If there's anyone left in EA willing to listen: I'm begging you, please stop this foolishness. To everyone outside the bubble, you look like lunatics, and it has done immense and possibly irreparable damage to the EA "brand" which could otherwise be capable of such great things.
I have yet to see a single AI's malicious behavior stopped by a proponent of AI risk, and that's considering that today's AI is still pretty dumb. I want to believe that they have released code, a specific policy, or something that I can use right now to stop the dumbest of botnets, but I'm not aware of anything.
Anyone better informed that me could chime in?
Either way, MIRI has published some papers that they think are working towards their goal. https://intelligence.org/research/ I'm not well informed enough on this subject to try to judge that claim, though, and overall I'm conflicted as to how important I should rate AI risk. But I think having some people work on it is good, in much the same way that I value basic science research.
In terms of stuff done: OpenPhil, an EA org, has given north of $30million to groups researching strong AI and its risks[0]. Some effective altruists also choose to donate to AI research groups like MIRI[1].
Why would stopping a botnet be evidence of effectiveness at tackling strong AI? Botnets don't exhibit any kind of intelligence as far as I'm aware.
0. http://www.openphilanthropy.org/giving/grants
1. http://effective-altruism.com/ea/14c/why_im_donating_to_miri...
Because it's much, much easier than their ultimate goal, and you could generalize from there, like biologists do.
But also: because it would show that they have more claws that (say) Asimov, who gave clear lines about what a robot should not do, and yet is entirely powerless to stop anyone from making such a robot.
If they want to stop strong AI, shouldn't they be able to actually stop first regular, weak AI? And if they want to stop weak intelligence, shouldn't they be able to stop a barely intelligent botnet first?
Yes: Donated money: https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/
I primarily give to the Against Malaria Fund and GiveDirectly. Some others donate to AI-relate research.
I personally haven't spent any time as an AI researcher OR as a malaria-net seamster. Does that mean I haven't done anything? Or does donating tens of thousands of dollars for bed nets count?
If that counts, why wouldn't donating to causes like AI risk count?
Listen to Cathy O'Neil for a more reasonable and actionable perspective on how we need to fix AI.
This isn't research, it's a thinly disguised and exceptionally cynical fundraising pitch.
Which is a shame, because I actually really like the basic idea behind 8000hours
At 80,000 Hours, our focus is also not on giving money. We're trying to help people find jobs in these areas, often in academia or policy and many other sectors.
That means attacking the problem directly isn't an effective approach. Especially if it creates AI-risk fatigue.
We should absolutely be funding blue-sky research into mitigating, predicting, controlling, etc. AGIs if/when they're developed. But we are doing that (e.g. intelligence.org ) so, again, the doomsday prophets aren't contributing anything.
Given this, I wonder where is the bubble. Of course, I see a lot of blog posts and hype, startups here and there, companies pouring billions into "AI".
Yet, I cannot participate in that bubble because:
- big companies (GOOG and the likes) are not positioned for AI only and are quite expensive already (maybe it's rather a tech or even stock market bubble there)
- small companies (I assume) are mostly start-ups, so there is no way to "get in" except as a VC
So yes, I see the signs of the bubble but I don't see where "mom and pop" come into play there.
Any suggestions as to what makes this bubble a real investment bubble? Or does bubble in this case mean something different?
There's also an investment surge in AI, which might be a bubble, but if you're asking how to participate, then I suspect you're not going to get to participate. Plus, the word "bubble", in the context of investment, means something about to pop. If it's an actual investment bubble, you don't want in.
However, if you did really believe the hype, and think that ML will lead to major breakthroughs in the next decade or so, then that would make it even more urgent.