Good time to remind everyone that Sutton is a human successionist and doesn't care if humans all die. He is not to be trusted nor celebrated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgHFMolXs3U
It’s silly and dangerous. Because you don’t like thing A and they said/did thing A all of their lofty accomplishments get nullified by anyone. And worst of all internet gives your opinion the same weight as someone else (or the rest of us) who knows a lot about thing B that could change the world. From a strictly professional capacity.
This works me up because this is what’s dividing up people right now at a much larger scale.
I wish you well.
This has nothing to do with his professional life. He has made these comments in a professional capacity at an industry AI conference... The rest of your comment is a total non sequitur.
>And worst of all internet gives your opinion the same weight as someone else (or the rest of us) who knows a lot about thing B that could change the world. From a strictly professional capacity.
I've worked professionally in the ML field for 7 years so don't try some appeal to authority bs on me. Geoff Hinton, Yoshua Bengio, Demis Hassabis, Dario Amodei and countless other leaders in the field all recognize and highlight the possible dangers of this technology.
you mean his personal life?
I do agree that there is some level of inherent safety issues with such technologies - but look at atomic bomb vs fission reactors etc: history paves a way through positivity.
Just because someone had an idea that eventually turned to have some evil branch off way further from the root idea doesn't mean they started with the evil idea in the first place or worse, someone else won't.
Sutton and everyone else who has advanced the field deserve condemnation IMO, not awards.
Reminds me of a quote from Jean Cocteau, of which I could not find the exact words, but which roughly says that if the public knew what thoughts geniuses can have, it would be more terrified than admiring.
I don't think it's a question of whether their achievements are nullified, but as you mention, how to weight the opinions of various people. Personally, I think both a Turing award for technical achievement and a view that humanity ought to be replaced are relevant in evaluating someone's opinions on AI policy, and we shouldn't forget the latter because of the former.
(Also, this isn't about Sutton's personal life - that's a pretty bad strawman.)
Repressive laws on open AI/models—giving elites total control in the name of safety?
And this alternative perspective from the cult should disqualify someone from a Turing Award despite their achievements?
In the talk, he says it will lead to an era of prosperity for humanity, however without humanity being in sole control of their destiny. His conclusion slide (at 12:33) literally has the bullet point "the best hope for a long-term future for humanity". That is opposite to you saying he "doesn't care if humans all die".
If I plan for my succession, I don't hope nor expect my daughter will murder me. I'm hoping for a long retirement in good health after which I will quietly pass in my sleep, knowing I left her as well as I could in a symbiotic relationship with the universe.
That seems to be a harsh and misleading framing of his position. My own reading is that he believes it is inevitable that humans will be replaced by transhumans. That seems more like wild sci-fi utopianism than ill-will. It doesn't seem like a reason to avoid celebrating his academic achievements.
Edit: especially since I think your implied claim that Sutton would actively want everyone to die seems very much unfounded.
His last slide literally says “best hope for a long-term future for humanity”. That’s literally the opposite of what you’re claiming.
If "we" don't build it, someone else will.
It's not just one Youtube video, it's a repeatedly expressed view:
https://x.com/RichardSSutton/status/1575619655778983936
Valuing technological advance for its own sake "beyond good and bad" is an admirably clear statement of how a lot of researchers operate, but that's the best I can say for it.
This talk isn't that. There are no substantive arguments for why we should embrace this future and his representation of the opposite side isn't in good faith either, instead he chose to present straw-man versions of them.
He concludes with "A successful succession offers [...] the best hope for a long-term future for humanity. How this can possibly be true when ai succession necessarily includes replacement eludes me. He does mention transhumanism on a slide, but it seems extremely unlikely that he's actually talking about that and the whole succession spiel is just unfortunate wording.
How is AI going to make its own chips and energy? The supply chain for AI hardware is long an fragile. AGI will have an interest in maintaining peace for this reason.
And why would it replace us, our thoughts are like food for AI. Our bodies are very efficient and mobile, biology will certainly be an option for AGI at some point.
OK, so do you support laws preventing chip manufacturers and energy providers from becoming reliant on AI?
Pay naive humans take care of those things while it has to, then disassemble the atoms in their human bodies into raw materials for robots/datacenters once that is no longer necessary
To me robots are just as cool.