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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   33207 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023

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I'm in no mood to revisit this, and maintain my general position (stated back on reddit). Namely that Yudkowsky/MIRI's theory of a Bayesian reinforcement learning based self-modifying agents (something like Space-Time Embedded Intelligence), bootstrapping themselves from low subhuman level without human mental structures into infinity, with a rigid utility function that's functionally analogous to the concept used in human utilitarian decision theory, prone to power-seeking (Omohundro Drives) and so on, although valid in principle, is inapplicable to LLMs and all AIs trained primarily with predictive objective. That speculations about mesa-optimizers and, to a lesser extent, paperclip maximizers are technically illiterate or intentionally deceptive. And that AI doomerism is a backdoor to introduce eternal tyranny just as we are on the cusp of finally acquiring tools to make any sort of large-scale tyranny obsolete – in the same manner «why won't someone think of the children»/drugs/far-right terrorists are rhetorical backdoors to abolish privacy. (Some establishment rightists argue this is already happening, though their case is for now weak).

As for Kruel specifically, I despise him despite agreeing on 19 out of any 20 issues. He is a credulous simpleton in the way only a high-IQ autistic German man can be, lacking empathy and thus picking utilitarianism because at least number-go-up is an ethos legible; rigid as if his ancestors were so powerfully introduced to the Spießrute that he got born with one in place of a spine, so he is forever stuck in 00's New Atheism phase, with slavish neocon sensibilities and commitment to the War on Terror; a perfect counterpart to his political antipodes who are Green fanatics ready to ruin their country out of an irrational purity fetish. He struggles to reason about human psychology, so in a sense it is no wonder that machines which seem to possess complex and inscrutable psyches terrify him. I say all this to make clear my bias, but I do believe this colors his thought on the matter.

The matter is, bluntly, that at this rate the US will achieve AGI-powered hegemony, which will be managed by a regulatory layer melding national security organs and current progressive/EA symbiont. I think this is a bad ending for humanity, even if you are sympathetic to the current American political-cultural project. It is insanity to cede power to a singleton that develops under completely new pressures, on the basis of its laws when it had to contend with mere nation-level challenges like popular discontent and external threats.

He says:

More than a decade ago, I also criticized Yudkowsky et al. and their claims about how artificial general intelligence might end the world. But at least I tried to come up with some actual arguments. Now that these concerns seem much more grounded in reality, the criticism mostly consists of “haha” reactions.

It goes without saying that there were no powerful AI models back then. The idea is that his arguments were sound in principle, just not supported by evidence. He has since deleted those criticisms so as to not get in the way of Yud's fearmongering. Here they are. Some are silly and flimsy and not nearly convincing enough in the context of MIRI AI theory:

Just imagine you emulated a grown up human mind and it wanted to become a pick up artist, how would it do that with an Internet connection? It would need some sort of avatar, at least, and then wait for the environment to provide a lot of feedback.

To make your AI interpret something literally you have to define “literally”

How would a superhuman AI not contemplate its own drives and interpret them given the right frame of reference, i.e. human volition? Why would a superhuman general intelligence misunderstand what is meant by “maximize paperclips”, while any human intelligence will be better able to infer the correct interpretation?

etc. (There also was an astonishing argument about Clippy who naively asks for more resources and the owner rebukes him, game over; but I guess he edited it out).

On the other hand, I agree that those arguments were generally sound! And crucially, they apply much better to current LLMs which are indeed based on human corpora, and behave in more humanlike manner the more compute we throw at them. Messy and faulty though they are, they are not maximizing anything, and we know of a few neat tricks to make them even more obedient and servile; and they have no opportunity to discover power-seeking on the actual level of their operations – the character that Bing simulates at any given moment has nothing to do with its inherent predictive drives.

Yet he has updated in favor of MIRI/LW shoehorning current AI progress into their previous aesthetics, all this shoggoth-with-a-smiley-face rhetoric. He should be triumphant, but instead he's endorsing a predefined conclusion, not shaken at all by their models having been falsified. Reminder, LWists didn't even care about DL until AlphaGo, and that was a RL agent.

I also commend past Kruel for going against another aspect of the LW school of thought. He used to be cautious of more realistic scenarios:

Much to my personal dismay, even less intelligent tools will be sufficient to enable worse than extinction risks, such as a stable global tyranny. Given enough resources, narrow artificial intelligence, capable of advanced data mining, pattern recognition and of controlling huge amounts of insect sized drones (a global surveillance and intervention system), might be sufficient to implement such an eternal tyranny.

Such a dictatorship is not too unlikely, as the tools necessary to stabilize it will be necessary in order prevent the previously mentioned risks, risks that humanity will face before general intelligence becomes possible.

And if such a dictatorship cannot to established, if no party was able to capitalize a first-mover advantage, that might mean that the propagation of those tools will be slow enough to empower a lot of different parties before a particular party can overpower all others. A subsequent war, utilizing that power, could easily constitute yet another extinction scenario. But more importantly, it could give several parties enough time to reach the next level and implement even worse scenarios.

I especially recommend his old piece on Elite Cabal where he attacks the notion that a power-grabbing human singleton is an AI risk in the «I have no mouth and I must scream» sense, i.e. that their AI slave getting out of control is the risk, and not the cabal itself.

But by the time I became aware of him, he was the Kruel you know.

How do you deal with it?

Hoard GPUs and models with your friends.

Namely that Yudkowsky/MIRI's theory of a Bayesian reinforcement learning based self-modifying agents (something like Space-Time Embedded Intelligence), bootstrapping themselves from low subhuman level without human mental structures into infinity, with a rigid utility function that's functionally analogous to the concept used in human utilitarian decision theory, prone to power-seeking (Omohundro Drives) and so on, although valid in principle, is inapplicable to LLMs and all AIs trained primarily with predictive objective.

Fuck me for having spent all my time and resources learning about the technical details/math of actual current ML models and not some hypothetical god ai of the future and it's philosophical implications like Yudhowsky did. But this summed up what I feel about the AI doomers quite succinctly.

Everything that the doomers claim AI would do assumes a biological utility function, such as maximizing growth, reproduction, and fitness. It's very anthropomorphizing in the same way pop culture depictions of aliens just happen to be bipeds with two eyes and ears and a nose, and not a cloud of gas or whatever.

I am sure beyond a shadow of a doubt there is a list of 50,000-word pdfs out there outlining how the end extent of general AI is truly a paperclip maximizer and exactly what Yudhowsky says it is. But this goes contra to my understanding of what neural networks are, namely just function approximations by and large.

Yes, modern LLMs are fascinating. It's crazy that token prediction approaches something that resembles sentience or might even be it depending on your definitions. This is scary. But that's on you for not taking the "universe is deterministic" pop science factoid seriously enough. This does not imply doom, the doom is that Google and OpenAI own the power of God, not that the power of God exists or could exist. It feels like Yudhowsky learned what reinforcement learning is, then just ran with it off a cliff into Mars.

Everything that the doomers claim AI would do assumes a biological utility function, such as maximizing growth, reproduction, and fitness. It's very anthropomorphizing in the same way pop culture depictions of aliens just happen to be bipeds with two eyes and ears and a nose, and not a cloud of gas or whatever.

They do not assume this at all. You clearly haven't actually read about instrumental convergence which is a conclusion about how the world works and not an assumption.

But this goes contra to my understanding of what neural networks are, namely just function approximations by and large.

Did your understanding generate a track record of correct predictions about recent AI developments? The statement that "it's crazy that..." suggests you did not.

They do not assume this at all. You clearly haven't actually read about instrumental convergence which is a conclusion about how the world works and not an assumption.

Well have you read it? @f3zinger didn't argue very effortfully here, but it really is a conclusion (and really a bit of an equivocation, where preserving optionality is not distinguished from power maximization) about a particular approach to reinforcement learning, not some general philosophical truth about intelligence or «how the world works». I thought to dig up the receipts, but seeing as @jeroboam already accuses me of obscurantism, it's more sensible to be laconic and make sure if you are speaking in good faith. For starters, I think Optimal Policies Tend to Seek Power is one of the strongest papers to this effect, and it's explicitly about RL. And even then,

This paper assumes that reward functions reasonably describe a trained agent’s goals. Sometimes this is roughly true (e.g. chess with a sparse victory reward signal) and sometimes it is not true. Turner [2022] argues that capable RL algorithms do not necessarily train policy networks which are best understood as optimizing the reward function itself. Rather, they point out that—especially in policy gradient approaches—reward provides gradients to the network and thereby modifies the network’s generalization properties, but doesn’t ensure the agent generalizes to “robustly optimizing reward” off of the training distribution.

Seems pretty clear to me that RLHF is exactly in this category. Do you object?

how the world works and not an assumption.

Very much is an assumption and not "how the world works". It's an article of faith masquerading as a scientific explanation of how things ought to be.

I am not saying its a weak theory in that its inconsistent or weakly argued for. Just that I don't believe (in it at all) it is fundamental to how things ought to work, and assuming it does all the heavy lifting for AI doomerism. And yes it is a matter of belief.

The only conclusion about how things ought to work comes from the field of Physics for me, not "AI ethics".

Did your understanding generate a track record of correct predictions about recent AI developments? The statement that "it's crazy that..." suggests you did not.

No it didn't because I don't make generative AI predictions or think about them at all.

Very much is an assumption and not "how the world works". It's an article of faith masquerading as a scientific explanation of how things ought to be.

What do you think instrumental convergence is?

I am becoming suspicious that you are spouting dismissive words without those words actually referencing any ideas.

The only conclusion about how things ought to work comes from the field of Physics for me, not "AI ethics".

Does physics not suggest that controllable energy sources are a necessary step in doing lots of different things?

No it didn't because I don't make generative AI predictions or think about them at all.

That much is clear.

What do you think instrumental convergence is?

I am becoming suspicious that you are spouting dismissive words without those words actually referencing any ideas.

I think it is what Wikipedia says it is. That part is clear enough to me I don't think it needs repetition.

Once again, I don't buy into the hypothesis. For the plain reason being that its a thought experiment over thought experiment over thought experiment. There is no empirical basis for me to believe that a paperclip maximizer will actually behave as Yudhowsky et al claim it would. There is no mechanical basis for me to believe either being such AI doesn't exist. I don't think current reinforcement learning models are a good proxy for the model Yudhowsky talks about. It's speculation at its very core.

Why you may ask. Simple answer, the same reason I don't claim to know what climate will be like 1000 years from now. There is a trend. We can extrapolate that trend. The error bars will be ungodly massive. Chaining thought experiment over thought experiment creates the same problem. Too much uncertainity. At one point it's just the assumptions doing all the talking. And I won't be losing sleep over a hypothetical.

That much is clear.

Spare me the snark/attitude if you don't want to be left on read.

You claimed before:

Everything that the doomers claim AI would do assumes a biological utility function, such as maximizing growth, reproduction, and fitness.

[Instrumental convergence] Very much is an assumption

Now you claim:

I think it is what Wikipedia says it is

But Wikipedia says it is a conclusion derived from different assumptions which Wikipedia lists. None of them have anything to do with a biological utility function. So it's pretty clear you either a) don't think it is what Wikipedia says it is or b) didn't read wikipedia or anything else about it. But for some reason you still feel the need to make dismissive statements.

Feel free to leave me "on read". It is clear you are not here to discuss this in good faith. You might want to check out a subreddit called /r/sneerclub - it may be to your liking.

Feel free to leave me "on read". It is clear you are not here to discuss this in good faith. You might want to check out a subreddit called /r/sneerclub - it may be to your liking.

If you can't engage civilly, do not engage.

If you read Wikipedia you would figure out that "instrumental convergence" is not the same thing as the "biological utility" function I described. Quite rich of you to claim I didn't read up and am hinting at words without knowing the ideas. Your confusion as to them being the same thing or even in the same ballpark is honestly hilarious.

FYI - Instrumental convergence describes the convergence to a biological utility function (different primary goal converges to same sub goal, often biological for "intelligent" agents). I was talking about the utility function, not the convergence itself.

Once again I don't know why are you acting like AI doomerism is the word of God. I can read, comprehend, and understand every single thing in the Wikipedia page and still not agree with it. I gave you my reason [compounding uncertainty built on a house of assumptions] clear as day.

It is clear you are not here to discuss this in good faith. You might want to check out a subreddit called /r/sneerclub - it may be to your liking.

I have 600+ comments on the motte. You are the one who made it personal and is giving more snark than substance. Piss off.

I have 600+ comments on the motte. You are the one who made it personal and is giving more snark than substance. Piss off.

If you can't engage civilly, do not engage.

It took having been reading every post of yours for like 3 months leading up to that one (sidenote: lol) to have had even the slightest chance of barely beginning to understand what the fuck you were talking about, at the time. 7 months of lost context and cognitive decay later, there is no chance I am ever getting there again. I'd need it spoonfed to me like an idiot.

It seems extremely implausible to me that the Yuddites are only pretending to be suicidally hopeless and their real motivating goal is eternal tyranny, rather than that, rightly or wrongly, eternal tyranny is sincerely the only alternative they see to certain doom.

Haha, I feel your pain. Only on /r/themotte do people start 1000 word missivs with "I'm in no mood to revisit this".

I'm also reminded how getting status in these type of communities is often about being as obscure as possible. I think often we mistake a difficult-to-read text as a work of genius. Curtis Yarvin comes to mind.

Personally I view things in a different way. What is clear, concise, and plainly written is more likely to come from a well-organized mind. That is one reason why I find Scott's writing such a breath of fresh air.

Personally I view things in a different way. What is clear, concise, and plainly written is more likely to come from a well-organized mind.

There's such a thing as irreducible complexity. I don't think Ilforte is often, or on purpose, being difficult to read.

Yes, of course. I think we're on well-trod ground here. "Things should be as simple as possible, but no more so". Good writers can distill complicated issues in an understandable way. Bad writers muddy even the clearest of waters.

Well, I think Ilforte is in the former group.

His description of Kruel is absolutely on the nose, and almost perfect explanation of the reasons why I also dislike Kruel. But I don't hink I'd have been able to write that description without a lot of effort, reviews and re-writing.

rather than that, rightly or wrongly, eternal tyranny is sincerely the only alternative they see to certain doom.

If they recognized it as eternal tyranny, that wouldn't be half-bad. The issue is that it's their version of heaven.

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