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Comment by amelius | Hacker News Reader

Since AI wants to be human, let's treat it more like a human.

For humans going to school is mandatory. And typically humans have to take lots of exams before they can work in various fields.

So, let's make that mandatory for AI too. Let government agencies design the exams. Of course, the creator of the AI has to pay for this.

And of course, the tests should be carefully designed and should also include a psychological test as we don't want to unleash psychopathic AI onto the masses. Also keep in mind that an AI that spreads false information can be harmful to society.

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This makes no sense with the current tech. These models have no memory beyond the last few thousand words of input. They have no persistent self -- a copy pops into existence to answer a series of questions, then vanishes, with no cumulative effect on later copies. They have data, but not beliefs; they easily and radically contradict themselves. They have no preferences, no goals, and no plans, although they can invent some for you if you ask.

Why does an AI need memory to cause harm?

A self driving car obviously can.

An LLM can talk a teenager into depression, or start new conspiracy theories by talking to humans. All without memory.

Yes, they certainly can! I'm not saying they should be trusted. I'm saying they can't be taught.

Ok, you misunderstood. My comment was about exams more than about teaching. And if the AI fails the test, then the vendor can train the AI and try to do better next time, anyway.

Maybe we should take to calling them MayflAI...

AI doesn't want to be human, it wants to complete the pattern begun by your prompt. If the prompt is an exam question, the completion will likely be an answer to it drawing on similar material the AI was trained on.

AI doesn't "want" anything.

In the sense that my compiler wants my types to match. There's no literal desire, just like there's no literal artificial intelligence.

Let's start with them having to pay for "learning" materials.

It will happen sooner than later, as the fees will go to the copyright mafia industry rather than to the artists.

No way. Once we get base models going, we'll be able to create leaf training data on the cheap. Several iterations of this, plus research that yields better training with less data, plus multiple startups going after foundational models -- old copyright houses (eg. house of mouse) will fall in both value and power.

If the copyright specters hold a shroud over us, then we'll create the data from scratch one last time. It's akin to a source code rewrite. And there will be lots of people doing this.

Such fixation with ip theft. Why?

> Such fixation with ip theft. Why?

Those who earn a living off Intellectual Property have already decided they will stop 100 poor students from reading a textbook so that they get the income from 1 rich student buying it. They do not seem to care about educating poor children nor do they seem to care about increasing GPD.

They only want money. What is the opposite of altruism?

If a new technology can change the way humanity lives forever, but it costs them money, they are against it.

This is why I support making artificial scarcity illegal.

Ok but this will make everyone poorer because no one will have a job.

The wealth in society is the amount of stuff we have. That is related to how much stuff we produce, called the GDP for each nation.

AI makes me more efficient. I can do more in less time, and I can do it better. I am happy to do a better job for the same money.

If you are worried about losing your job, use AI to do it better. Become more productive. Get more qualifications (degrees, certifications, work experience, & references.) This is the best way to avoid falling onto a social safety net.

I think that if no one has to work, scarcity is a problem solved in this theoretical scenario.

Be careful of the not-working scenario. If you have no economic impact other than as a useless eater, a dictator can kill you more easily. Even in a Star Trek / post-scarcity world, I want to work so I have a say in what is happening.

You're looking at this from a 1900's lens.

The world of the future doesn't have IP. You ask an advanced AI to create a world from scratch and it will.

Now fill in the blanks between here and now. Why would every invocation involve paying Sonny Bono's estate?

Humans are another good analogy. If these machines will begin to approximate us, maybe the rules for them should be similar.

We don't need to pay a licensing fee every time we write stories about evil characters, despite the fact many of us learned about evil from watching Disney villains on screen.

> The world of the future doesn't have IP.

This is a bold prediction, and far from certain

There are many competing nations. If one can outlaw artificial scarcity, they will grow so much faster than the others that eventually they will take over.

I predict we will either have a world without Intellectual Property or we will have a global government that enforces Intellectual Property laws.

I'm convinced the future will have IP, that the IP houses will use AI to generate an infinite number of properties, copyright them, and use them to rob blind any creator daring enough to try something ;p

With all due respect but this sounds far fetched to put it mildly.

It will trickle down /s

Yup. I think the trick is collective rights management. From what I understand, creators form an org that licenses content out en masse and pays creators back from pooled licensing fees (which is what the music industry did when the radio first came out). Seems like a nice compromise where creators get paid and AI companies don't have to ask for individual licenses one by one.

用于生成式人工智能产品的预训练, 优化训练数据, 应满足以下要求: 不含有侵犯知识产权的内容.

China is getting this right.

On the other hand: https://kitsunesoftware.wordpress.com/2022/10/09/an-end-to-c...

Yup, they got that right.

I agree with the general idea of testing and verifying an AI before integrating it into any field that can directly or indirectly impact a human(financially, psychologically etc).

Tests designed for humans may not translate well for an AI. The real challenge will be in certifying an AI for such jobs.

This is a great idea. Tools have to undergo certification, as does some software.

A certified AI model would then become applicable in permit-constrained fields like construction.

Except that countries letting people freely use AIs unencumbered will quickly outcompete luddites.

You cannot regulate progress.

You also can't explain why progress for the sake of progress is a good thing.

"Progress for the sake of progress is the ideology of the cancer cell" - Edward Abbey.

... and is also the ideology of every single species on Earth from bacteria to higher mammals and humans (we're not special). And it applies within species and across species.

The evolutionary equilibrium can only appear from matched competitors which implies that each advancement (or its counter) gets eventually distributed around which means - AI for all.

> .. and is also the ideology of every single species on Earth from bacteria to higher mammals and humans (we're not special).

we ARE special

we are the only form of life on Earth that has (at least in some places) chosen to not expand ourselves at the expense of everything else

some humans value the natural world, unpolluted waters, general quality of life over having as many children as possible

Nature doesn't pursue progress, but fosters any that appears. Sometimes. I think that's a major difference.

Your reply makes sense for balance within humanity. It doesn't for balance between humanity and all other species, which is odd, given how your post started out.

You'll have to take that up with Mother Nature and its evolution & natural selection. She's the one who imprinted "progress" in our genes and I do not think we are far enough from our origins to overwrite that.

Comparing natural selection and human invention is a drastic over simplification. Meaningful change due to natural selection takes place over thousands of years of random genetic mutations and changing environmental conditions. Change due to human invention is happening on the scale of years or decades and is the result of us making decisions just because we can. Would you really like to compare the evolutionary change from species that walk on four legs eventually becoming bipedal to the change caused by industrialization or nuclear technology?

The level of impact humans have managed to have on the world around us is massively different from any other species we're aware of. No other species appears to sit around making decisions that reshape large portions of the environment in a single generation. "Progress" in that sense is not genetically ingrained in us, it can't be if we're the first species to do this.

Nature doesn't pursue progress. It fosters any (at least some) that might appear but it doesn't actively pursue it. If it did, there would be instinctual drive to seek out ionising radiation proportionally to the amount of offspring for particular species. To iterate as fast as possible and get any edge in selection.

What evolution optimises for isn't what you'd call "good" if it came up in any other context.

It's as much why covid happened as it is why we happened.

Evolution and natural selection have nothing to do with "progress".

No, the regulation will ensure a certain level of quality and will require a serious effort from AI makers. Also it ensures that the AI doesn't spread false information and destroys our country in the process.

I doubt we can uphold those standards even in people.

If the last 4 years have proven anything, it is that we cannot agree what is true and what is false for a population. And to have that across different countries… impossible.

Regulation can't ensure anything, it can only change incentives.

Good, the current incentives are pretty perverse.

You should still be able to use them freely. "Who profits" is what should be regulated. If this can't be mandated at a global level, autarky starts looking like a pretty good option.

Any country allowing people and organizations to steal things from other countries outcompete luddites.

Drop all treaties. You cannot regulate progress.

That's exactly what the US is doing with China. China isn't going to play fair in high-tech no matter what 'regulations' you come up with, so the solution is simple, decouple.

Progress toward what?

> tests should be carefully designed and should also include a psychological test as we don't want to unleash psychopathic AI onto the masses

"Sir, the AI has failed the psychiatric tests."

"Which one?"

"Bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, major depressive disorder, anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, borderline personality disorder, Alzheimer's, …

…and eating disorders? That can't be right."

> Also keep in mind that an AI that spreads false information can be harmful to society

Yes, though also true for humans spreading false information.

If you have a solution to that, please share loudly at every opportunity, because the discourse I normally encounter is:

Joe: "Absolute free speech is the only way!"

Smith: "You've never lost a job after being personally defamed, have you?"

> Yes, though also true for humans spreading false information.

This exactly underlines the point that we need to treat AI and humans more equal: both must go to school and take exams before we put them in important places.

When cars were new, sometimes they shaped the front like a horse.

This feels like the same kind of thinking.

GPT4 beats most test takers in a wide variety of exams, so it's probably (I don't have access, just basing this on the reports) already better than most individual fresh graduates in those specific areas, just not at the "do literally everything by itself without supervision" level.

Constant testing is a must, it just doesn't look like the tests or education you'd give a human.

Not that everyone is even doing the most basic tests yet: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aamazon.com+%22as+a+la...

The way you put it, the world awfully looks a lot like it's run by autonomous agents that pass initial tests but are running unsupervised

They passed tests?

I'm not that optimistic about world leaders… ^_^;

> This feels like the same kind of thinking.

And this feels like feeling instead of thinking ;)

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