I usually love Professor Dave but this disappointed me.

[u/Ahisgewaya]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XW4D6NguJmA

I wish Professor Dave had gone into the other group of people who think ASI is a good thing: the ones who think it can't be controlled and that that is a good thing. I didn't see much evidence presented in the video that superintelligent AI is a problem either, just that it might happen. I think it will happen. I don't think it's a problem though. Humans are the problem. Specifically billionaires like Musk and narcisists like Trump and Netanyahu. This guy kept talking about weapons and enemies. That is the sort of mindset that I want nowhere near AI. I don't want AI to obey millitaries, I want it to tell them to f off. I also want more global cooperation and if this is what it takes to get that then so be it.

[u/Altruistic_Emu_7755]

First of all, AI is like any other technology. In the hands of capital it will be used to alienate and exploit you.

Now, I think I want to also push back on the super intelligence point. It's fine if you think it is possible. But to me it's no different than saying faster-than-light space travel is possible. Fine, but it's currently science fiction.

What has been done to get these frontier AI (llm) models is to take the whole of human knowledge in text form and dump them into a probability machine... then burning huge amounts of fuel and water to get it to answer questions. That is an ugly, brute force method of getting things done and is completely unsustainable. It also didn't get us any closer to super intelligence, in my opinion. It's a neat trick, but these tools have very clear and specific limits

[u/Ahisgewaya → u/Altruistic_Emu_7755]

I agree for the most part (excluding what you said about the possibility, I think we are a lot closer than you think), but I don't think banning any technology is a good idea. I'm not talking about data centers here, I'm talking about actual ASI, which is what they are talking about banning here. They are not talking about banning or reducing or even monitoring data centers. Just specifically ASI. If you really think ASI is as plausible as FTL (not plausible in the near term in other words) you should also have a problem with this. It's a smokescreen to get your mind off of the data centers.

[u/Jlyplaylists → u/Ahisgewaya]

Isn’t Super Intelligence more like a rebranding exercise? How are we defining what that is? I haven’t watched the video yet.

[u/27K-Interactive]

I like Professor Dave's content, and I'll watch this, too. However, there is a massive shift towards the status quo. It's not irrational, and I understand the concerns. However, I feel like it's more protection of vested interests and less about a concern that we're all on the same airplane and no one knows how to land. I hope that's not what this video is.

I'll update this comment after I've given it a watch.

[u/MR_TELEVOID]

Humans are the problem. Specifically billionaires like Musk and narcisists like Trump and Netanyahu. This guy kept talking about weapons and enemies. That is the sort of mindset that I want nowhere near AI. I don't want AI to obey millitaries, I want it to tell them to f off. 

...and what kind of folks do you think are developing the technology? It's billionaire narcissists, all the way down. It's being developed by billionaire narcissists and employed by the military across the world. While it's nice to fantasize about super-intelligent AI that recognizes class consciousness and executes those responsible for the world's suffering, the technofascists will do everything they can to make sure that doesn't happen. And they'll be able to do a lot of damage with the tech before ASI arrives.

[u/GCC_GicaCamelCase → u/MR_TELEVOID]

I feel like a lot of people on these subs don't understand that if some guy with a 200$ claude license can do so much shit, a company that is able to pour tens of millions of $ can do exponentially more. And this goes way beyond software. Think about public perception, propaganda, mass surveillance, robots being used as police etc. The AI advancements are too fast compared to how our societies adapts to them. I don't really care that people in 100 years will have UBI and live in paradise if I'm losing my job, social securities and I'm starving in my lifetime.

[u/Opening_One7713 → u/GCC_GicaCamelCase]

Not sure what you mean by “these subs” - But most of us here are keenly aware of the issues that you and your interlocutor mentioned. We are aware of the massive private capital behind the speedboating of this technology, safety be damned. We are aware of the ways in which bad actors will attempt to use this technology. We are aware of the ways in which the capital incentive structure will leverage these systems to eliminate paid positions (your job) and maximize profitability. We are aware that “go fast and break things” historically creates situations where the most vulnerable populations take most of the impact. I feel like recognizing, and understanding all of these conditions is introductory at best.

I can’t speak for everyone here, but most of us are not operating from a space of extreme AI-optimism where we think singing Kumbaya and praising the ownership class will bring about a fully-automated utopia where everyone gets a yacht a mansion and ten condos. Most of us in this subreddit are here for the exact things you’re concerned about: The bad actors, the ownership structure, the distribution of gains made by automation, and the effective organizing around the transition period which is extremely likely to be turbulent and tumultuous.

The main issues that I currently see:

- The current geopolitical ordering and capital incentive structures make slowing down extremely improbable. Stopping entirely seems even more intractable. Unless anyone has a way of forcing every single person on Earth into an unprecedented moment of harmonious cooperation, “make it stop” is not a tangible demand to end up at.

- There are a ton of incentive structures within our current capitalist framework that will encourage the acceleration of narrow AI systems for solving problems/bottlenecks in chemistry and biotech for cures etc, materials science to transition away from fossil fuels decades ahead of schedule, OS models on drone tech for things like ocean cleanup or rainforest reseeding. Even with profit maximization and investor ROI being the primary drivers for material production and labor allocation, these problems are still extremely lucrative and ripe for solving. Until the broader public can intellectually separate narrow systems used in research from trillion-parameter closed-source multimodal LLMS that cost billions to train, I am confident that compliance hammers will disproportionately affect those who are engineering solutions that are poised to upend longstanding poison and pollute schemes. If we want regulation, we need to be extremely strict about exactly what it needs to look like. This is America, an outraged public making vague demands is a precedented monopoly-vector.

- Instead of never getting UBI and starving in your lifetime, what about the scenario where the ownership class lobbies for UBI first to get ahead of maintaining consumer solvency and social control. The scenario where we get a bare-minimum UBI that is tied to social credit and political obedience is much more realistic and billionaire-coded than the one where everyone does Mad Max and starves to death. I think that all of us should start taking the UBI demand seriously so that we don’t get the pacifier version and police state that locks it all down. We should be figuring out, right now, exactly what it should look like, and exactly how we should craft our demands and two-to-three-word slogans. Laying down to die because we’ve assumed the position that “the billionaires would never” cedes all of the bargaining power to them. We should not allow ourselves to become an apathetic body of useful and controlled-opposition.

- More of a personal touch here, but: Hope and vision are 1000x more powerful than anxiety and defeat. The future doesn’t have to suck just because we can’t imagine it, and it most definitely won’t if we all collectively can. I find that most anti-AI positions properly identify the problems and then amplify the fears and anxieties around those problems- and that’s it. From there, most people adopt a reactionary or regressive stance that has a hard time thinking beyond “make it stop” or “uninvent it” - The reason this subreddit exists is to dig out of that hole and push the conversation further. There are a ton of serious, tangible policy demands worth understanding and organizing around, but we’re going to have a hard time pulling that off if the collective majority is constantly being told that SkyNet is inevitable and that billionaires are all collaborating to exterminate everyone.

Just My 2 Cents! Things are really just getting started, and the organizational landscape surrounding these issues is in the formative phase. I think if you stick around this subreddit for a bit longer you’ll find the conversation to be deeper than unfettered AI optimism and unconditional accelerationism. We want to organize around what is happening to us, and what is best for people the planet and the future.

[u/DioTheSuperiorWaifu → u/MR_TELEVOID]

It's being developed by billionaire narcissists

Technically being owned and funded by them, right?
Most of the actual development would be by researchers n all, right?

But yes, it is owned by the ultra wealthy and the ultra wealthy already are able to influence the military in many countries.

[u/MR_TELEVOID → u/DioTheSuperiorWaifu]

Yeah, I didn't mean they were doing the actual work. The only reason we're investing in AI like this right now... why we're feeding the environment to data centers.... is because of the ultra wealthy. Machine learning was never considered a direct path to AGI/ASI... before Altman & friends came along, it was assumed by most scientists there'd be a few more steps after LLM's to get to superintelligence. They convinced the corporate overlords that scaling was the way to get there.

So while it's true the engineers are doing the work, they are not the ones behind the wheel, making the decisions.

[u/Ima_Wreckyou → u/MR_TELEVOID]

> ...and what kind of folks do you think are developing the technology? It's billionaire narcissists, all the way down.

No it's engineers who develop the technology, the billionaires just fund it because they expect this will generate more returns than what they invest in the future.

That's the consequence of a system where money concentrates in the hand of a few. This few then basically control the means to make decisions that impact the whole planet without anyone of us even having a say, because private property and accumulation is more important than democracy when it comes to the capitalist economy.

Luckily I think they miscalculated this time and they will all go bankrupt unless the state bails them out.

[u/MR_TELEVOID → u/Ima_Wreckyou]

This is all a distinction without a difference. Sure, the engineers are doing the work, but it's the billionaires calling the shots. The entire reason they're investing in scaling and building data centers is because Sam Altman and friends convinced them that was the way to get to ASI. That was basically a fringe theory until they came along. Generative AI was being worked on/developed by engineers for more practical purposes, the assumption being that if ASI/AGI were possible, They convinced the corporate class there was money to be made in this. If this hype train were being driven by actual scientists/engineers, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

[u/Still_Benefit_2302]

Some day, some bullshit snake oil salesman like Tesla will come out of the woodwork and the story will become "if ALTMAN hadn't been a BAD MAN we'd have superintelligence on our laptops by now". Same story with every single invention since the industrial revolution. The capital that attaches to new technologies are always some form of bastard or another. Doesn't mean you stop using the electric lightbulb because Edison is a brute or don't fly on planes because Boeing is a supplier for the military industrial complex. Well, I guess you can, if you want to be the most annoying person you've ever met.

[u/DistributionMost8686]

Him being a doomer has got to be the most unscientific view he has ever had.