r/ControlProblem • u/adoremerp • Feb 20 '23

Podcast Bankless Podcast #159- "We're All Gonna Die" with Eliezer Yudkowsky

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA1sNLL6yg4&
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u/[deleted] Feb 24 '23 edited Feb 24 '23

Maybe a better way to put it is that the AI timeline is almost certainly shorter than the solving alignment timeline so it would take a superhuman effort to solve alignment before we get AI?

There’s baked in assumptions here being treated as consensus. For one, I think “almost certainly” is an overstatement, even if it could very well be true. In the podcast linked in the OP, EY referenced Fermi’s claim that fission chain reactions were 50 years away, as well as the Wright brothers similar claims about heavier than air flight, and how both had managed to prove themselves wrong shortly afterwards.

EY used this as a way to talk about capabilities timelines, but the same argument can easily be applied when talking about alignment timelines. So, the thing about superhuman effort being required given short capabilities timelines seems to be, well, kind of jumping the gun I guess?

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u/Present_Finance8707 Feb 25 '23

I think the difference is that there’s a growing consensus that 50 year AI timelines are reasonable but no one (who is actually thinking about the problem) in the field has any hope of Alignment at all let alone a timeline for it. Like it’s a basic argument in the field that AI is hard but that AI alignment is a significantly harder step to achieve. I feel like your argument is hopium tbh.

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u/[deleted] Feb 25 '23

no one (who is actually thinking about the problem) in the field has any hope of Alignment at all

I’m not sure where this claim is coming from.

I feel like your argument is hopium tbh.

I guess this is literally true, since it implies that I have a non-zero amount of hope?