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Notes -
Finally, concrete plan how to save the world from paperclipping dropped, presented by world (in)famous Basilisk Man himself.
https://twitter.com/RokoMijic/status/1647772106560552962
TL;DR: GPU's over certain capability are treated like fissionable materials, unauthorized possession, distribution and use will be seen as terrorism and dealt with appropriately.
So, is it feasible? Could it work?
If by "government" Roko means US government (plus
vassalsallies) alone, it is not possible.If US can get China aboard, if if there is worldwide expert consensus that unrestricted propagation of computing power will kill everyone, it is absolutely feasible to shut down 99,99% of unauthorized computing all over the world.
Unlike drugs or guns, GPU's are not something you can make in your basement - they are really like enriched uranium or plutonium in the sense you need massive industrial plants to produce them.
Unlike enriched uranium and plutonium, GPU's were already manufactured in huge numbers, but combination of carrots (big piles of cash) and sticks (missile strikes/special forces raids on suspicious locations) will continue dwindling them down and no new ones will be coming.
AI research will of course continue (like work on chemical and biological weapons goes on), but only by trustworthy government actors in the deepest secrecy. You can trust NSA (and Chinese equivalent) AI.
The most persecuted people of the world, gamers, will be, as usual, hit the hardest.
I think this is a very naive take. For one thing hpc (high performance computing) has an absurd number of useful applications (I’ll pick drug discovery as one example) that have little or nothing to do with AI.
And unlike nuclear weapons, there isn’t any way to prohibit there use in warfare, it isn’t possible to nuke someone without the rest of the world noticing. Contrast this with AI, how could you prove that entity x is using ml for military purposes? Let’s say country x has a AI that analyzes satellite imagery perfectly, you wouldn’t ever be able to prove this they can just claim that they have very good analysts. You would effectively be creating a policy that military applications are the only allowed use for AI.
I assert that most people currently making a stink about this (I.e. Elon musk) are upset because they realize that they are behind the curve and want some breathing room to try and monopolize this technology.
I mean imagine these kinds of people suggesting the need for government licensesing for literally anything else.
Also to riff a little more on the analogy with nuclear materials (which I happen to think is a bad analogy, you need lots of gpus to build a super computer, a dangerous quantity of nuclear materials will fit in a backpack or purse): while it seems obvious to me that you need to heavily regulate nuclear materials it’s also possible to end up in situations like the one we have now where the only real innovation is in connection to the military (us subs and aircraft carriers are powered by amazing small modular reactors which the rest of society is only just now debating using else where).
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