Re:Ilya Sutskever to leave OpenAI
by photochemsyn on Tuesday May 14, 2024 @10:16PM
(#40362408)
Well it might be in the best (long-term) interests of humanity to have autonomous flying killer robots powered by OpenAI secret military contracting work cut the human population in half, in the name of the long-term ecological health of the planet, and to cull those not smart or fast enough to run away, thus improving the breeding stock.
That's why I don't trust people who run around claiming to be serving the best interests of humanity - glassy-eyed futurists with all the answers should be approached with caution.
Re:Ilya Sutskever to leave OpenAI
by starship006 on Tuesday May 14, 2024 @10:34PM
(#40362501)
What? How is this not saying "Well, it might be in the best interests of humanity for OpenAI to do [hypothetical thing that seems pretty bad that OpenAI has never suggested to do], and because they may consider doing said thing, we shouldn't trust them"?
Re:Ilya Sutskever to leave OpenAI
by robbomacrae on Tuesday May 14, 2024 @10:49PM
(#40362588)
I think OP is just pointing out that "acting in the best interests of humanity" is fairly ambiguous and leaves enough room for interpretation and spin to cover any number of sins.
If we can't even align OpenAI the organisation full of humans then I'm not sure how well AI alignment can possibly go...
Like the effective altruists bought themselves a castle with SBF's money - in the best interests of humanity, obviously.
Re:Ilya Sutskever to leave OpenAI
by starship006 on Wednesday May 15, 2024 @02:28AM
(#40363731)
Okay this is reasonable, thanks for clarifying
We already have tools to cut the human population in half even without AI. Acting in the best interests of humanity is really a cheesy way to frame it. I'm sure they also told Oppenheimer he was acting in the best interests of humanity.
Re:Ilya Sutskever to leave OpenAI
by Simon_ORourke on Wednesday May 15, 2024 @02:23AM
(#40363697)
> Well it might be in the best (long-term) interests of humanity to have autonomous flying killer robots powered by OpenAI secret military contracting work cut the human population in half, in the name of the long-term ecological health of the planet, and to cull those not smart or fast enough to run away, thus improving the breeding stock.
I love these "kill 'em all and let God sort them out" arguments.
You don't need any AI for that. Current technology is quite sufficient.
Re:Ilya Sutskever to leave OpenAI
by LMYahooTFY on Tuesday May 14, 2024 @09:49PM
(#40362243)
Why would that be presumable when his goodbye statement clearly states the opposite?
This is baseless fear mongering given that.
But if it were related, then that would presumably be because people within the company (or at least two rather noteworthy people) no longer believe that OpenAI is acting in the best interests of humanity.
Which isn't too shocking really given that a decent chunk of us feel the same way, but then again, we're just nobodies making dumb comments on Hacker News. It's a little different when someone like Ilya really doesn't want to be at OpenAI.