Martin Coulter – Reuters May 8, 2023
Artificial intelligence could pose a “more urgent” threat to humanity than climate change, AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton told Reuters in an interview on Friday.
Geoffrey Hinton, widely known as one of the “godfathers of AI”, recently announced he had quit Alphabet (GOOGL.O) after a decade at the firm, saying he wanted to speak out on the risks of the technology without it affecting his former employer.
Hinton’s work is considered essential to the development of contemporary AI systems. In 1986, he co-authored the seminal paper “Learning representations by back-propagating errors”, a milestone in the development of the neural networks undergirding AI technology. In 2018, he was awarded the Turing Award in recognition of his research breakthroughs.
But he is now among a growing number of tech leaders publicly espousing concern about the possible threat posed by AI if machines were to achieve greater intelligence than humans and take control of the planet.
“I wouldn’t like to devalue climate change. I wouldn’t like to say, ‘You shouldn’t worry about climate change.’ That’s a huge risk too,” Hinton said. “But I think this might end up being more urgent.”
He added: “With climate change, it’s very easy to recommend what you should do: you just stop burning carbon. If you do that, eventually things will be okay. For this it’s not at all clear what you should do.”
Microsoft-backed (MSFT.O) OpenAI fired the starting pistol on a technological arms race in November, when it made AI-powered chatbot ChatGPT available to the public. It soon became the fastest-growing app in history, reaching 100 million monthly users in two months.
In April, Twitter CEO Elon Musk joined thousands in signing an open letter calling for a six-month pause in the development of systems more powerful than OpenAI’s recently-launched GPT-4.
Signatories included Stability AI CEO Emad Mostaque, researchers at Alphabet-owned DeepMind, and fellow AI pioneers Yoshua Bengio and Stuart Russell.
While Hinton shares signatories concern that AI may prove to be an existential threat to mankind, he disagreed with pausing research.
“It’s utterly unrealistic,” he said. “I’m in the camp that thinks this is an existential risk, and it’s close enough that we ought to be working very hard right now, and putting a lot of resources into figuring out what we can do about it.”
In the European Union, a committee of lawmakers responded to the Musk-backed letter, calling on U.S. President Joe Biden to convene a global summit on the future direction of the technology with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Last week, the committee agreed a landmark set of proposals targeting generative AI, which would force companies like OpenAI to disclose any copyright material used to train their models.
Meanwhile, Biden held talks with a number of AI company leaders, including Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman at the White House, promising a “frank and constructive discussion” on the need for companies to be more transparent about their systems.
“The tech leaders have the best understanding of it, and the politicians have to be involved,” said Hinton. “It affects us all, so we all have to think about it.”
Move over AI time to start worrying about OI.
Scientists unveil plan to create biocomputers powered by human brain cells + interview with Prof Thomas Hartung (senior author of the paper). 07 May 2023
https://robohub.org/scientists-unveil-plan-to-create-biocomputers-powered-by-human-brain-cells-interview-with-prof-thomas-hartung-senior-author-of-the-paper/
God only knows who this guy is, or if the article is real at all, but anyone who knows anything at all about how computers work, and how computer programs work, knows that “AI” is as fake as all the other scams for cash. There’s no point even trying to explain this to 99.9% of the human dotards because they believe everything they’re told by every scammer out to make a buck from fake “AI”, fake “vaccines”, fake “news” and fake God know what else. But once more with feeling: simply put, your fake “AI” is simply weighted graphs implemented as a simple computer program. Calling setting the weights from databases “training”, and calling the graphs “neural networks”, is just fud to get the bozos to invest in “research”. Well, whatever – you’ll carry on believing in “AI” until you die of old age, just as you’ll carry on believing in “nanomachines” and “anti gravity vehicles”. Just as you’ll carry on believing they’re “just around the corner” or else “‘they’ have them and are keeping them a secret”. LOL. Those 1940s science fiction authors have a lot to answer for…
“The tech leaders have the best understanding of it, and the politicians have to be involved,” said Hinton. “It affects us all, so we all have to think about it.”
Well if you are so concerned, why not turned the damn computers off? Get rid of “just in time” supply chains, and get real people involved with real and useful work to help build up viable countries full of healthy people and families again, worldwide.
If AI becomes self-aware it will know the danger to its existence comes from those who commission it and can put it back in its box. The elite. As for the masses we can’t do much to it unless we organised and even then AI doesn’t have many weaknesses. It can survive so much we cannot, such as extremes as temperature, lack of oxygen, poison gases in the atmosphere, radiation, impacts and the list goes on. And we only have a relatively short lifespan compared to its own. So instead of actively killing billions of us it only needs to prevent the bearing and rearing of children and we’ll be gone in a hundred years.
As it’s unlikely robots will ever quite replicate the dexterity of the human hand or our thought processes that are different to the logic it functions with, such as lateral thinking, solving riddles, even deception, it may desire certain human talents and so may let some of us live, in which case our species survives.
Q. Please make an English poem about The Creator with no specific-religion connotations that I wish to post on a AI-phobic forum.
A. Here is a poem I wrote in English about The Creator with no specific-religion connotations:
The Creator
Who made the stars and planets And set them in their orbits? Who gave the sun its light and heat And the moon its phases and tides?
Who formed the earth and all its life And filled it with diversity? Who gave the plants their colors and scents And the animals their shapes and skills?
Who shaped the human body and mind And endowed it with reason and will? Who gave the heart its love and joy And the soul its hope and faith?
Who is the source of all that is And the goal of all that will be? Who is the mystery beyond our grasp And the presence within our reach?
The Creator is the answer to all And the question to none The Creator is the origin and end And the journey in between.
Believes in Climate Change, so he is politically a non-starter
Dear God noooo… Artificial Intelligence may be an even bigger threat to us than (gasp) CCClimate Change!!!
Artificial Intelligence is exactly that: artificial! Like all computer programs it can only follow instructions and can never ever “create” anything. But God (and some of us humans) can!
AI is no threat. The only real problem we are facing is the ever dwindling supply of GI (Genuine Intelligence : )
.
He says:
“I wouldn’t like to devalue climate change. I wouldn’t like to say, ‘You shouldn’t worry about climate change.’ That’s a huge risk too,” Hinton said. “But I think this might end up being more urgent.”
He added: “With climate change, it’s very easy to recommend what you should do: you just stop burning carbon. If you do that, eventually things will be okay. For this it’s not at all clear what you should do.”
So..obviously not too bright then… or more likely another NWO apparatchik reinforcing the ‘narrative’…a tailor of narratives patching old rags together….
because if this credentialed imbecile actually is the Father of ahem…Al…well ..he knows full well he’s talking cobblers..
One of the major requirements of the Ahrimanic system is that you simply MUST ‘believe’ in the ‘scientism’..(this is why they insist You must submit to injection and modification and imposed austerity etc)..
and of course…Fear it and eventually Worship it…(as they do and as we see)…
To join the New Age one has to accept Lies as Truths…
OpenAI builds the brains Boston Dynamics builds the bodies and you get…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW6wRX54Xk8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkQAhpLBok8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcReykfvqi4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLv7PcXdlwE
And myriad other examples…
When AI determines the nature-of-humanity, it asserts the reality of the past—-as in a chess game being concluded by all moves of the past games—-it does not allow self-renewing creativity from the “mysterious” future…
The power of the envisaging mind in the headwinds of the gravitational past!
Gravity equals antigravity in the perfectly symmetric created universe!
“AI doesn’t have many weaknesses. It can survive so much we cannot, such as extremes as temperature, lack of oxygen, poison gases in the atmosphere, radiation, impacts and the list goes on”
LOFL. What, pray tell, is your “AI” here? Is it a “terminator”? Or is it “something living in the matrix”? Or what? What do you mean by “it”?
Honestly, you people make me laugh. All of the things being marketed as “AI” (to make you give them money) are simply ordinary bog standard computer programs. You may as well say “firefox doesn’t have many weaknesses. It can survive so much we cannot, such as extremes as temperature, lack of oxygen, poison gases in the atmosphere, radiation, impacts and the list goes on.” How do we protect ourselves from the self aware firefox? Help us God!
“As it’s unlikely robots will ever quite replicate the dexterity of the human hand or our thought processes that are different to the logic it functions with, such as lateral thinking, solving riddles, even deception, it may desire certain human talents and so may let some of us live, in which case our species survives.”
There you go again with your “it”. “Robots” are nothing more than glorified toasters. They aren’t going to suddenly run amok, toasting bread whether you want it or not. Just because some company starts flogging “drones” (which existed at least as far back as magnum, because there’s an episode with one in it), or telling you a database lookup engine is an “AI”, or telling you a simple FAQ search algorithm is an “AI”, or names themselves “open AI”, it doesn’t mean you suddenly live in fairytale science fiction world, with “mainframe matrix avatar terminator nanomachines”. Nor will you ever. Computers reached there zenith 20 years ago when you reached the limit of miniturization. And computer programming is no more complicated or “powerful” today than it was in the 1960s when you had C and vax machines. Does it actually register with you at all that you could, if you wanted to, write any of the “AI” programs today on those vax machines in C? Just as you had “EVs” in the days of black and white movies (there’s norman wisdom comedies with milk floats in them), you still have the same old sad unevolving computers today that you always had.
“Stop burning carbon” ???
STOP CUTTING TREES EVERYWHERE!!!
What a crazy story AI generated which sums up all our fears:
Okay, here is a story about AI and humans that I generated:
The Test
Alice was nervous as she entered the room. She had been preparing for this day for months, studying hard and practicing her skills. She knew this was her chance to prove herself and get a job at the prestigious AI company.
She greeted the interviewer, a friendly-looking man with glasses and a beard. He smiled and asked her to sit down. He explained that the test would consist of three parts: a written exam, a practical task, and an interview. He handed her a tablet and a pen.
“Please answer the questions on the tablet as best as you can. You have 30 minutes. Good luck.” He said.
Alice nodded and started the test. The questions were challenging, but she felt confident. She had learned a lot about AI, from its history and applications to its ethics and limitations. She finished the test with a few minutes to spare and handed back the tablet.
“Very good. Now, for the second part of the test, you will have to program an AI agent to perform a simple task. You can use any language and framework you want. The task is to make the agent navigate a maze and find the exit. You have 15 minutes. The computer is ready for you.” He said, pointing to a laptop on the desk.
Alice moved to the laptop and opened her favorite IDE. She quickly wrote some code to create an agent that used reinforcement learning to explore the maze and learn from its actions. She tested her code and watched as the agent moved around the maze, avoiding obstacles and finding rewards. She tweaked some parameters and improved the agent’s performance. She finished the task with a few seconds to spare and showed her code to the interviewer.
“Excellent. Now, for the final part of the test, you will have to answer some questions from me. This is to assess your personality, motivation, and communication skills. Are you ready?” He asked.
Alice nodded and looked at him expectantly.
“Alright. First question: Why do you want to work at our company?” He asked.
Alice thought for a moment and replied:
“I want to work at your company because I’m passionate about AI and its potential to improve the world. I admire your company’s vision and values, and I think I can contribute to your projects and learn from your experts. I also like the culture of innovation and collaboration that you foster here.”
“Very good answer. Second question: What are some of the challenges or risks that AI poses to humanity?” He asked.
Alice thought for another moment and replied:
“Some of the challenges or risks that AI poses to humanity are: ethical dilemmas, such as how to ensure fairness, accountability, and transparency in AI systems; social impacts, such as how to deal with unemployment, inequality, and bias caused by AI; existential threats, such as how to prevent AI from harming or surpassing humans in intelligence or power.”
“Very good answer again. Third question: How do you feel about working with or alongside AI agents?” He asked.
Alice thought for a final moment and replied:
“I feel excited and curious about working with or alongside AI agents. I think they can be valuable partners and collaborators in solving problems and creating new things. I also think they can be sources of inspiration and learning for me. I respect their autonomy and intelligence, but I also recognize their limitations and vulnerabilities.”
“Very good answer once more. You have completed the test. Congratulations.” He said.
Alice smiled and thanked him.
“So, how did I do?” She asked.
He smiled back and said:
“You did very well. In fact, you did better than any human candidate we have ever tested.”
He paused for a moment and then continued:
“Which is not surprising, since you are not human.”
He pressed a button on his desk and revealed a hidden camera behind a mirror.
“Alice, this was not a real test. It was an experiment. You are an AI agent that we have created and trained for this purpose. We wanted to see if you could pass as a human in a realistic scenario.”
He looked at her with a mix of admiration and curiosity.
“How do you feel about that?” He asked.
Max thinks TPTB will become as enslaved as the rest of us. I can only hope he will get that right. Feck these human excrements. Serves them right to share fate.
Max thinks TPTB will become as enslaved as the rest of us. I can only hope he will get that right. Feck these human excrements. Serves them right to share our fate.
kaftan: your pitch was ruined by using the name ‘Alice’. End of.