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[–] 246 points 2 weeks ago (29 children)

I'm sure Bernie has good intentions but this is exactly what Altman and Amodei want and why they're constantly shouting how dangerous AI is.

Any AI startup can then be labeled as developing artificial superintelligence. Not them though, they're working together with the government.

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  • [–] 77 points 2 weeks ago (17 children)

    If AI is so dangerous it needs to be immediately banned. The only allowed usage (If any) is research and it is heavily restricted, with heavy oversight from multiple governments. Otherwise its just bullshit

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  • [–] 9 points 2 weeks ago*

    Plus OpenAI's IPO has been delayed due to the hype not being favorable enough, so it's time to put on the brakes so that AGI can remain just around the corner for a little while longer.

    That said, I do think Bernie's idea of making the public voting stakeholders in AI companies is interesting. Existential threats notwithstanding, AI is having a significant impact in a lot of ways and the public interest should be represented. Though in practice I doubt that you'll get the entire public voting in any meaningful direction so that 50% might not make any effective change.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

    I get your point, but I also argue "no it's not." The AI bros want to lie about how their super-special autocomplete is the most dangerous of all without any consequences. Good luck getting any employees to willingly substantiate your claims when 20 years in prison is on the line.

    Even better, if they try to hack another company and claim their AI did it on its own, they get treated like a private company who decided to perform an unsanctioned nuclear test.

    Make it dangerous for them to claim they're dangerous.

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    [–] 130 points 2 weeks ago (15 children)

    There are people facing weed sentences with harsher time than developing rogue nuclear weapons

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  • [–] 46 points 2 weeks ago (9 children)

    Americans are INSANE about how much the want criminals punished, in CA a guy got a life sentence for stealing a pizza when we tried to have a ''three strikes your out'' law that automatically gave life sentences at any third conviction which is fucking crazy in a state with tack on laws to the point you can get convicted of 10+ crimes on almost every single infraction, if you commit a felony with a pen or pencil in your pocket, that's possession of a lethal weapon! it's absurd. it's still on the books the three strikes law, but it's unenforceable because apparently having 60% of your population in prison for life is not a great plan for a civilization.

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    [–] 77 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

    TIL, developing nuclear weapons is only 20 years in prison.

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    [–] 51 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

    Bernie falling for the trap. The AI companies want regulatory capture. They have NO moat otherwise.

    If those comps are breaking laws, they need to be prosecuted for that. We don’t need new laws that can be exploited by the billionaires.

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    [–] 45 points 2 weeks ago (1 child)

    is it just me, or is 20 years for a rogue nuclear weapon seem a bit light?

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    [–] 44 points 2 weeks ago (1 child)

    We can't even punish blatantly obvious theft and bribery in our own government, at this point, why bother with another law?

    I like Bernie, but he seems so quaint now compared to what he is up against. Good luck guy

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  • [–] 42 points 2 weeks ago (31 children)

    This is nice and everything, but this whole thing is just a huge marketing push by AI companies. AI is not going to kill us. At least not directly (see point 2).

    1. You need prohibitively expensive equipment to host AI. That equipment needs to be plugged in. If it were truly dangerous, you just need to unplug it.

    2. You need a lot of water to cool the equipment that can run a supposed super intelligence. If we pass regulations about how much of our environment these data centers can destroy, that would curb the abilities of this superintelligence.

    3. AI is fucking dumb. AI is a misnomer since it doesn't actually have any intelligence. It is derivative and cannot perform any necessary tasks that actually drive intelligence. For example, it will be able to tell you every established law in any field of science because it has that information in its corpus, but it will never be able to establish a new law. Or discover anything new in any field.

    This whole thing is a push to get people to believe that AI is more capable than it really is so that these companies can draw more money from investors so that 'they'd be able to implement proper safeguards."

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  • [–] 28 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

    Accepting that you are right on all 3 points, the supercharged push of AI is destroying the country (and the world) by itself. Prices are sky high, AI is being prioritized with regards to water rather than actual humans, and the results are plateauing relative to the resources expended. We won't get an obvious negative outcome, it's more insidious and systemic which is just as dangerous as Skynet if left unaddressed. So AI is probably not going to kill us in the Terminator Skynet sense, it WILL kill us through economic and water related means.

    Having said that, I think Bernie is doing the superintelligence argument (even though it's probably not the immediate threat) because the people are retarded. The thing that can bring us together are pieces of art like Terminator and so using that as a reference makes it relatable to all the retards rather than giving them a nuanced explanation.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 weeks ago

    100%. This is Bernie using their own words against them. They keep saying it's super dangerous guys, incredibly powerful.. And Bernie is turning around and using that narrative to help slow the AI bubble.

    Sounds good to me.

    Anyone who thinks Bernie 'fell for it' is missing the point.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 weeks ago

    This is my feelings exactly. I don't believe in the doomsday sky net horseshit that the AI companies/whistleblowers are peddling, but taking a strong stance against AI right now is incredibly based. Use the flimsy arguments of AI tech bros to hold them to account.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

    This is pretty naive. Distributing computing has existed since forever. It would run significantly more slowly, but there is nothing theoretically stopping the "LLM broke out of containment and moved itself elsewhere" boogie man from becoming a reality. The available exploitable compute from unsecured IoT devices is pretty substantial as things like the Mirai botnet have shown. While this isn't the most easily distributed problem, there is no fundamental issue here. [Edit: it also wouldn't need to "exfiltrate itself" to cause persistent harm. Could easily just install malware on infected hosts]

    AI isn't "dumb" in a practical real world sense. LLMs have shown themselves capable of exploitation on the open Internet and of finding zero day vulnerabilities. Do you have any idea how much of our critical infrastructure can be reachable by some sort of network? LLMs have shown themselves capable of manipulating people via speech. None of this requires some sort of "super intelligence" and it doesn't even require some sort of provable intelligence: it's all quite possible as things currently stand right now.

    These may not be "the entire future is over" level issues, but there is significant risk here and it shouldn't be ignored just because we think AI companies are horrible. Is an LLM going to make us all batteries or paper clips? No, but it could cause significant physical and/or economic harm temporarily.

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    [–] 39 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

    Still crazy people get the same charge for driving around with some plants...

    There's a lot of shit we need to fix, but our justice system is a big one.

    20 years should be the plea deal if they fess up and snitch on everyone else, not the max were seeking. The damage a wealthy person can do is astronomical. So we need to start sentencing them appropriately.

    Life should be the minimum were seeking, even just causing power loss where they build a data center has killed people already. Wanton reckless endangerment resulting in death is a big deal even if you're a billionaire, I'd say it's a bigger deal because a billionaire has zero financial stress.

    They can literally afford to take time and be careful, if they don't then fuck em

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  • [–] 23 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (5 children)

    Sad to see Bernie buy in to the AI hype. LLMs are not intelligent, they aren't anything approximating intelligent, and feeding them more data will never make them "wake up."

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  • [–] 7 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

    I can't say whether he has bought in or not, but this could be useful toward the end of curtailing some of the most damaging economic ambitions, so long as it is applied across the board without "trusted established players" somehow being given a pass.

    So it could him buying it at face value, and frankly who can blame him. Trying to discern reality from hype is tricky in this scenario, especially for a politician.

    However whether the scenario is substantitve or simply everyone is spending and building and planning as if it were substantive, his reaction is equally useful, as slowing our roll is important in either case.

    His style of 'buy-in' wouldn't be as risky as the more pro-AI buy-in, like Trump.

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  • [–] 22 points 2 weeks ago* (1 child)

    The easiest way to regulate the AI industry - and any industry for that matter - is to make the board personally liable for any crimes committed by their product. Not liable in a corporate sense with a fine and a slap on the wrist, when their AI hacks into a water reservoir and causes 500 million of flood damage, but in a 20 years in federal prison sense. Same goes for self driving cars, or any other computer, machinery or combination thereof where humans are placing trust in its safe and legal operation. There should be a corporate negligence law of sorts that says if a company is not following the law, industry best practice, including auditing and implementation of all safeguards, safety and other mitigations then they are exposed to criminal liability.

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    [–] 21 points 2 weeks ago

    How about you propose life without parole for the CEOs, Bernie boy?

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  • [+] 17 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)
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    [–] 14 points 2 weeks ago (1 child)

    Wait... It's only 20 years for illegally developing nuclear weapons?

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    [–] 14 points 2 weeks ago (1 child)

    Now do the same for genociders and their supporters. Lets get back to standing against facsism too.

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    [–] 12 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

    Better idea. Let's make it a capital offense. Call it "treason against mankind."

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    [–] 9 points 2 weeks ago

    I mean I don't buy any of it but I am still ok with this. It would be sooo fun to pass this law and see how fast they turn from AI doomsayers to AI cynics.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 weeks ago

    Such law need to clearly define what development towards ASI actually entails. An easy workaround is to just play along with the narrative that LLM is a hopeless dead end and can’t possibly bring us closer to ASI.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 weeks ago

    These AI labs shouldn't be private profit-seeking corporations. They should be more like publicly-funded nonprofit research institutions like Fermilab or something. It doesn't seem possible to even talk about the labs without feeling like you're increasing their value. That's a problem. It's also a problem that the research and announcements from the labs sound like publicity stunts. It's hard to tell what's genuine and what's buzz for the press. There's this arms race between the labs that's negatively affecting seemingly everything. This should all just be put to an end. Step on the brakes. I don't claim to know how to do that when the Constitution makes private property sacred, but, you know, just throwing the idea out there... The Constitution can always be changed.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 weeks ago*

    I assume then there is an exception for the military, and it will have no teeth because of that.

    People ought to realize the "military industrial complex" is also where they send things like burn pits, which means they don't care much about environmental or physiological issues.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

    He knows it has a snowball's chance. He's just using his platform to call attention to a potentially serious problem in a way that grabs headlines. He has to shout pretty loudly to get anyone's attention nowadays.

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    [–] 7 points 2 weeks ago*

    "They were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should."

    I would label the "they" as human beings, rather than this country or that.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 weeks ago

    Where's the 20 year sentence for insider trading politicians?

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  • [–] 6 points 2 weeks ago*

    Considering people have already tried to develop missiles and other systems with Anthropic and other AI systems it seems like this is warranted and on point with the rogue nuclear power. It can be used by anyone to potentially develop mass deadly weapons.

    https://apnews.com/article/yemen-houthis-anthropic-ai-missiles-9b20934e031ff3d99dd8bb49d85d97a9

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