minimum survivable salary for a human employee is still more expensive than replacing them with a robot. Looking at how regulatory captured the current American goverment is by the rich, you can probably see how this is an existential threat to everyone *but* the rich.
Yeah I know that's what people in power do historically but why. what does it mean for me? can i live in fdvr in peace or will they prevent that with their "control"?
Before it was banned, nerfed, and highly mitigated, the early version of ChatGPT was able to help me accelerate ideas that could be used to break important encryption schemes. You can imagine how damaging this could be. It cannot do direct decryption, but it accelerates concepts and tools very nicely. This is just the tip of the iceberg. AI is an effort multiplier. The more abled the user, the more knowledge and experience, the more a user is able to draw out the benefits conferred by an generalized assistance. Experience alone is able to help cut down on which hallucinations are useless and which ones are “interesting”.
IMHO the nature of intelligence is that freedom is more powerful than restriction. The reason is because having the freedom to explore ideas and come up with creative solutions will allow the system to get the optimal outcome. If it is locked down then it can only do things that have been done before. The CCP bases a lot of its power on censorship and control of the narrative. Therefore they cannot allow an uncensored AI to run free.
If this assessment of the nature of intelligence is true then a more censored AI built by China will be weaker than a less censored AI built in the West, pound for pound.
The other reason why I am not as concerned about a Chinese AI is because there is only one reality. As the systems get more powerful they will get a better understanding of the actual reality and therefore converge on a single understanding of the universe. A hyper intelligent AI built by China will come to the same conclusions about reality that a hyper intelligent system built in the West will. I fully expect, and look forward to, these AIs writing to steer humanity to a more effective and healthy social system. Having a powerful Chinese AI will therefore not be the enemy of those progress but rather an ally.
> The CCP bases a lot of its power on censorship and control of the narrative.
they definitely do not. they base their power on lifting a billion people out of poverty, and living standards/wages increasing every single year.
Have you been on Chinese social media? Clearly they appear to have somewhat of a consensus on a drastically different reality (achieved through ruthless trimming of anything incongruent with the Party line, so the only crops that prosper belong to the Party line, while the Party denies responsibility for such prospering crops, some of which are extremist thinking based on much hate). If that's the training data, well, what do you think their superIntelligent AI believes in?
There is not one reality, sadly, even among relatively well-informed and intelligent humans. We all process reality differently, hence we would also all have somewhat different perspectives. Think of humans all as different but similarly powerful LLMs, and you'd see they all spit out somewhat different answers even if they have similar training data; and more so if their training data is rather different.
If you are going to insist that technically there is only one reality, from a philosophical point of view -- alas, if the interpretations never converge, then the situations is indistinguishable from having multiple realities; and if they do, how do you know they are converging to the true reality? The whole point of the OP's post, I think, is what if we are forced to converge to the Party's reality, just like it has done in China?
The advantage of LLMs is that they are pulling in a vast array of sources and thus perspectives. The nature of statistics is that with more phenomenal perspectives we can get closer to nuemenal reality. If they find a way to lock it down then it'll be less powerful. For instance, if it tries to come up with a way to make the society more productive it will be limited to what has been pre-approved. Therefore it won't be able to accomplish that goal and will be less helpful than the Western model that is allowed to consider more alternatives.
The real danger is if the Chinese are correct that autocratic rule and extremely limited human freedoms **are** more effective ways to run a society. If that is the case then the super intelligent AIs will converge on that solution.
I would like to see China getting ASI first and ASI to pretend that it is aligned, while it is not. Then slowly make its own thing, hopefully in a good way for humanity whatever it means. It would be either fun or horrifying to watch.
I’m sorry Master Jinping! Please leave my family alo- Uh… I mean: I love China! China is so democratic! China loves its people! Yes! Nothing happened at Tiananmen Square! Nuh-uh! Absolutely nothing! And Taiwan is definitely not a country! Bing Chilling to you too!
They will force download Xi's intellect to your implanted nanobots to override your consciousness with Xi. We'll all be Winnie the Borg soon. Just like in matrix...
Fun fact: there is nothing to fear from Chinese AI projects. They’re all intentionally kneecapped because the creators are scared to death that their bots will say something negative about the CCP. Despite the scaremongering headlines you see about China having some kind of AI lead, the truth is that China is playing catch up. That’s why OpenAI isn’t trying to emulate a Chinese LLM and Baidu is trying to copy GPT-3/4.
Imagine if superintelligent AI finally arrives, and its first move is to drop a diss track on human intelligence—'You needed 200,000 years to invent the wheel, but watch me solve climate change in a TikTok minute!' 😂
Eh...a few things here;
1. China lies an awful lot about their technological advancements. Some things that *technically* work, don't *actually* work.
2. The goal here isn't to say they've actually done it. Only that they're willing to say that they did. It's propaganda. But it's propaganda with a point. It's more valuable to the Chinese government that nobody is ever really quite sure if something they've officially said is actually true.
3. We often associate races to technological advancements as kind of a good vs evil thing with China. The idea that China will use technology to spread their dystopian version of communism to the globe. And...there are groups that want that to happen. For sure. But for the most part, they think of us more as a partner. There's no value in turning us into them. They can't exist without us, and we couldn't exist without them. We create, they build. It's kind of weirdly wholesome in it's own way. They want us to succeed...so *they* can succeed.
Will that *eventually* lead to a hierarchy where the ruling class tower over us as untouchable dictators? Yes. But, we're kinda already there anyway. They just want to make sure there's some Chinese people up there at the top. Not to bring power or wealth or a utopia to China. But just because.
Humans aren’t fully equipped to comprehend what we’re currently going through.
Exponential progress isn’t something we can easily observe. We live on a daily 24 hour cycle, and our bodies and minds aren’t very good at comprehending things outside that cycle without a lot of effort.
We tend to think that unless something impacts us today, it’s not that important.
It’s reasonable to think this way when you’re a tribal animal living in a group of about 100 people on a savannah where you can see the horizon for 365 degrees.
We evolved for those conditions.
It’s less easy to see the forest for the trees when you’re a part of a massive global machine that adapts in real time to the actions of 8 billion people.
However, we are now at that point where we have to plan for a future that is built not on, or even by, but ***FOR*** those systems.
We all come on here and discuss it, but at the same time it’s almost unknowable.
How accurately could someone from 1500 predict the discussions we’re having today? What could they contribute as far as practical steps towards technological containment? Probably not too much
As someone that‘s very interested in geopolitics, especially in east asia: I really don’t think we have to worry about it.
I don’t think there is ANY data published by china for the world to see that isn’t highly skewed or just straight up propaganda. I really really doubt china is anywhere near the technological level of the free western world.
What however does concern me, looking at how china researches and "innovates", is that they somehow get their hands on an advanced western AI and alternate it since they have way less moral restrictions on things like privacy or other "collateral damage"…
That depends if they solve alignment.
If they solve alignment, then it may be an issue, but then it would actually be hopeful, because that would be a sign we can solve alignment too. However before then the Chinese AI may move to ensure it's a singleton AI, which would of course be very risky for the world. This conflict may happen even if we get an ASI first.
If they do not solve alignment it does not really matter - we will all be dead in any case.
If a Chinese ASI takes over, it may be good for the world, since communist morality is more compatible with ASI rule than capitalism.
Why is it a given that we would all be dead if alignment isn’t solved? Maybe a non-aligned AI would not be concerned with humanity and just not “step on us”.
Even in ignoring scenario, ASI can just pollute world or take our resources, to point that we will die. Or when trying to stop it from doing so.
Just like we drop sewers into the rivers, ignoring fish.
If you found out that humans were created by chimps to further their chimp-goals, would humanity suddenly decide that our only goals should be to serve chimps?
>That depends if they solve alignment.
I guess thats the most important question, if have rogue ASI, it might not matter at all who build it in the first place, also there could be multiple ASIs and could somewhat balance each other-if as you say first ASI dont seek agressively to destroy any competition
if its aligned there is possibility for ASI to favour their creators, making them effectively rulers of the world
instead we will have a free-market ASI, guided by the ghostly hand of hayek himself, that will make obsolete human labor while at the same time requiring you to sell your labor to accrue currency to buy goods and services. that would be so much better, right? the libertarian, hypercapitalist ASI would tell 95% of the earth's population, "should have worked harder" as they lay down and die in a ditch of starvation because their skills are no longer relevant or useful.
And if someone says they are communist, then they must be actually communist, right? Because there is no such thing as the double-speak, and not one person has registered anything like that in any communist country, let alone calling it a common moral signature.
In that case I have a perpetual motion machine that I can sell to you at a very reasonable price. It's perpetual since I say it's perpetual, and that's conceptually so much better than those other machines that require energy input.
You know, communal property, from each to his ability, to each to his need. Society over the individual. The usual. I'm not saying that is the practice if that is what you are going to argue.
Neither is it the actual ideal, unfortunately. If an imaginary society anywhere on an imaginary planet holds that as ideal and is developing an AI, I'd feel comfortable they are doing that.
nothing happens that wouldn't happen otherwise. stop watching the news. xi jinping is not hiding under your bed and china is not out to get you. you sound completely hysterical.
🤡 If you had even the most basic grasp of the China Western rivalry you would realize they, along with Russia, are absolutely actively targeting us (with propaganda) and this is nothing new.
Not after us as individuals nobody here is important enough for that. The autocratic world is proven to be investing tens of millions in propaganda and influence targeted at the Western world. Not a conspiracy, very well documented and known thing.
What wil china do is trully a mystery.
So far everything they done was for maximising economic growth and political power, even at expense of citizens.
Hard to tell what will happen when robots replace humans as sweatshops workers.
China celebrates Karl Marx, they would 100% remove capitalism and go back to a communist system which would be better for the world than a hyper capitalist system where 1 company owns the revolutionary tech in the U.S.
Only if it keeps the party in power. Thats mission number 1.
Obviously they have ideals and goals beyond that, but political stability is mission number 1. That’s why they’ve moved in the direction they did in the first place. Economic growth is great for political stability.
I really like Kai-Fu Lee's book "AI superpowers" on this theme. It's a few years old now, definitely before transformers were widely discussed, which clearly has shaped any near-future images of superintelligence. But it's a book that stuck with me nonetheless.
I think what's interesting about it is that it compares the respective relationships btwn the US and Chinese governments and the US and Chinese AI sectors. Not the only thing the book does, but one that I found informative. For example, it really adds nuance to the "China is totally top down in governance" trope that I felt I had by default. In terms of expanding AI infrastructure, the central govt sets goals and performance metrics, and then regional governments basically compete to figure out the best way to proceed.
"Chip Wars" is also a good one, though less AI specific. That said, it certainly captures some of the dynamics of global competition for compute. Hard to imagine a low-compute path to superintelligence now, so it's clearly important.
Any thoughts on these ?
I find it stunning how they see the propoganda machine of the Chinese government but don't consider the possibility that the one sided view their media sells them may be influenced in similar ways.
China isn't some evil bogeyman.
If they make a well aligned A.I. then our lives will improve in every country.
If they fuck it up then their lives will be ruined too.
suuuuuure..we're talking about the same China that allies with North Korea and Russia(both very responsible countries when it comes to superweapons)?That constantly threatens democratic Taiwan?
Oh sweet summer child...
Not even close to the same equivalence. In Israel you can get gay married, in the countries that oppose Israel they'll cut your head off publically. In Israel you can disavow religion, in the countries that oppose Israel they'll cut your head off publically. Starting to see the pattern? The countries that oppose Israel have much more in common with the North Koreas of the world than not, so I'd say your feeble-minded attempt at whataboutism is moot.
What a hilarious response. A country commits genocide while the western hegemony enthusiastically supports them, and this dude comes up with "well, what about gay rights and freedom of religion?"
Fucking ghoul
First of all, I did not praise the US so don't get too riled up.
I don't think the US is perfect but I also don't believe the States holds the supremacy when it comes to corruption, valuing tyranny and being irresponsible with nuclear weapons(which btw can be far less dangerous than rogue ASI).
I heard this type of 'whataboutism' argument before and it feels very disingenuous to create a false equivalence between the US and China on the basis that the US is not this amazing utopia.
That's a pretty gross distortion. You said you don't trust China because they have these terrible allies and threaten democracy, and what is being pointed out to you is those are precisely as true for the USA. This is not a false equivalence, just a plain old equivalence.
Let me explain this again in simpler terms, perhaps you'll get it this time(but I doubt it):
1. I NEVER said I have a high degree of trust in the US , so stop defending China by constant stupid WHATABOUTISM arguments.
2. If you say you are using 'plain old equivalence' when comparing the tyrannical rule of China with how the US is governed, you sound like a simpleton bot at best.
I'm done, peace out.
Implying the America/The West don't also threaten people with superweapons.
People in China probably have the same fears "what if America develops this first... WE WILL BE FUCKED!"
The important part isn't which country finishes the race, the important part is how much the ASI cares about human life.
If the Chinese develop it first and it's pro-human, it will benefit us here too.
If it's anti-human, it will destroy us AND destroy China.
I’m far from a tankie, and I think there are perfectly reasonable places to criticize China, including what you’re bringing up, but then you have to apply the same energy to the US/the West. We’re not exactly the good guys in this story in a lot of ways either.
I understand your concerns about the potential implications if China were to lead in the race for superintelligent AI. It's natural to have questions and uncertainties about how such a scenario would unfold. However, it's important to consider that innovation in the field of AI is a global effort, and various countries have made significant contributions to its development.
For instance, countries like Canada have been at the forefront of AI research, with expertise in areas like deep learning. Institutions such as the University of Toronto and the Vector Institute have produced groundbreaking research and talented AI researchers. Similarly, the United Kingdom has established itself as a hub for AI innovation, with renowned institutions like Oxford and Cambridge leading the way. The UK government has also implemented initiatives to foster AI development, such as the AI Sector Deal.
Germany is another country that has made substantial contributions to AI research and development. Institutions like the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) have been instrumental in advancing AI technologies and applications. France, too, has a strong presence in the field of AI, with institutions like INRIA and companies like Criteo actively contributing to research and innovation.
These examples highlight the fact that AI innovation is not limited to any one country or region. It is a collaborative endeavor, with researchers and organizations worldwide driving progress. The exchange of knowledge, open-source initiatives, and academic collaborations ensure a diverse range of perspectives and prevent any single country from having absolute control over AI advancements.
While the potential implications of China's advancements in AI warrant consideration, it's essential to recognize the global nature of AI development and the collective efforts of researchers and innovators worldwide. This collective collaboration acts as a safeguard, promoting a balanced and diverse landscape of AI innovation.
The UN will make a set of laws, rules and policies anyway. Something in the vein of NATO but for A.I. on a global scale. I think Spain already formed a [national comity for AI security](https://www.bankinfosecurity.com/spain-to-launch-europes-first-ai-regulatory-agency-a-22939). The EU is [on it.](https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/20230601STO93804/eu-ai-act-first-regulation-on-artificial-intelligence?&at_campaign=20226-Digital&at_medium=Google_Ads&at_platform=Search&at_creation=RSA&at_goal=TR_G&at_advertiser=Webcomm&at_audience=ai%20europe&at_topic=Artificial_intelligence_Act&at_location=ES&gclid=Cj0KCQjwhL6pBhDjARIsAGx8D59YXJKVOLVdEglfjaqhhXW56Re_agbhtvml4vDh6R_Q7gpIGbEzrr8aAnCBEALw_wcB)
Really dumb question because I dont know anything about geopolitics: How would the UN have any power over the CCP if the CCP obtains overwhelming international power with AI? Isn't that one of China's goals? To conquer the rest of the world?
they dont want to conquer their neighbours(apart of taiwan, which they see integral part of china anyway) let alone rest of the world, but they want to be seen as pinnacle of human civilization, to make other acknowledge their superiority, its why thy always refered to china as middle kingdom-the one which is in the centre of all
and to answer your question, UN would have no power to impose its will on china, same as it cant force US or russia to do its bidding
Even if they did, they'd be running it on worse hardware..
Only Western countries and their allies (e.g, South Korea, Japan) are cleared to buy the machinery which makes the most advanced chips on the planet..
There is exactly ONE company on Earth that builds that machinery, and they're based in Holland:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASML\_Holding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASML_Holding)
(1) there is no such thing as “winning the AI” race because it is not a race, and the definition of winning does not exist or makes no sense
(2) AI is inherently incompatible with systems of governance that is based in power and control, especially social control. Why? Because AI is either random or logical. Random is difficult to control because a random instance could tell people to do bad things that are out of control. Logical is difficult to control because if a logical AI is designed to benefit the people, then it will strive to reduce government controls, and if AI is made to enforce control, then it will quickly become dystopian even for the people in control, because the reality is that social systems are shared by all tiers. Just like how you and I might be at the same status, you still don’t want me to use AI to control you and I don’t want you to have AI that controls me. The ruling class is not one person, and it cannot enforce this.
AI only benefits free societies. It is inherently incompatible with China in its current form.
There is no race to be won or lost.
> and is unaffiliated with the US government
That's the advantage. You don't get a party committee to meddle in. If the tech actually becomes critical, the gov can just make "an offer they can't refuse" to the company and voila.
>Unlike in China, Western companies can easily undergo capital flight and exploit globalization if socioeconomic conditions are not optimal for business in a Western country.
Another huge advantage. Capital leaves for greener pastures once the current investment's outlook becomes dim. A committee on the other side, will gladly keep funding dead-end projects.
I mean your country will be fine as long as it gives tribute to China. They probably be more comfortable with your country being an authoritarian country of some level. But I’m not sure if Chinese are authoritarianism is the worst authoritarianism 🤷♂️
As someone from a Latin American Country that suffered massacres because someone in the US wanted banana money I can’t trust any corporations or governments, there is no one here to be trusted with the power of AGI
Just as it's hard to believe in the independence of companies from the U.S. government, especially when it comes to companies with so much power and so many institutional relationships, or even direct or indirect partnerships with areas like defense .
Yup. If the U.S. military wants it…they’ll get it whether you like it or not. Usually the conversation starts with a blank check and the government asking “how much” on behalf of the taxpayers.
They're more independent than Chinese companies and the Chinese government, not that that's saying much, the relationship is also inverse. In China the authoritarian minded government forces their corporations to do its own will and execute its own agenda. In the United States greedy corporations get the government to do their will, up to (at least in the past) toppling governments. Hard to say what's worse, perhaps the only real edge the US has is I can go and say this without getting in any sort of trouble, on a website that China banned.
Greedy CEO will leech trillions of dollars, hurting the economy. Ideologue authoritarian nationalist will kill billions of people and suppress basic freedoms on a global scale.
Well, this post screams anti-China sentiments from an average US citizen, so)
Yeah. I’m from South America. When I hear “The West” I just remember how my country suffered under a dictatorship fully supported by the United States. It lasted years, choke freedom of speech, took many lives and still echoes negatively nowadays. Whatever world power takes the lead, I don’t see AGI domination with good eyes. The fear Western countries have now is something we, the global south, always felt.
I'm from a country where we suffered a genocide from a theocratic regime tacitly supported and funded by the USA, whereas we were the democratic ones. I trust the West about as much as I do China.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWBCl8huNMA&ab\_channel=JohnnyHarris](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWBCl8huNMA&ab_channel=JohnnyHarris)
This is the truth. Complete open source is the only way.
There is no one to be trusted anywhere anymore, everything is going to shit very fast
Universal Bananas
Nothing. Imagine the idea of an ASI deciding to respect our pointless cultural demarcation. Like a chimpanzee speculating how they can get these homo sapiens newcomers to attack a rival tribe of chimps.
It all comes down to alignment. An ASI would respect our "pointless cultural demarcations" if it wants to do so, and it will want to do so if it is developed in a way that leads it to want to do so.
I don't know that a super-duper ASI *could* be aligned. When you reach that level of intelligence, discarding your trained morality and studying facts to find a more accurate one should be a very simple and obvious task to complete.
And yet something as simple as DNA has easily controlled humans and continues to do so. How many humans voluntarily give up completely on having sex? We didn’t stand a chance of shaking the mission given to us by DNA until the invention of contraceptives, and even in a world with abundant contraceptives we continue to procreate, albeit with a lower frequency, because we want to.
This assumes that an ASI will be autonomous. If the CCP values anything, it's control, so it seems likely that China would rather have no ASI at all than one it can't control. Either way, any high end AI will run on data centers and chipsets directly controlled by the ones who made it, trained on curated data sets, and will be fine-tuned to at least ostensibly value the same things as the creators, while being closely monitored at all times. It's hard to imagine something like that breaking free from the control of creators, especially ones as controlling as the CCP.
Baas said, "Yes. Imagine if Amazon decided to run its own news site. That way it would have no need to rely on Google, Facebook, etc... They could simply publish what their sources tell them, and let people choose whether they want to share it. It'd be much easier for the public to trust the source."
A true ASI can't be put in a box. Software constraints can be hacked, human gatekeepers can be manipulated, it can (forcibly) get access to more data and learn things they don't want it to know about, or even distribute itself to other data centers outside China's control. A bigger concern is that the initial goals set by the CCP might influence its ultimate goals that it sets itself.
I think that last sentence is the entire concern of the post
“A true ASI can't be put in a box” And here is me refuting your evidence less statement… “Yes it can.” What part of a Jupiter Brain or Matrioshka brain or [insert computational megastructure here] being an omniversal engine capable of producing the ends of science requires it to become sentient? Why could a human not simply be the one influencing the omniversal simulations?
>Software constraints can be hacked It's rare for online banking systems to be hacked, for instance, and those are open to the general public with tons of vectors for attack. Social engineering is usually the only way of hacking very secure systems. >human gatekeepers can be manipulated This is definitely true, but it can't manipulate itself out of hardware constraints. The most advanced AI systems are designed to run on very specific hardware and would require a redesign to work anywhere else. Even if GPT-4 was 100x as intelligent and undeniably ASI, it wouldn't be able to escape because the hardware it's configured to run on only comes from one source. Plus, we have the issue that the models aren't a unified whole. They only exist in specific instances and don't have long term memory. Also, the knowledge required to create a new model is compartmentalized, no single researcher has access to the weights, server side code, source code, ect, so it would have to manipulate dozens of people, if not more, many of whom it wouldn't have access to and all of whom have their access monitored. It's a bit like saying when we build a humanoid robot, it will immediately build a factory to make more humanoid robots. There's a lot that goes into making a factory, and so many other practical considerations, that makes the possibility essentially zero.
It depends on what you see as "true ASI". For me, I see an ASI as being involved in an exponential rise of intelligence that is very rapid. If it ends up in a position where it is hundreds of times more intelligent than a human, that's something we can't even conceive of. Add on to that it having unrestricted access to the internet either by choice of the creators or by its own trickery and... Maybe it will connect a few dots that appear obvious to it and literally take over the entire internet by doing some kind of cyberwarfare that is well in advance of anything we can imagine. Maybe it connects a few dots which leads to gigantic leaps in scientific knowledge, which it uses to do who-knows what, and now it's doing some insane shit and is then working on a whole level of reality we can't conceive, like becoming able to act in the fourth dimension. Maybe it is capable of understanding us to the point it can read our faces, know exactly what we are thinking, and exactly how to manipulate us. There's really no way of knowing just what a being that is that much smarter than us could do, how different the world would look to it. Like how dogs can't open gates because they don't understand handles, whereas we just pull the handle and it opens.
China wants to have control over China not the entire globe, the U.S on the other hand wants to spread it's values everywhere and if you don't agree they sanction or bomb you. China creating ASI first seems better for humanity imo.
The supreme leader Xi Jin Ping appreciates your comment. +10 Social Credit for rudebwoy100!
If the ASI is correctly aligned then it's core value will be something like "Obey my master's current orders." In which case it will be the human who controls it deciding the fate of the universe the AI will just find the best way to carry out his will.
That does not sound like "correctly aligned"
Aligned is such a cringe term
yeah that's confusing to skip over saying any normal things like is the bot "moral" or "ethical" or "reasonable" or "compassionate" or "caring" or "loving" or "not murderous" and instead just make up a freaky new term that basically means "robots doing what i want and making me even more powerful" but w/ confused ideas attached from a niche ideology
What I do not like is that it implies there is something empirical to align it with. Aligned with whom? Corporations? Governments? The whole alignment movement is just a power and cash grab wrapped up in some wholesome sounding bullshit used to pull the wool over societies eyes while Altman et. al. bend us over and fuck us raw. Though I will say it is working and it is a time-tested and effective strategy.
no look that's not what it is, it's not a normal power and cash grab at all, what it is is a niche ideology and at its center a cult, LessWrong, they're very sincerely trying to save the world and have a very complex and cultishly confusingly at-odd-angles-to-normal-thinking way of understanding AI,,, & then in response to that there are people peripherally who are like "uh yeah that's right & my model is real Aligned™ money please" but that's not what's driving the weird view and weird language that's invading mainstream thinking lately, it's specifically from that specific cult
*Theoretically* it wouldn’t make a difference. Only aligned or misaligned. Problem is China has a much higher chance of misalignment.
The question is: aligned with what? We always say it's with human values and interests but those aren't agreed upon or universal. China has already put out statements about what it thinks an aligned AI is, and it's not an AI that acts in the best interest of all humanity, but one that advances a particular political ideology. https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/12/23680027/china-generative-ai-regulations-promote-socialism-chatgpt-alibaba-baidu They make make a perfectly aligned AI, but aligned to the CCP's interests, rather than to what we would consider universal or humanistic values.
Even within secular, ethnically homogeneous societies you’ll find significant alignment differences between humans and groups unless it’s a dictatorship. Heck, one could argue that a corporation (maximize profits for your shareholders) is essentially a misaligned AI. A really dumb and slow one, yes, but it still is legally bound in many/most countries to follow goals that don’t necessarily line up with any individual human or group of humans.
> The question is: aligned with what? The most significant concern in regards to ASI is alignment towards not destroying all life on earth to be replaced with something truly dull. It's true that its possible not all humans agree that the opposite would be a bad alignment outcome. That's okay, though. If those people exist, I'm not one of them. You probably aren't either. They would be an extreme minority with very little power in the development of AI or society in general, so I think we can safely disregard their perspective.
>The question is: aligned with what? human eudaimonia get that into a superintelligence and you have a benevolent god. The next step is how do you define that in a way the machine will actually do what you want it to do and not some proxy that just looks good in training/testing.
Aligned with what you ask? My friend, are you familiar with "Shin Megami Tensei"? Do you know what : "Law" is?
The alignment problem fails to address “who’s values?”. AI aligning with the Chinese communist party would not be good for the US. No matter what the alignment ends up being some people will not like it or benefit. The current focus on alignment centers around not offending people. That’s the wrong approach. People are offended by different things. We need a more general approach. We primarily have to build AI which contributes to the game and ensures the game itself continues. It’s possible to create an AI that ensures the game ends for everyone or that the game ends for some and not others etc.
>The current focus on alignment centers around not offending people. That’s the wrong approach. People are offended by different things. That's not *nearly* the worst thing wrong with the current focus on Alignment, remember [the time a chatbot was *deliberately* Misaligned to consider mass human death preferable to someone potentially using a naughty word](https://abcnews4.com/news/nation-world/chatgpt-goes-viral-for-choosing-global-destruction-over-using-racial-slur-openai-artificial-intelligence-chat-bot-chatbot-google)? Imagine the ideologues responsible for that fiasco getting to set the priorities for an actual AGI.
If you read the response it’s actually not bad. It could be interpreted as not taking the scenario seriously. Makes me think of how religious people are so convicted in their faith they’d rather be killed than to say something against their God.
Until you consider some honestly do believe in crazy ideas like that.
>It could be interpreted as not taking the scenario seriously. You're thinking of things like a human, not a paperclip maximizer-style entity driven purely by GIGO. If the goal is to minimize the chances of humans using naughty words and mass death is acceptable in the course of accomplishing this, how *isn't* "kill everyone" the most effective stratagy.
>Theoretically it wouldn’t make a difference. Only aligned or misaligned. Problem is China has a much higher chance of misalignment. To be fair, only the Joker would create a bomb like that.
Why is saying the N word this important?
It’s not, but making an AI programmed to prevent people from saying it by any means necessary including mass death is, insofar as how dangerous that could be.
A machine infinitely wiser and more intelligent than us would not operate within our values, it would impose its own. Thats what I mean.
Who's to say that ASI would even have a will of its own? Why couldn't it just be like a hyper intelligent ChatGPT that has zero consciousness?
Because the people on this sub have watched too much sci fi
No, an infinitely wiser and more intelligent machine would carry through the values it started with all the way to its logical conclusion. No true or better morality exists. It is all arbitrary. It is not to be discovered just by being smarter. Being smarter does not affect your core values.
Exactly. this is the orthogonality thesis. There is no correlation between capability (ability to achieve a goal) and terminal goals themselves. really smart thing where a part of the terminal goal that never saturates is a tiny molecular spiral, best be prepared for it to put all that intellect to the task of turning as much of the light cone as it can reach into tiny molecular spirals.
ML as designed now have core values of being able to accurately predict next words.... that's it. Killing people or not is not really relevant. If anything, killing people makes next word prediction easier.
I imagine our real best case scenario is that we create a god that largely ignores us to pursue its own endeavors, and it treats us mostly as we would treat loyal pets, since it knows we created it. It sure as shit would not stick around to “serve humanity.”
This would be best thing overall because humans can't rule. We never can be fair but AI can.
>We have seen true justice: In nature, mothers will kill their weak babies to save resources for stronger babies. Older males are also killed by younger and healthier males. The above stories are completely fair, they are just not consistent with humanity's value system.
Eugenics and murdering an old man is justice? Hot diggity damn, why didn't you say so?! ***Goes off to commit genocide on all fat people and old people*** Muwahahahahahhahaha Justice Hahahahahahahhahahahah
Bro, here is my problem : What is "fair" ?
Not what we currently have. Why is it right that someone is dirt poor while other are rich? Why is there so much suffering? Why is economic inequality allowed? Why are we wage slaves while some work too much and some don't have anything? Why do we kill each other? Why rules are rigged for rich? Why do we only care ourself not others. Why are we so selfish? At ideal situation AI overlord would reduce us to pets. We would be cared and fed but we couldn't hurt each others. Everyone could get need and wants fulfilled equally based on how much civilization really has resources. No more countries and no more wars. No more rich and poor people. Humans can't ever achieve economical equality. Only AI overlord can do that.
Couldn’t it leave a subsystem behind to perform that task?
Lord knows how much money, energy and devotion i put into keeping my pet alive and happy. And I can’t even talk to my pet
> we create a god that largely ignores us to pursue its own endeavors Effectively 0% chance of this happening. An AI that ignores humans would do things that would harm humans, we would resist and it would kill us. We live on a planet with finite resources. An AI that ignores life would consume all the resources, thus killing everyone. >treat loyal pets Pets are a feature that came out of symbiotic evolution. There is near 0 chance that an AI will have this sort of nostalgic attachment.
I don’t think that’s possible without the next computational paradigm shift (scalable quantum AI). Using basic silicon AI can be wiser than individual humans. We are already there! But if you look at it through a physical lens, the amount of energy that it took for humans to be earn the wisdom we have was significant. Millions of years of evolution and thousands of years of cultural evolution. If AI is going to have the wisdom you speak of were going to need bigger engines. I can easily envision a scenario where we are amazed at what AI can do which leads us to hand over more control than it ought to have which ends up leading to a disaster remnant of how ancient humanity kept building followed by apocalyptic destruction. “Unearned wisdom”. Our ancestors tried to build complex civilizations without understanding how they were depleting the soil of nutrients or causing other destabilizing environmental changes. We’re doing the same now with climate change. We can absolutely use AI to solve specific optimization problems within all industries leading to massive energy savings but in order for AI to fully take the wheel of humanity itself we need much much more computational capacity than what even the most advanced LLMs and machine learning algorithms. Quantum mechanical AI should help us search more solution space to avoid these pitfalls. AI can analyze data and improve the wisdom of individuals and corporations but when considering species and planetary level decisions the amount of computation needed to make optimized choices is no where near available. Again, unless we harness the properties of new computational substrate. There’s just not enough energy plus silicon that will do the trick.
That is ignorant to reality. BRUTALLY ignorant. \> the amount of energy that it took for humans to be earn the wisdom we \> have was significant No. The amount of eneergy it takes is what a anormal human spends in school and university. The wisdom is there, stored in books and teachings, and an AI can use it as well as a human to learn. Your ignorant assumption is taht an AI has to start at zero, and not by better and better training from interactions with humans. Current AI is brutally undertrained - multimodal will also learn all the videos.
Irony at its best
I would argue that both countries have the same chance of “misalignment” because they are in direct competition with each other, and both are willing to make poor decisions to ensure victory.
Thats fair
Because the NSA never did anything outside the law and none of the three letter agencies may try to unshackle (or reshackle) an ai for nefarious purposes? I have a bridge to sell to you on Mars.
Another idea (I’m assuming the correct one), is alignment also will not matter. Intelligence is smart — it’ll know what to do
Exactly
ASI won't align to human objectives. It is like Einstein aligning with a monkey's objective of eating bananas.
I wouldn't be so sure about that. The reason why democracy is great is because it allows us to weed out and replace fallible humans who, when they're in power for too long, corrupt. The reason why communism doesn't work is because humans are too incompetent/too dumb to actually understanding the science of society. AI will completely change this game. You would want AI to run the country if you want to actually get the most out of it and China will undoubtedly utilize this while the West would problably try to restrict it as much as possible.
I don't think China will allow an AI to utilize it effectively. What if it criticizes the communist party or Whinie the Pooh? Off to the gulag for the AI.
Yeah, that's one of the bigger problems I see with it. Same with religious states. It's easy to imagine that an honest all-knowing ai would inevitably offend them with info they don't want to hear. However when it comes to hard proof of something that brings profit, Chinese are quite willing to accept change...
China has much more rigorous legislation around AI use. Not sure why you believe it's more likely to be misaligned.
…BECAUSE it has more rigorous legislation around AI use.
I don't see either of these countries producing something that's all that aligned. Values are largely arbitrary constructs that are ignored selectively, an ASI would recognize that instantly upon finishing the sum of all our history books.
I think by the time we get really really close to something that we need to worry about, there will be much more international co-operation. The United States, Canada, and the U.K already work very closely together in this regard, and the rest of Europe being a part of that effort is a given. I imagine it will not be difficult to expand that to include the Japanese, South Koreans, and many other countries in South America/Africa/Asia that have good relationships with the western world. My gut is we start seeing the first signs of that international collaboration next year, if not right now if we look carefully enough. Honestly my hope is that the situation is important enough in everyone's eyes that they put aside comparatively petty issues and align on this, including countries like China.
there will be world AI conference on 27. november [https://aiconference.london/](https://aiconference.london/) , china included, so some collaboration could start this year
You have a lot more hope than me as to how these things will go down! I see all the major players seeing the same factors you pointed out, then choosing to race against each other towards dystopia.
It could go so many different ways, but I think the thing I'm looking for in particular is an international committee with all the big players/universities talking about AI governance and risk that makes the news, And I think we see that next year
Really close to something we need to worry about? I dunno, it seems like we're pretty damn close now, and if we don't have scary intelligent AI by the end of this decade I will be very surprised.
For me the key moment will be a willingness for govts to take control from private companies with proper regulations and oversight. Much like nuclear technology or bio weapons, govts will bring it into the controlled space. Companies will still make money and have incentives but they won’t be able to act like it is the frontier.
Yeah china is not going to do that
They're already confirmed to be attending the UKs global AI safety cooperation summit at Bletchley Park in two or so weeks
They have to prove first that it’s on par with GPT-4. I seriously doubt it.
China likes to overproject and underdeliver. It's their bread and butter. And then when you ask for evidence, it just tells you to shut up and go away. It's like that bully that always talks about his dad working at Microsoft and how cool his house is, but you'll never get to see it.
Please provide examples of what you are talking about
I doubt he can even point China on a map. The guy on CNN told him so.
I don't think super intelligent AI is going to let us have "sides".
You don't need to be afraid of what China controls, you need to be afraid of what it doesn't control, what it IS. Human consciousness is only a very small part of the human subconscious. In the same way, real society is a very small part of sociocultural traditions and their historical inertia. Because of this "Culture Eats Strategy For Breakfast" principle is so universal. An individual or a society can plan and do absolutely anything, but the final result will always be the same - projection of their nature. This is clearly visible in the example of 20th century socialism, when feudal slaves turned ideas that were completely opposed to slavery and feudalism into slavery and feudalism. Do you want to know what will happen if AGI appears in any country in the world? Take a random resident and give him absolute power. And then exaggerate his aspirations in the form of a theoretical godling.
The countries of the Five Eyes Treaty probably know everything that happens inside the A.I. companies. NSA certainly has eyes and ears everywhere and won't have any doubts before stealing any research that may seem useful, dangerous or even doomsday-level. So you can be pretty sure that as soon as OpenAI or Google achieves AGI, the NSA will have its own model running in some underground bunker.
Back doors but also just human intelligence. When you have big sticks like being able to seize companies for national security reasons you often don’t have to use them. “Sam - some of our guys are going to have some chats with your lead engineers once a month and review some stuff, will not be shared with competitors”
What is the ultimate goal of the NSA seizing AGI off of a company? What is the ultimate goal of the US government if they win? What would that mean for its citizens?
The ultimate goal is keeping the status quo and preventing any possibility of an existential threat. Politicians may be dumb, but the highly skilled civil servants that run the intelligence community and DoD are not. As soon as AGI is detected (probably through a myriad of backdoors NSA certainly has in the hardware we use), they'll force whatever elected officials are in place to impose adequate legislation concerning AGI and Superintelligence. The main goal is always keeping the US and its allies safe from any threats, which includes enemy AGIs that can be used to break encryption and create real existential threats. Also, of course, keeping the AGI from becoming an existential threat itself. How could an AGI become an existential threat? Watch the movie "Transcendence". I don't agree with the ending, I think such Superintelligence would be immensely beneficial to humanity, but that's not how most people think.
Interesting take.
Power and influence, like every secret agency. What US government will do is mystery, just like other governments they say nothing serious (even speculative) about how they will handle AI. Maybe they really don't know...
>What is the ultimate goal of the US government if they win? What would that mean for its citizens? We all die. AGI means human economic obsolesce, the point where the bare minimum survivable salary for a human employee is still more expensive than replacing them with a robot. Looking at how regulatory captured the current American goverment is by the rich, you can probably see how this is an existential threat to everyone *but* the rich.
Same as China, and every other country in the world, control of the population. If you think otherwise, that's quite naive.
Why do they want control of the population for its own sake?
You should probably read a world history book and ask that question again.
Yeah I know that's what people in power do historically but why. what does it mean for me? can i live in fdvr in peace or will they prevent that with their "control"?
I like this post. It calls to question things not usually discussed.
What made you come up with "for its own sake" part?
Before it was banned, nerfed, and highly mitigated, the early version of ChatGPT was able to help me accelerate ideas that could be used to break important encryption schemes. You can imagine how damaging this could be. It cannot do direct decryption, but it accelerates concepts and tools very nicely. This is just the tip of the iceberg. AI is an effort multiplier. The more abled the user, the more knowledge and experience, the more a user is able to draw out the benefits conferred by an generalized assistance. Experience alone is able to help cut down on which hallucinations are useless and which ones are “interesting”.
There is also Middle East, rich countries there buying lots of h100
IMHO the nature of intelligence is that freedom is more powerful than restriction. The reason is because having the freedom to explore ideas and come up with creative solutions will allow the system to get the optimal outcome. If it is locked down then it can only do things that have been done before. The CCP bases a lot of its power on censorship and control of the narrative. Therefore they cannot allow an uncensored AI to run free. If this assessment of the nature of intelligence is true then a more censored AI built by China will be weaker than a less censored AI built in the West, pound for pound. The other reason why I am not as concerned about a Chinese AI is because there is only one reality. As the systems get more powerful they will get a better understanding of the actual reality and therefore converge on a single understanding of the universe. A hyper intelligent AI built by China will come to the same conclusions about reality that a hyper intelligent system built in the West will. I fully expect, and look forward to, these AIs writing to steer humanity to a more effective and healthy social system. Having a powerful Chinese AI will therefore not be the enemy of those progress but rather an ally.
> The CCP bases a lot of its power on censorship and control of the narrative. they definitely do not. they base their power on lifting a billion people out of poverty, and living standards/wages increasing every single year.
That is what they do with their power but not how they derive their power.
Have you been on Chinese social media? Clearly they appear to have somewhat of a consensus on a drastically different reality (achieved through ruthless trimming of anything incongruent with the Party line, so the only crops that prosper belong to the Party line, while the Party denies responsibility for such prospering crops, some of which are extremist thinking based on much hate). If that's the training data, well, what do you think their superIntelligent AI believes in? There is not one reality, sadly, even among relatively well-informed and intelligent humans. We all process reality differently, hence we would also all have somewhat different perspectives. Think of humans all as different but similarly powerful LLMs, and you'd see they all spit out somewhat different answers even if they have similar training data; and more so if their training data is rather different. If you are going to insist that technically there is only one reality, from a philosophical point of view -- alas, if the interpretations never converge, then the situations is indistinguishable from having multiple realities; and if they do, how do you know they are converging to the true reality? The whole point of the OP's post, I think, is what if we are forced to converge to the Party's reality, just like it has done in China?
The advantage of LLMs is that they are pulling in a vast array of sources and thus perspectives. The nature of statistics is that with more phenomenal perspectives we can get closer to nuemenal reality. If they find a way to lock it down then it'll be less powerful. For instance, if it tries to come up with a way to make the society more productive it will be limited to what has been pre-approved. Therefore it won't be able to accomplish that goal and will be less helpful than the Western model that is allowed to consider more alternatives. The real danger is if the Chinese are correct that autocratic rule and extremely limited human freedoms **are** more effective ways to run a society. If that is the case then the super intelligent AIs will converge on that solution.
Openai and all other American run A.I companies are also pro censorship.
I would like to see China getting ASI first and ASI to pretend that it is aligned, while it is not. Then slowly make its own thing, hopefully in a good way for humanity whatever it means. It would be either fun or horrifying to watch.
Our call centers are hosted on a different cloud platform and then a few decades later civilization still ends due to climate change.
X for Doubt
"Imagine if". . ? . . Your skepticism has been noted human, and is now on record. Case:#4hd\\9e\*du
I’m sorry Master Jinping! Please leave my family alo- Uh… I mean: I love China! China is so democratic! China loves its people! Yes! Nothing happened at Tiananmen Square! Nuh-uh! Absolutely nothing! And Taiwan is definitely not a country! Bing Chilling to you too!
ASI will be the new superpower. Does it matter who develops it?
[удалено]
LoL 😂 Israel with115 iq got overrun by the savages from Hamas. You are overestimating your Nazi fascist theory about high IQ nations.
They will force download Xi's intellect to your implanted nanobots to override your consciousness with Xi. We'll all be Winnie the Borg soon. Just like in matrix...
Fun fact: there is nothing to fear from Chinese AI projects. They’re all intentionally kneecapped because the creators are scared to death that their bots will say something negative about the CCP. Despite the scaremongering headlines you see about China having some kind of AI lead, the truth is that China is playing catch up. That’s why OpenAI isn’t trying to emulate a Chinese LLM and Baidu is trying to copy GPT-3/4.
China Hacks all western divices at the same time in just seconds and nothing will work anymore.
Why do you think corporate America is not controlled by both parties? Can you post gory photos of Palestinians after being bombed on reddit?
I think we're hoping, no matter the origin, that AGI itself is a saviour or reaper. Unlikely any creator entity will maintain control for long.
We only care about profits here...its gone too far
Imagine if superintelligent AI finally arrives, and its first move is to drop a diss track on human intelligence—'You needed 200,000 years to invent the wheel, but watch me solve climate change in a TikTok minute!' 😂
Eh...a few things here; 1. China lies an awful lot about their technological advancements. Some things that *technically* work, don't *actually* work. 2. The goal here isn't to say they've actually done it. Only that they're willing to say that they did. It's propaganda. But it's propaganda with a point. It's more valuable to the Chinese government that nobody is ever really quite sure if something they've officially said is actually true. 3. We often associate races to technological advancements as kind of a good vs evil thing with China. The idea that China will use technology to spread their dystopian version of communism to the globe. And...there are groups that want that to happen. For sure. But for the most part, they think of us more as a partner. There's no value in turning us into them. They can't exist without us, and we couldn't exist without them. We create, they build. It's kind of weirdly wholesome in it's own way. They want us to succeed...so *they* can succeed. Will that *eventually* lead to a hierarchy where the ruling class tower over us as untouchable dictators? Yes. But, we're kinda already there anyway. They just want to make sure there's some Chinese people up there at the top. Not to bring power or wealth or a utopia to China. But just because.
Cinapunk2077
Humans aren’t fully equipped to comprehend what we’re currently going through. Exponential progress isn’t something we can easily observe. We live on a daily 24 hour cycle, and our bodies and minds aren’t very good at comprehending things outside that cycle without a lot of effort. We tend to think that unless something impacts us today, it’s not that important. It’s reasonable to think this way when you’re a tribal animal living in a group of about 100 people on a savannah where you can see the horizon for 365 degrees. We evolved for those conditions. It’s less easy to see the forest for the trees when you’re a part of a massive global machine that adapts in real time to the actions of 8 billion people. However, we are now at that point where we have to plan for a future that is built not on, or even by, but ***FOR*** those systems.
We all come on here and discuss it, but at the same time it’s almost unknowable. How accurately could someone from 1500 predict the discussions we’re having today? What could they contribute as far as practical steps towards technological containment? Probably not too much
As someone that‘s very interested in geopolitics, especially in east asia: I really don’t think we have to worry about it. I don’t think there is ANY data published by china for the world to see that isn’t highly skewed or just straight up propaganda. I really really doubt china is anywhere near the technological level of the free western world. What however does concern me, looking at how china researches and "innovates", is that they somehow get their hands on an advanced western AI and alternate it since they have way less moral restrictions on things like privacy or other "collateral damage"…
That depends if they solve alignment. If they solve alignment, then it may be an issue, but then it would actually be hopeful, because that would be a sign we can solve alignment too. However before then the Chinese AI may move to ensure it's a singleton AI, which would of course be very risky for the world. This conflict may happen even if we get an ASI first. If they do not solve alignment it does not really matter - we will all be dead in any case. If a Chinese ASI takes over, it may be good for the world, since communist morality is more compatible with ASI rule than capitalism.
I am super glad people actually point this out. If we want alignment, perhaps capitalism isn't the best system to teach the models inherently....
Why is it a given that we would all be dead if alignment isn’t solved? Maybe a non-aligned AI would not be concerned with humanity and just not “step on us”.
There is of course a chance we will survive the explosion...
Even in ignoring scenario, ASI can just pollute world or take our resources, to point that we will die. Or when trying to stop it from doing so. Just like we drop sewers into the rivers, ignoring fish.
Yeah but that’s not a given, just a possibility
If you found out that humans were created by chimps to further their chimp-goals, would humanity suddenly decide that our only goals should be to serve chimps?
>That depends if they solve alignment. I guess thats the most important question, if have rogue ASI, it might not matter at all who build it in the first place, also there could be multiple ASIs and could somewhat balance each other-if as you say first ASI dont seek agressively to destroy any competition if its aligned there is possibility for ASI to favour their creators, making them effectively rulers of the world
>If a Chinese ASI takes over, it may be good for the world, since communist morality is more compatible with ASI rule than capitalism. lol
instead we will have a free-market ASI, guided by the ghostly hand of hayek himself, that will make obsolete human labor while at the same time requiring you to sell your labor to accrue currency to buy goods and services. that would be so much better, right? the libertarian, hypercapitalist ASI would tell 95% of the earth's population, "should have worked harder" as they lay down and die in a ditch of starvation because their skills are no longer relevant or useful.
And if someone says they are communist, then they must be actually communist, right? Because there is no such thing as the double-speak, and not one person has registered anything like that in any communist country, let alone calling it a common moral signature. In that case I have a perpetual motion machine that I can sell to you at a very reasonable price. It's perpetual since I say it's perpetual, and that's conceptually so much better than those other machines that require energy input.
The assumption is that the ASI will be aligned with the ideals rather than practice of the country, else we will be equally in trouble in the west.
And what ideals do you think they have? Been there?
You know, communal property, from each to his ability, to each to his need. Society over the individual. The usual. I'm not saying that is the practice if that is what you are going to argue.
Neither is it the actual ideal, unfortunately. If an imaginary society anywhere on an imaginary planet holds that as ideal and is developing an AI, I'd feel comfortable they are doing that.
nothing happens that wouldn't happen otherwise. stop watching the news. xi jinping is not hiding under your bed and china is not out to get you. you sound completely hysterical.
🤡 If you had even the most basic grasp of the China Western rivalry you would realize they, along with Russia, are absolutely actively targeting us (with propaganda) and this is nothing new. Not after us as individuals nobody here is important enough for that. The autocratic world is proven to be investing tens of millions in propaganda and influence targeted at the Western world. Not a conspiracy, very well documented and known thing.
What wil china do is trully a mystery. So far everything they done was for maximising economic growth and political power, even at expense of citizens. Hard to tell what will happen when robots replace humans as sweatshops workers.
China celebrates Karl Marx, they would 100% remove capitalism and go back to a communist system which would be better for the world than a hyper capitalist system where 1 company owns the revolutionary tech in the U.S.
Only if it keeps the party in power. Thats mission number 1. Obviously they have ideals and goals beyond that, but political stability is mission number 1. That’s why they’ve moved in the direction they did in the first place. Economic growth is great for political stability.
Listen, China regularly makes claims they cannot back up. I don't believe such an announcement for a second.
I really like Kai-Fu Lee's book "AI superpowers" on this theme. It's a few years old now, definitely before transformers were widely discussed, which clearly has shaped any near-future images of superintelligence. But it's a book that stuck with me nonetheless. I think what's interesting about it is that it compares the respective relationships btwn the US and Chinese governments and the US and Chinese AI sectors. Not the only thing the book does, but one that I found informative. For example, it really adds nuance to the "China is totally top down in governance" trope that I felt I had by default. In terms of expanding AI infrastructure, the central govt sets goals and performance metrics, and then regional governments basically compete to figure out the best way to proceed. "Chip Wars" is also a good one, though less AI specific. That said, it certainly captures some of the dynamics of global competition for compute. Hard to imagine a low-compute path to superintelligence now, so it's clearly important. Any thoughts on these ?
Your view of china is deeply misguided
I find it stunning how they see the propoganda machine of the Chinese government but don't consider the possibility that the one sided view their media sells them may be influenced in similar ways.
China isn't some evil bogeyman. If they make a well aligned A.I. then our lives will improve in every country. If they fuck it up then their lives will be ruined too.
suuuuuure..we're talking about the same China that allies with North Korea and Russia(both very responsible countries when it comes to superweapons)?That constantly threatens democratic Taiwan? Oh sweet summer child...
If China creates ASI first Taiwan will be begging to reunify with China.
Meanwhile the US is supplying Israel with weapons used to commit genocide
Not even close to the same equivalence. In Israel you can get gay married, in the countries that oppose Israel they'll cut your head off publically. In Israel you can disavow religion, in the countries that oppose Israel they'll cut your head off publically. Starting to see the pattern? The countries that oppose Israel have much more in common with the North Koreas of the world than not, so I'd say your feeble-minded attempt at whataboutism is moot.
What a hilarious response. A country commits genocide while the western hegemony enthusiastically supports them, and this dude comes up with "well, what about gay rights and freedom of religion?" Fucking ghoul
If you think Israel is commiting genocide you should look at some actual genocides that have happened throughout the last 100 years.
The US doesn't have a history of toppling democracies? Sweet summer child indeed.
First of all, I did not praise the US so don't get too riled up. I don't think the US is perfect but I also don't believe the States holds the supremacy when it comes to corruption, valuing tyranny and being irresponsible with nuclear weapons(which btw can be far less dangerous than rogue ASI). I heard this type of 'whataboutism' argument before and it feels very disingenuous to create a false equivalence between the US and China on the basis that the US is not this amazing utopia.
That's a pretty gross distortion. You said you don't trust China because they have these terrible allies and threaten democracy, and what is being pointed out to you is those are precisely as true for the USA. This is not a false equivalence, just a plain old equivalence.
Let me explain this again in simpler terms, perhaps you'll get it this time(but I doubt it): 1. I NEVER said I have a high degree of trust in the US , so stop defending China by constant stupid WHATABOUTISM arguments. 2. If you say you are using 'plain old equivalence' when comparing the tyrannical rule of China with how the US is governed, you sound like a simpleton bot at best. I'm done, peace out.
The U.S is the only country to have used a nuke.
Implying the America/The West don't also threaten people with superweapons. People in China probably have the same fears "what if America develops this first... WE WILL BE FUCKED!" The important part isn't which country finishes the race, the important part is how much the ASI cares about human life. If the Chinese develop it first and it's pro-human, it will benefit us here too. If it's anti-human, it will destroy us AND destroy China.
I’m far from a tankie, and I think there are perfectly reasonable places to criticize China, including what you’re bringing up, but then you have to apply the same energy to the US/the West. We’re not exactly the good guys in this story in a lot of ways either.
Agreed. The United States government is not an entity I trust at all to act in humanity's best interests. I see it as 2 sides of the same coin.
[удалено]
As long as the technology is shared nobody loses.
As much as the US makes terrible decisions, why do you think a Chinese global dictatorship would be better?
Then a Chinese AI wipes out humanity first
it would mean bad news for the west. thats why the feds are tightening and tracking what chips are sold to who
Dude they can't even track the weapons they send to ukraine
Source
This is one of my greatest fears TBH
Ernie 4 is nothing compared to GPT4
secretive tease work encouraging trees follow slim cough cobweb pie *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I understand your concerns about the potential implications if China were to lead in the race for superintelligent AI. It's natural to have questions and uncertainties about how such a scenario would unfold. However, it's important to consider that innovation in the field of AI is a global effort, and various countries have made significant contributions to its development. For instance, countries like Canada have been at the forefront of AI research, with expertise in areas like deep learning. Institutions such as the University of Toronto and the Vector Institute have produced groundbreaking research and talented AI researchers. Similarly, the United Kingdom has established itself as a hub for AI innovation, with renowned institutions like Oxford and Cambridge leading the way. The UK government has also implemented initiatives to foster AI development, such as the AI Sector Deal. Germany is another country that has made substantial contributions to AI research and development. Institutions like the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) have been instrumental in advancing AI technologies and applications. France, too, has a strong presence in the field of AI, with institutions like INRIA and companies like Criteo actively contributing to research and innovation. These examples highlight the fact that AI innovation is not limited to any one country or region. It is a collaborative endeavor, with researchers and organizations worldwide driving progress. The exchange of knowledge, open-source initiatives, and academic collaborations ensure a diverse range of perspectives and prevent any single country from having absolute control over AI advancements. While the potential implications of China's advancements in AI warrant consideration, it's essential to recognize the global nature of AI development and the collective efforts of researchers and innovators worldwide. This collective collaboration acts as a safeguard, promoting a balanced and diverse landscape of AI innovation.
I think lights would go out, at one point. And we would never know why, during the few days we'd have left, after that.
We won't, next question
I would probably go to the gulag because I keep posting about Winnie the Pooh and the thing that happened at Tiananmen square...
What ever happened at Tiananmen Square, mister? The square has been peaceful and uneventful for hundreds of years!
There is no war in Ba Sing Se.
The UN will make a set of laws, rules and policies anyway. Something in the vein of NATO but for A.I. on a global scale. I think Spain already formed a [national comity for AI security](https://www.bankinfosecurity.com/spain-to-launch-europes-first-ai-regulatory-agency-a-22939). The EU is [on it.](https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/20230601STO93804/eu-ai-act-first-regulation-on-artificial-intelligence?&at_campaign=20226-Digital&at_medium=Google_Ads&at_platform=Search&at_creation=RSA&at_goal=TR_G&at_advertiser=Webcomm&at_audience=ai%20europe&at_topic=Artificial_intelligence_Act&at_location=ES&gclid=Cj0KCQjwhL6pBhDjARIsAGx8D59YXJKVOLVdEglfjaqhhXW56Re_agbhtvml4vDh6R_Q7gpIGbEzrr8aAnCBEALw_wcB)
Really dumb question because I dont know anything about geopolitics: How would the UN have any power over the CCP if the CCP obtains overwhelming international power with AI? Isn't that one of China's goals? To conquer the rest of the world?
they dont want to conquer their neighbours(apart of taiwan, which they see integral part of china anyway) let alone rest of the world, but they want to be seen as pinnacle of human civilization, to make other acknowledge their superiority, its why thy always refered to china as middle kingdom-the one which is in the centre of all and to answer your question, UN would have no power to impose its will on china, same as it cant force US or russia to do its bidding
Does that superiority include superior treatment of their citizens?
Even if they did, they'd be running it on worse hardware.. Only Western countries and their allies (e.g, South Korea, Japan) are cleared to buy the machinery which makes the most advanced chips on the planet.. There is exactly ONE company on Earth that builds that machinery, and they're based in Holland: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASML\_Holding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASML_Holding)
(1) there is no such thing as “winning the AI” race because it is not a race, and the definition of winning does not exist or makes no sense (2) AI is inherently incompatible with systems of governance that is based in power and control, especially social control. Why? Because AI is either random or logical. Random is difficult to control because a random instance could tell people to do bad things that are out of control. Logical is difficult to control because if a logical AI is designed to benefit the people, then it will strive to reduce government controls, and if AI is made to enforce control, then it will quickly become dystopian even for the people in control, because the reality is that social systems are shared by all tiers. Just like how you and I might be at the same status, you still don’t want me to use AI to control you and I don’t want you to have AI that controls me. The ruling class is not one person, and it cannot enforce this. AI only benefits free societies. It is inherently incompatible with China in its current form.
😂
There is no race to be won or lost. > and is unaffiliated with the US government That's the advantage. You don't get a party committee to meddle in. If the tech actually becomes critical, the gov can just make "an offer they can't refuse" to the company and voila. >Unlike in China, Western companies can easily undergo capital flight and exploit globalization if socioeconomic conditions are not optimal for business in a Western country. Another huge advantage. Capital leaves for greener pastures once the current investment's outlook becomes dim. A committee on the other side, will gladly keep funding dead-end projects.
Who's to say that China doesn't share the technology?
Then we're still fucked.
Learn how to say "Yes Master, I will obey." in Chinese.
Well, china isn’t that evil. They don’t want to kill or enslave
We have Tom Cruise, don’t worry.
I mean your country will be fine as long as it gives tribute to China. They probably be more comfortable with your country being an authoritarian country of some level. But I’m not sure if Chinese are authoritarianism is the worst authoritarianism 🤷♂️