I absolutely sympathize, and I agree that with the world view / information you have that advocating for a pause makes sense. I would get behind ‘regulate AI’ or ‘regulate AGI’, certainly. I think though that pausing is an incorrect strategy which would do more harm than good, so despite being aligned with you in being concerned about AGI dangers, I don’t endorse that strategy.
Some part of me thinks this oughtn’t matter, since there’s approximately ~0% chance of the movement achieving that literal goal. The point is to build an anti-AGI movement, and to get people thinking about what it would be like to be able to have the government able to issue an order to pause AGI R&D, or turn off datacenters, or whatever. I think that’s a good aim, and your protests probably (slightly) help that aim.
I’m still hung up on the literal ‘Pause AI’ concept being a problem though. Here’s where I’m coming from:
1. I’ve been analyzing the risks of current day AI. I believe (but will not offer evidence for here) current day AI is already capable of providing small-but-meaningful uplift to bad actors intending to use it for harm (e.g. weapon development). I think that having stronger AI in the hands of government agencies designed to protect humanity from these harms is one of our best chances at preventing such harms.
2. I see the ‘Pause AI’ movement as being targeted mostly at large companies, since I don’t see any plausible way for a government or a protest movement to enforce what private individuals do with their home computers. Perhaps you think this is fine because you think that most of the future dangers posed by AI derive from actions taken by large companies or organizations with large amounts of compute. This is emphatically not my view. I think that actually more danger comes from the many independent researchers and hobbyists who are exploring the problem space. I believe there are huge algorithmic power gains which can, and eventually will, be found. I furthermore believe that beyond a certain threshold, AI will be powerful enough to rapidly self-improve far beyond human capability. In other words, I think every AI researcher in the world with a computer is like a child playing with matches in a drought-stricken forest. Any little flame, no matter how small, could set it all ablaze and kill everyone. Are the big labs playing with bonfires dangerous? Certainly. But they are also visible, and can be regulated and made to be reasonably safe by the government. And the results of their work are the only feasible protection we have against the possibility of FOOM-ing rogue AGI launched by small independent researchers. Thus, pausing the big labs would, in my view, place us in greater danger rather than less danger. I think we are already well within the window of risk from independent-researcher-project-initiated-FOOM. Thus, the faster we get the big labs to develop and deploy worldwide AI-watchdogs, the sooner we will be out of danger.
I know these views are not the majority views held by any group (that I know of). These are my personal inside views from extensive research. If you are curious about why I hold these views, or more details about what I believe, feel free to ask. I’ll answer if I can.
Cross posting from LessWrong:
I absolutely sympathize, and I agree that with the world view / information you have that advocating for a pause makes sense. I would get behind ‘regulate AI’ or ‘regulate AGI’, certainly. I think though that pausing is an incorrect strategy which would do more harm than good, so despite being aligned with you in being concerned about AGI dangers, I don’t endorse that strategy.
Some part of me thinks this oughtn’t matter, since there’s approximately ~0% chance of the movement achieving that literal goal. The point is to build an anti-AGI movement, and to get people thinking about what it would be like to be able to have the government able to issue an order to pause AGI R&D, or turn off datacenters, or whatever. I think that’s a good aim, and your protests probably (slightly) help that aim.
I’m still hung up on the literal ‘Pause AI’ concept being a problem though. Here’s where I’m coming from:
1. I’ve been analyzing the risks of current day AI. I believe (but will not offer evidence for here) current day AI is already capable of providing small-but-meaningful uplift to bad actors intending to use it for harm (e.g. weapon development). I think that having stronger AI in the hands of government agencies designed to protect humanity from these harms is one of our best chances at preventing such harms.
2. I see the ‘Pause AI’ movement as being targeted mostly at large companies, since I don’t see any plausible way for a government or a protest movement to enforce what private individuals do with their home computers. Perhaps you think this is fine because you think that most of the future dangers posed by AI derive from actions taken by large companies or organizations with large amounts of compute. This is emphatically not my view. I think that actually more danger comes from the many independent researchers and hobbyists who are exploring the problem space. I believe there are huge algorithmic power gains which can, and eventually will, be found. I furthermore believe that beyond a certain threshold, AI will be powerful enough to rapidly self-improve far beyond human capability. In other words, I think every AI researcher in the world with a computer is like a child playing with matches in a drought-stricken forest. Any little flame, no matter how small, could set it all ablaze and kill everyone. Are the big labs playing with bonfires dangerous? Certainly. But they are also visible, and can be regulated and made to be reasonably safe by the government. And the results of their work are the only feasible protection we have against the possibility of FOOM-ing rogue AGI launched by small independent researchers. Thus, pausing the big labs would, in my view, place us in greater danger rather than less danger. I think we are already well within the window of risk from independent-researcher-project-initiated-FOOM. Thus, the faster we get the big labs to develop and deploy worldwide AI-watchdogs, the sooner we will be out of danger.
I know these views are not the majority views held by any group (that I know of). These are my personal inside views from extensive research. If you are curious about why I hold these views, or more details about what I believe, feel free to ask. I’ll answer if I can.