alt Hacker NewsA lot of the magic of LLMs, I think, has been tarnished by these CEOs and other FAANG companies. It might have been a far more interesting world if they didn't bring "AI" or "AGI" into the conversation in such a politicized way.
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It'd be nice if they didn't use the term at all because I don't think they're useful relevant or real.
If we thought of all of this as 'stochastic data systems' then our heads would be in the right place as we thought about it just as 'powerful software' that can be used for good or bad purposes, and the negative externalizes will be derived from our use of it, not some inherent property.
It’s the inevitable result of valuations based on hype and future potential, not business fundamentals. It incentivizes companies to be as hyperbolic as possible with their pitches and marketing.
Cryptocurrency is an interesting technology with some niche use cases, but it was pitched as replacing the entire money system. LLMs are extremely useful for certain types of work, but are pitched as AGI ending all work. Etc.
Magic or no, ultimately "AI" leads to labour displacement and it's just a continuation of the much broader trend of automation driven by computers.
Labour displacement leads to an erosion of standards of living and in a world that ties purpose to work is an existential threat on a very practical level.
It was always going to be met with violence once it became more than a curiosity for tinkerers.
Unfortunately, this is the only way to get enough venture capital to support the compute needs for this kind of technology. Who is going to spend hundreds on billions on a vague idea without regular claims that this will upend the existing economy in six to twelve months and whoever owns it will become unfathomably rich? And despite all the actual developments we have seen going against that idea, investors keep falling for it. This will continue until it crashes, one way or another. The question is how long it can build up and how deep the fall will be. LLMs will certainly change the economy in the end, but so did mortgage backed securities.
Were you around for the first release of GPT? It was not the CEOs that were kvetching about being paperclipped by AGI
I don't want to stir up the hornet's nest here, but in my humble opinion the entire problem rests on the unabated and unchecked modern and "late-stage" capitalism model, championed by the U.S. and since exported to and sprung good root everywhere else, even in Europe where it as of yet has a few more checks and balances (which unsurprisingly draws a lot of ire from its acolytes and priests across the Atlantic).
Soviet Union lost due to an inferior societal model, but this too is too much along what once was a relatively sustainable path. The American dream is now a parody of itself, as it takes more to end up with the rest of them, I could go on about the irony of wanting to escape the pit but not wanting to acknowledge the pit is the 99% of the U.S. -- Not Altmans, Bezos'es, Musks or Trumps or their hordes of peripheral elites.
Point being, the model doesn't work _today_ with its cancerous appetite and correspondingly absurd neglect of the human, _any_ human. We can't have humanism and the kind of AI we're about to "enjoy".
The acceleration of wealth disparity may prove to be nearly geometrical, as the common man is further stripped of any capacity to inflict change on the "system". I hope I am wrong, but for all their crimes, anarchy and in a twist of irony -- inhumane treatment of opponent -- the October revolutionaries in Russia, yes bolsheviks, were merely a natural response to a similar atmosphere in Russia at the turn of the previous century. It's just that they didn't have mass surveillance used against them in the same capacity our gadgets allow the "governments" today, nor were they aided by AI which is _also_ something that can be used against an entire slice of populace (a perfect application of general principles put in action). So although the situation may become similar, we're increasingly in no position to change it. The difference may be counted in _generations_, as in it will take multiple generations to dismantle the power structures we allow be put in place now, with Altmans etc. These people may not be evil, but history proves they only have to be short-sighted enough for evil to take root and thrive.
Sorry for the wall of text, but I do agree with the point of the blog post in a way -- demanding people become civilised and refrain from throwing eggs (or Molotovs) on celebrities that are about to swing _entire governments_, is not seeing the forest for the trees.
There's also no precedent in a way -- our historical cataclysms we have created ourselves, have been on a smaller scale, so we're spiraling outwards and not all of the tools we think we have, are going to have the effect required in order to enact the change we want. In the worst case, of course.
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No it’s tarnished by becoming too popular. Just like how people hated nickelback, if you remember.
stealing and reusing the work of thousands of people as your own is magic now?
The power of the tool itself will be overshadowed by the motivations of its real owner. I can be both impressed by its ability to empower me, and be scared of the fact that the tools will change hands sooner or later and be deployed at scale to serve a goal I cannot, at minimum, support.
When most engineers and Marvel fans watched Tony Stark in Avengers collaborating with Jarvis they thought of Jarvis like "an AI with Google's knowledge where I can interact with him". It's true that we're close to that level interaction. However, the ultimate goal is to get as much as possible automated on Jarvis, to the point where Tony Stark is not needed or Tony Stark can be replaced by anyone with a mouth.
In this example, Jarvis isn't the goal but a checkpoint. The goal is a genie, providing software and research to anyone who is loaded with money, and knows how to rub the metaphorical lamp the right way.