Dangerous AI: These expert responses to the open letter provide deep insight

With the open letter published Wednesday evening and signed by many experts, Elon Musk managed to get a PR coup. Media around the world have picked up on the urgent warning of uncontrollable artificial intelligence and the action has sparked violent reactions far beyond the professional world.

The letter particularly denounces the arms race between major tech companies such as Microsoft and Google, which have begun launching powerful, freely accessible AI technology. The open letter speaks of “a dangerous race” towards “ever larger, unpredictable black box models”.

The experts warned of a deluge of propaganda and fake news, the destruction of many jobs and a general loss of control.

However, not all AI experts agree with the contents of the letter. This is evident, for example, from the statements of Linguistics Professor Emily M. Bender from the University of Washington. The renowned expert tweeted that the open letter was “literally dripping with AI hype”.

And Arvind Narayanan, associate professor of computer science at Princetonfound clear words:

Another point of criticism is that the authors do not discuss concrete measures against the already existing social damage caused by AI. The mandatory development stop of six months does not help here.

Accusation 1: The authors spread fear and fan the AI ​​hype

American linguist Bender, one of the absolute luminaries in her field, says the letter abuses her research results.

she counters, that her research focuses specifically on current large language models (LLM). and point to “their use in repressive systems” – that is much more concrete and urgent than future AI.

Scientist Sascha Luccioni, a leading ethical artificial intelligence researcher and climate director at Hugging Face, agrees. It is a mistake to draw attention to hypothetical powers and damage and to propose “a very vague and ineffective way” of dealing with them.

Accusation 2: The real AI problems are not addressed

Computer science professor Narayanan replied that these very far-fetched questions were “nonsense” and “ridiculous”.

The fact that computers will take over human civilization is part of a long-term mindset that distracts us from the current issues surrounding ChatGPT and Co.

Specifically, according to Emily Bender, these are:

In an interview published March 17 on netzpolitik.org the German sociologist and computer scientist Milagros Miceli pointed out an AI problem that the providers are hiding: the supposedly powerful artificial intelligence only works because the tools are operated by human hands.

As the world demands ethical AI, sellers paid “an army of workers” to flag violent and inappropriate content. But in order to do that, they would have to be confronted with this content – ​​and that would be very damaging to their mental health.

Accusation 3: The letter is based on a questionable worldview

The open letter was published on the website of the Future of Life Institute, a non-profit organization with a mission to “reduce global catastrophic and existential risk through powerful technologies.”

And that brings us to a worldview, “a sort of secular religion promoted by many members of Silicon Valley’s tech elite,” as Vice pointed out.

We’re talking about long-term thinking.

Sounds complicated – and is a fire hazard.

It is a theory developed by a group of young philosophy professors from Oxford. A new ethic for future generations.

Their masterminds say that the value of an action is primarily measured by the consequences it has for the people who will live in the future.

According to this logic, we should be less concerned about the climate crisis, since “robot apocalypse and intergalactic wars are the bigger dangers”.

The Future of Life Institute is a meeting place for Longtermism supporters. The organization’s founders and supporters include Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn, who, like Elon Musk, co-signed the letter.

In fact, long-term thinking and the super-rich have a magical pull, as is easy to understand. Because long-term thinking gives them an “ethical excuse” to invest in colonizing Mars instead of fighting world hunger.

PS: Another proponent of long-term thinking is FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who has been charged by the US judiciary.

Sources

With material from the SDA news agency