Trying to impute the motives of ones interlocutor is dumb and boring. How about we discuss the first-order issue instead. Here's my argument for why x-risk is a real possibility:
The issue is that small misalignments in objectives can have outsized real-world effects. Optimizers are constrained by rules and computational resources. General intelligence allows an optimizer to find efficient solutions to computational problems, thus maximizing the utility of available computational resources. The rules constrain its behavior such that on net it ideally provides sufficient value to us above what it destroys. But misalignment in objectives provides an avenue by which the AGI can on net destroy value despite our best efforts. Can you be sure you can provide loophole-free objectives that ensures only value-producing behavior from the human perspective? Can you prove that the ratio of value created to value lost due to misalignment is always above some suitable threshold? Can you prove that the range of value destruction is bounded so that if it does go off the rails, its damage is limited? Until we do, x-risk should be the default assumption.
> Trying to impute the motives of ones interlocutor is dumb and boring.
I know right? You should see the response to my point that nobody has been convinced to fly a plane into a building by an LLM. “Dumb and boring” hits the nail on the head.
> Seeing how confidently and obtusely people dismiss the risks of AI
The issue is that small misalignments in objectives can have outsized real-world effects. Optimizers are constrained by rules and computational resources. General intelligence allows an optimizer to find efficient solutions to computational problems, thus maximizing the utility of available computational resources. The rules constrain its behavior such that on net it ideally provides sufficient value to us above what it destroys. But misalignment in objectives provides an avenue by which the AGI can on net destroy value despite our best efforts. Can you be sure you can provide loophole-free objectives that ensures only value-producing behavior from the human perspective? Can you prove that the ratio of value created to value lost due to misalignment is always above some suitable threshold? Can you prove that the range of value destruction is bounded so that if it does go off the rails, its damage is limited? Until we do, x-risk should be the default assumption.
What say you?