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Is AI development a threat to humanity?

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  • phenomlabundefined

    I saw this article earlier, and wanted to share it here in order to start a discussion around AI in general.

    https://news.sky.com/story/elon-musk-and-others-sign-open-letter-calling-for-pause-on-ai-development-12845039

    As you might already know, I’m not a huge fan of AI and a while ago now, I wrote the below article

    https://sudonix.com/topic/138/ai-a-new-dawn-or-the-demise-of-humanity?_=1680120970459

    Obviously, my views around this specific subject are mine, but I’m keen to understand what others think.

    Let’s discuss 👍

    Author of OGProxy, Swatch, Threaded, and most of Sudonix's bugs…

    crazycellsundefined 2 Replies
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  • crazycellsundefined

    @phenomlab what about this simple fix?

    if (going to turn evil)
    {don’t}
    else
    {still don’t}

    phenomlabundefined 1 Reply
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  • crazycellsundefined

    jokes aside… I don’t think anything serious will be done because homo sapiens sapiens is a very irrational and greedy creature. as long as people are making money with this (which, of course, is the case), there will be support somewhere, so people will not ban it in order to not stay behind… climate change is a more serious threat to humanity, but look what the governments are doing to prevent it 🙂

    There is also good in AI development, we have already talked before how chatgpt can be used for personal productivity. So, why ban it completely… I am pretty sure “experts” in governments will not appreciate good or bad sides of AI development. There is much more incentive in companies and universities for AI development, compared to working in the government. I can see machine learning PhDs are getting more and more popular, so I am pretty sure there will be more intelligent people who will want to put effort into AI development. So, they will be against this. Elon Musk being one of the signers does not look good to many people, since he is not a popular (liked) figure anymore 😄

    Additionally, they say in the news:

    “Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable.”

    How can we be certain of this before doing it?

    phenomlabundefined 1 Reply
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  • phenomlabundefined

    @crazycells said in Is AI development a threat to humanity?:

    if (going to turn evil)
    {don’t}
    else
    {still don’t}

    Shouldn’t that be

    if (turningevil) {
var evil = "Don't do that - you're evil";
alert(evil);
}
elseif  (!turningevil) {
var good = "Thanks for staying kind to humanity";
alert(good);
}
else {
var dunno = "You don't know what you're doing it seems";
alert(dunno);
}

    😄

    Author of OGProxy, Swatch, Threaded, and most of Sudonix's bugs…

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  • phenomlabundefined

    @crazycells said in Is AI development a threat to humanity?:

    jokes aside… I don’t think anything serious will be done because h**o sapiens sapiens is a very irrational and greedy creature. as long as people are making money with this (which, of course, is the case), there will be support somewhere, so people will not ban it in order to not stay behind… climate change is a more serious threat to humanity, but look what the governments are doing to prevent it

    Amen to that. You’re right on the money there. Climate Change isn’t being taken seriously, and nowhere near enough is being done. Man has no concept of the fact that you cannot keep taking and expect to give nothing back.

    @crazycells said in Is AI development a threat to humanity?:

    There is also good in AI development, we have already talked before how chatgpt can be used for personal productivity. So, why ban it completely… I am pretty sure “experts” in governments will not appreciate good or bad sides of AI development. There is much more incentive in companies and universities for AI development, compared to working in the government. I can see machine learning PhDs are getting more and more popular, so I am pretty sure there will be more intelligent people who will want to put effort into AI development.

    Good points. I guess the issue here is the “good AI” being leveraged for nefarious purposes - as is ChatGPT already.

    @crazycells said in Is AI development a threat to humanity?:

    Additionally, they say in the news:

    “Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable.”

    How can we be certain of this before doing it?

    Test it on Elon Musk? 🙂

    Author of OGProxy, Swatch, Threaded, and most of Sudonix's bugs…

    crazycellsundefined 1 Reply
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  • phenomlabundefined

    An interesting intersect
    https://news.sky.com/story/is-ai-becoming-too-clever-12845111

    Author of OGProxy, Swatch, Threaded, and most of Sudonix's bugs…

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  • crazycellsundefined

    @phenomlab said in Is AI development a threat to humanity?:

    Test it on Elon Musk?

    I am signing this petition 🤣

    phenomlabundefined 1 Reply
    0
  • crazycellsundefined

    It is also interesting that company leaders rather than “scientists” are going forward with this.

    It looks very suspicious to me. For climate change petitions, we have many scientists with no “conflict of interest”, it is genuine, sincere and rightful. But when it is about AI, we have many CEOs that demand “more regulation”… Clearly, they all have a conflict of interest with this, it looks more like “we have already here, so let’s prevent others from reaching us with more regulation” kind of move…

    I wonder your opinion… am I only seeing the bad side and ignoring the good, or am I right to suspect this…

    phenomlabundefined 1 Reply
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  • phenomlabundefined

    @crazycells Join the queue !!

    Author of OGProxy, Swatch, Threaded, and most of Sudonix's bugs…

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  • phenomlabundefined

    @crazycells said in Is AI development a threat to humanity?:

    It is also interesting that company leaders rather than “scientists” are going forward with this.
    It looks very suspicious to me. For climate change petitions, we have many scientists with no “conflict of interest”, it is genuine, sincere and rightful. But when it is about AI, we have many CEOs that demand “more regulation”… Clearly, they all have a conflict of interest with this, it looks more like “we have already here, so let’s prevent others from reaching us with more regulation” kind of move…
    I wonder your opinion… am I only seeing the bad side and ignoring the good, or am I right to suspect this…

    No, I agree with you. It just goes to show you that this is being lead by corporate organisations as a way primarily of making money rather than enriching lives.

    The “more regulation” side is nothing new. We had the same in the UK when the electronic cigarette was introduced, and then e-liquids which you could buy cheaply online. The tobacco industry screamed from the rooftops about regulation, but only because they were losing a significant market share to these new boutiques popping up all over the place. They have no conscience about the carcinogenic risks of their own products - they just want you to stop buying cheaper (and cleaner) alternatives.

    Same applies to the energy industry. Nuclear is off the table in some countries because the energy markets are where they make their money - think Oil, Gas, etc…

    By their so called “regulation” they can make the market much smaller and only accessible to big tech companies who can afford to enter it with their huge R&D budgets.

    Author of OGProxy, Swatch, Threaded, and most of Sudonix's bugs…

    crazycellsundefined 1 Reply
    1
  • crazycellsundefined

    I asked ChatGPT about this and what it thinks. It thinks halting the development completely is not the optimal solution.

    Screen Shot 2023-03-30 at 15.40.04.png

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  • crazycellsundefined

    @phenomlab said in Is AI development a threat to humanity?:

    Same applies to the energy industry. Nuclear is off the table in some countries because the energy markets are where they make their money - think Oil, Gas, etc…

    Yeap, I totally agree. I am still angry about nuclear energy. Nuclear energy is the greenest and by far the most efficient one. But with bad media coverage, many people are against it and avoiding it as if it is leprosy.

    It is very similar to plane crashes. Hundreds of people are dying because of car accidents every day, but no one really cares, but when a rare plane accident happens, the media will be onto it for several weeks. They are brainwashing us to accept one of them as “acceptable” and the other one as “unacceptable”…

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  • phenomlabundefined

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-65147841

    Author of OGProxy, Swatch, Threaded, and most of Sudonix's bugs…

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  • crazycellsundefined

    @phenomlab from the article on the link…

    But to worry about big changes is part of human nature. Clerics worried the printing press would make monks lazy in the 15th Century. Weavers smashed up machines in the 19th Century fearing they’d lose their livelihood.

    Even your author snubbed the offer of a mobile phone in 1997 convinced they’d only be for “show-offs” and would never really catch on.

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  • phenomlabundefined

    @crazycells The comment

    Even your author snubbed the offer of a mobile phone in 1997 convinced they’d only be for “show-offs” and would never really catch on.

    Is worrying to say the least. How can you possibly comment on subject matter such as AI when you snubbed the concept of a mobile phone in 1997? Typical BBC.

    Author of OGProxy, Swatch, Threaded, and most of Sudonix's bugs…

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  • phenomlabundefined

    @crazycells this one made me laugh - talk about using AI to it’s intended full potential

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-65126772

    Author of OGProxy, Swatch, Threaded, and most of Sudonix's bugs…

    1
  • crazycellsundefined

    @phenomlab lol yeap, very smart… I read it and immediately ask the same question to ChatGPT and saved the letter sample 😄

    I might use it in the future.

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  • phenomlabundefined

    How long before AI takes over your job?

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    phenomlabundefined

    @crazycells said in How long before AI takes over your job?:

    sponsored content

    To me, this is the method to get yourself to the top of the list. Unfair advantage doesn’t even properly describe it.

  • phenomlabundefined

    Neural networks being used to create realistic phishing emails

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    phenomlabundefined

    @crazycells this perhaps? 🙂

    terminator_endoskeleton_1020.webp

  • phenomlabundefined

    Mentoring, learning, and labs

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    phenomlabundefined

    @downpw Yes, exactly. Sudonix is about much more than NodeBB 🙂

  • phenomlabundefined

    Think 10,000 hours makes an expert? It doesn't!

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    phenomlabundefined

    expert.webp
    One thing I’ve seen a lot of over my career is the “expert” myth being touted on LinkedIn and Twitter. Originating from psychologist K. Anders Ericsson who studied the way people become experts in their fields, and then discussed by Malcolm Gladwell in the book, “Outliers“, “to become an expert it takes 10,000 hours (or approximately 10 years) of deliberate practice”. This paradigm (if you can indeed call it that) has been adopted by several so called “experts” - mostly those within the Information Security and GDPR fields. This article isn’t about GDPR (for once), but mostly those who consider themselves “experts” by virtue of the acronym. Prior to it’s implementation, nobody should have proclaimed themselves a GDPR “expert”. You cannot be an expert in something that wasn’t actually legally binding until May 25 2018, nor can you have sufficient time invested to be an expert since inception in my view. GDPR is a vast universe, and you can’t claim to know all of it.

    Consultant ? Possibly, yes. Expert ? No.

    The associated sales campaign isn’t much better, and can be aligned to the children’s book “Chicken Licken”. For those unfamiliar with this concept, here is a walkthrough. I’m sure you’ll understand why I choose a children’s story in this case, as it seems to fit the bill very well. What I’ve seen over the last 12 months had been nothing short of amazing - but not in the sense of outstanding. I could align GDPR here to the PPI claims furore - for anyone unfamiliar with what this “uprising” is, here’s a synopsis.

    The “expert” fallacy

    Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) is the insurance sold alongside credit cards, loans and other finance agreements to ensure payments are made if the borrower is unable to make them due to sickness or unemployment. The PPI scandal has its roots set back as far as 1998, although compensatory payments did not officially start until 2011 once the review and court appeal process was completed. Since the deadline for PPI claims has been announced as August 2019, the campaign has become intensively aggressive, with, it would seem, thousands of PPI “experts”. Again, I would question the authenticity of such a title. It seems that everyone is doing it, therefore, it must be easy to attain (a bit like the CISSP then). I witnessed the same shark pool of so called “experts” before, back in the day when Y2K was the latest buzzword on everyone’s lips. Years of aggressive selling campaigns and similarly, years of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt - more effectively known as complete bulls…) caused an unprecedented spike that allowed companies and consultants (several of whom had never been heard of before) to suddenly appear out of the woodwork and assume the identity of “experts” in this field. In reality, it’s not possible to be a subject matter expert in a particular field or niche market unless you have extensive experience. If you compare a weapons expert to a GDPR “expert”, you’ll see just how weak this paradigm actually is. A weapons expert will have years of knowledge in a field, and could probably tell you which gun discharged a bullet just by looking at the expended shell casing. I very much doubt a self styled GDPR expert can tell you what will happen in the event of an unknown scenario around the framework and the specific legal rights (in terms of the individual who the data belongs to) and implications for the institution affected. How can they when nobody has even been exposed to such a scenario before ? This makes a GDPR expert in my view about as plausible as a Brexit expert specialising in Article 50.

    What defines an expert ?

    The focal point here is in the comparison. A weapons expert can be given a gun and a sample of shell casings, then asked to determine if the suspected weapon actually fired the supplied ammunition or not. Using a process of proven identification techniques, the expert can then determine if the gun provided is indeed the origin. This information is derived by using established identity techniques from the indentations and markings in the shell casing created by the gun barrel from which the bullet was expelled, velocity, angle, and speed measurements obtained from firing the weapon. The impact of the bullet and exit damage is also analysed to determine a match based on material and critical evidence. Given the knowledge and experience level required to produce such results, how long do you think it took to reach this unrivalled plateau ? An expert isn’t solely based on knowledge. It’s not solely based on experience either. In fact, it’s a deep mixture of both. Deep in the sense of the subject matter comprehension, and how to execute that same understanding along with real life experience to obtain the optimum result. Here’s an example   An information technology expert should be able to

    Identify and eliminate potential bottlenecks Address security concerns, Design high availability Factor in extensible scalability Consider risk to adjacent and disparate technology and conduct analysis Ensure that any design proposal meets both the current criteria and beyond Understand the business need for technology and be able to support it

    If I leveraged external consultancy for a project, I’d expect all of the above and probably more from anyone who labels themselves as an expert - or for that fact, an architect. Sadly, I’ve been disappointed on numerous occasions throughout my career where it became evident very quickly that the so called expert (who I hasten to add is earning more an hour than I do in a day in most cases) hired for his “expertise and superior knowledge” in fact appears to know far less than I do about the same topic.

    How long does it really take to become an expert ?

    I’ve been in the information technology and security field since I was 16. I’m now 47, meaning 31 years experience (well, 31 as this year isn’t over yet). If you consider that experience is acquired during an 8 hour day, and used the following equation to determine the amount of years needed to reach 10,000 hours

    10000 / 8 / 365 = 3.4246575342 - for the sake of simple mathematics, let’s say 3.5 years.

    However, in the initial calculation, it’s 10 years (using the basis of 90 minutes invested per day) - making the expert title when aligned to GDPR even more unrealistic. As the directive was adopted on the 27 April 2016, the elapsed time period isn’t even enough to carry the first figure cited at 3.5 years, irrespective of the second. The reality here is that no amount of time invested in anything is going to make your an expert if you do not possess the prerequisite skills and a thorough understanding based on previous events in order to supplement and bolster the initial investment. I could spend 10,000 practicing a particular sport - yet effectively suck at it because my body (If you’ve met me, you’d know why) isn’t designed for the activity I’m requesting it to perform. Just because I’ve spent 10,000 hours reading about something doesn’t make me an expert by any stretch of the imagination. If I calculated the hours spanned over my career, I would arrive at the below. I’m basing this on an 8 hour day when in reality, most of my days are in fact much longer.

    31 x 365 x 8 = 90,520 hours

    Even when factoring in vacation based on 4 weeks per year (subject to variation, but I’ve gone for the mean average),

    31 x 28 X 8 = 6,944 hours to subtract

    This is only fair as you are not (supposed to be) working when on holiday. Even with this subtraction, the total is still 83,578 hours. Does my investment make me an expert ? I think so, yes - based on the fact that 31 years dedicated to one area would indicate a high level of experience and professional standard - both of which I constantly strive to maintain. Still think 10,000 hours invested makes you an expert ? You decide ! What are your views around this ?

  • phenomlabundefined

    How to destroy a community before it's even built

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    phenomlabundefined

    @crazycells I guess the worst part for me was the trolling - made so much worse by the fact that the moderators allowed it to continue, insisting that the PeerLyst coming was seeing an example by allowing the community to “self moderate” - such a statement being completely ridiculous, and it wasn’t until someone else other than myself pointed out that all of this toxic activity could in fact be crawled by Google, that they decided to step in and start deleting posts.

    In fact, it reached a boiling point where the CEO herself had to step in and post an article stating their justification for “self moderation” which simply doesn’t work.

    The evidence here speaks for itself.

  • phenomlabundefined

    AI... A new dawn, or the demise of humanity ?

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    phenomlabundefined

    https://news.sky.com/story/ai-poses-growing-threat-to-next-general-election-warns-uk-cyber-security-agency-13007659

  • phenomlabundefined

    Keep It Simple, Stupid...

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    phenomlabundefined

    tech.jpeg
    Ever heard of KISS ? Nope - not these guys

    kiss.jpeg
    What I’m referring to is the acronym was reportedly coined by Kelly Johnson, lead engineer at the Lockheed Skunk Works (creators of the Lockheed U-2 and SR-71 Blackbird spy planes, among many others), which formed the basis of the relationship between the way things break, and the sophistication available to repair them. You might be puzzled at why I’d write about something like this, but it’s a situation I see constantly – one I like to refer to as “over thinker syndrome”. What do I mean by this ? Here’s the theory. Some people are very analytical when it comes to problem solving. Couple that with technical knowledge and you could land up with a situation where something relatively simple gets blown out of all proportion because the scenario played out in the mind is often much further from reality than you’d expect. And the technical reasoning is usually always to blame.

    Some years ago in a previous career, a colleague noticed that the Exchange Server (2003 wouldn’t you know) would suddenly reboot half way through a backup job. Rightly so, he wanted to investigate and asked me if this would be ok. Anyone with an ounce of experience knows that functional backups are critical in the event of a disaster – none more so than I – obviously, I gave the go ahead. One bright spark in my team suggested a reboot of the server, which immediately prompted the response

    “……it’s rebooting itself every day, so how will that help ?”

    There’s always one, isn’t there ? The final (and honestly more realistic suggestion) was to enable verbose logging in Exchange. This is actually a good idea, but only if you suspect that the information store could be the issue. Given the evidence, I wasn’t convinced. If there was corruption in the store, or on any of the disks, this would show itself randomly through the day and wouldn’t wait until 2am in the morning. Not wanting to come across as condescending, I agreed, but at the same time, set a deadline to escalation. I wasn’t overly concerned about the backups as these were being completed manually each day whilst the investigations were taking place. Neither was I concerned at what could be seen at this point as wasting someone’s time when you think you may have the answer to what now seemed to be an impossible problem. This is where experience will eclipse any formal qualifications hands down. Those with university degrees may scoff at this, but those with substantially analytical thinking patterns seem to avoid logic like the plague and go off on a wild tangent looking for a dramatically technical explanation and solution to a problem when it’s much simpler than you’d expect.

    After witnessing the pained expression on the face of my now exasperated and exhausted tech, I said “let’s get a coffee”. In agreement, he followed me to the kitchen and then asked me what I thought the problem could be. I said that if he wanted my advice, it would be to step back and look at this problem from a logical angle rather than technical. The confused look I received was priceless – the guy must have really though I’d lost the plot. After what seemed like an eternity (although in reality only a few seconds) he asked me what I meant by this. “Come with me”, I said. Finishing his coffee, he diligently followed me to the server room. Once inside, I asked him to show me the Exchange Server. Puzzled, he correctly pointed out the exact machine. I then asked him to trace the power cables and tell me where they went.

    As with most server rooms, locating and identifying cables can be a bit of a challenge after equipment has been added and removed, so this took a little longer than we expected. Eventually, the tech traced the cables back to

    ………an old looking UPS that had a red light illuminated at the front like it had been a prop in a Terminator film.

    Suddenly, the real cause of this issue dawned on the tech like a morning sunrise over the Serengeti. The UPS that the Exchange Server was unexpectedly connected to had a faulty battery. The UPS was conducting a self test at 2am each morning, and because the bypass test failed owing to the burnt battery, the connected server lost power and started back up after the offending equipment left bypass mode and went online.

    Where is this going you might ask ? Here’s the moral of this particular story

    Just because a problem involves technology, it doesn’t mean that the answer has to be a complex technical one Logic and common sense has a part to play in all of our lives. Sometimes, it makes more sense just to step back, take a breath, and see something for what it really is before deciding to commit It’s easy to allow technical expertise to cloud your judgement – don’t fall into the trap of using a sledgehammer to break an egg You cannot buy experience – it’s earned, gained, and leaves an indelible mark
  • phenomlabundefined

    What system did you first use?

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    phenomlabundefined

    @Sala impressive. That’s actually a lot harder than it looks. I once worked for a trading firm in the 90s and a trader came to me with a corrupted floppy disk demanding I get it to work.

    Evidently, it had all of his trading positions on it and he had no backup 😧 and he wasn’t impressed when I told him that the chances of data recovery were less than zero.