If a permanent ban went into effect today on training ML models on anything larger than a single consumer-grade GPU card, e.g., Nvidea RTX 40 series, the work of MIRI researcher Scott Garrabrant would not be affected at all. How much of Redwood’s research would stop?
This needs more specificity. Obviously for Garrabrant’s work to have any effect, it will need to influence the design and deployment of an AI eventually; it’s just that is his research approach is probably decades away from when it can be profitably applied to an actual deployed AI. On the other hand, any AI researcher can remain productive if denied the use of a GPU cluster for a week: for example, he or she can use the week to tidy up his or her office and do related “housekeeping” tasks. I guess what I want to know is if there is a ban on GPU clusters, how long—weeks? months? years? -- can the median researcher at Redwood remain productive without abandoning most of his or her work up to now if there is a ban? And is there any researcher at Redwood doing work that is a lot more robust against such a ban than the median researcher at Redwood?
If you (the team that wrote this post) had the power to decide which organizations will get shut down (with immediate effect) would Redwood be one of the orgs you shut down? Assume that you had enough power that if you chose to, you could shut down all meaningful research on AI and that you could be as selective as you like about which organizations and parts (e.g., academic departments) of organizations to shut down.
If a permanent ban went into effect today on training ML models on anything larger than a single consumer-grade GPU card, e.g., Nvidea RTX 40 series, the work of MIRI researcher Scott Garrabrant would not be affected at all. How much of Redwood’s research would stop?
This needs more specificity. Obviously for Garrabrant’s work to have any effect, it will need to influence the design and deployment of an AI eventually; it’s just that is his research approach is probably decades away from when it can be profitably applied to an actual deployed AI. On the other hand, any AI researcher can remain productive if denied the use of a GPU cluster for a week: for example, he or she can use the week to tidy up his or her office and do related “housekeeping” tasks. I guess what I want to know is if there is a ban on GPU clusters, how long—weeks? months? years? -- can the median researcher at Redwood remain productive without abandoning most of his or her work up to now if there is a ban? And is there any researcher at Redwood doing work that is a lot more robust against such a ban than the median researcher at Redwood?
If you (the team that wrote this post) had the power to decide which organizations will get shut down (with immediate effect) would Redwood be one of the orgs you shut down? Assume that you had enough power that if you chose to, you could shut down all meaningful research on AI and that you could be as selective as you like about which organizations and parts (e.g., academic departments) of organizations to shut down.
Thanks in advance.