Hundreds of technology leaders including Elon Musk, Andrew Yang, and Steve Wozniak are calling on OpenAI to pause the advancement of the artificial intelligence used in the company's future products. This group believes OpenAI poses a risk to society by displacing workers and potentially allowing artificial intelligence to "replace us".
Maybe my thinking needs to evolve on this.... but whenever I think of AI.... the only thing that comes to mind is Skynet and machines wanting to wipe out humanity...
Attributed to Milton Friedman, "... if it’s jobs you want, then you should give these workers spoons, not shovels.”
In 1994, the French Marxist Andre Gorz in his short book, "Farewell to the Working Class," said capitalism was not, as Marx predicted, creating an ever-larger working class. It was doing the opposite: It was using technology to destroy the working class. Robots were replacing industrial workers, and computers.
This group of smart, accomplished people have not forgotten the history of what capitalism is all about, they in their atheist hubris have become part of the marxists evolution. They know better, they are enlightened, and you either agree and fall in line or the autocracy will come for you.
I started out as a bit level programmer, so I know a little about this.
The discussion is about “Open” & “AI”, two different subjects that are mashed together.
The move to “OPEN” began almost 30 years ago, at the dawn of the internet age. This movement placed computer source code in a public spot, where anyone could access it, in the hopes that the collective brain would improve it. The rule was that you could use it, but you had to publish your improvements for all to access.
You may not know it but if you surf up anything on the internet, and buy anything online, or access most online services, its guaranteed you are using some part of this OPEN development.
The “AI” part of this is just one shiny object. It’s been evolving for at least 20 years that I can recall. It takes in the collective information from the web, and any other data source it can access, and attempts to offer logical solutions. Its only as good as the data in, which will evolve exponentially as more coders jump in.
It's not a bad thing, just a new thing. It will be used in bad ways to hack and scam, but it will also be used in good ways to deliver more complete answers when you phone a business.
This isn’t Blade Runner or Soylent Green. It's just a new technology frontier that is finally becoming monetized.
Elon Musk is a smart guy. I'd be interested to hear why he is so opposed to OPEN AI.
AI is like steam or electricity. It’s here to stay, and no cabal of New Age Luddites can stop it or put it back in the bottle. Will it have warts and flaws? You bet your bottom dollar. Which is exactly why Microsoft and OpenAI’s approach of working in the open - exposing this warts and flaws to the world - is exactly the *RIGHT* approach. Shut them down and you can bet your bottom dollar that some bad actor will be plowing ahead in secret. (Heck, you can bet your bottom dollar that some nefarious characters are researching in secret right now.)
For goodness sake’s don’t try to shut it down. Blow the doors open. Adapt to the things it changes which you don’t like. Adapt it in ways helpful to you.
Nobody shops from a Sears and Roebuck catalog. As much as I miss Sears, not learning how to use online shopping is dysfunctional. Generative AI will change things, some of which I will like and some of which I won’t. Some of which you will like and some of which you won’t. Get over it. It’s coming. Become part of the force to mold it into something good.
I worry that AI responds to what it is fed. Garbage in = Garbage out. So AI can respond to what it has been given. Say it only gets the information published in the NYT and Washington Post. What kind of responses will it give in answer to questions. Also, a lot of the information it gives a user is interpreted by an algorithm that is built to someone’s specs. What are those specs and how are they weighted. AI responded probably cannot be taken as fact but if we come to the point where AI is taken as fact it can ruin our Judicial System and our trust in anything touched by AI.
We have a slippery slope that must be traversed with care and discerning thought.
The thing I worry about with it is that people will use it to replace logical thought without even questioning the outcome or answer it provides. Of course, this is already happening with other technologies but this may go further. I have used chat GPT a little to make myself more efficient at my job but did find that some of the answers it provided were not quite correct. Now, that could be how I framed the conversation but if I didn’t know what I was looking for then I might provide an incorrect answer to someone.
I also tried the thing that was going around about asking ChatGPT about Donald Trump where I asked it to write a poem about him. It did not indulge me and basically told me it doesn’t do politics. Then, I asked the same thing of Joe Biden and received an approximately 10 stanza poem on how he’s so great and basically has saved the world.
The problem with AI is the inherent danger of it. As Michael Chrichton's character, Ian Malcolm says so well: "“Scientists are actually preoccupied with accomplishment. So they are focused on whether they can do something. They never stop to ask if they should do something.”
While I agree that AI must be used with caution, I disagree with how you predict it will impact the culture and economy.
Unlike the evolution of agriculture technology, AI will impact the mid-level techno-managers and the creative class long before the HVAC techs and grass cutters will feel it.
Perhaps one reason Elon Musk is saying to tap the brakes is because he attempted to purchase OpenAI but was rebuffed.
And OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has donated piles of money to Democrat candidates and causes, which explains the well-documented bias towards progressive ideology seen in chatGPT outputs.
I have been fascinated by what I can do with the OpenAI products and I am following the topic closely. I also agree with the notion that AI is going to be baked in to a wide variety of applications as we learn to exploit its capabilities.
Here’s to hoping that AI is the one that’s exploited and not us.
I think the establishment conservative types that are absolutes in free market support are failing to consider, or otherwise don't understand, some important negative tradeoffs.
If we consider labor as a global commodity like we have, then there are problems. Note that none of the early architects of capitalism ever considered that potential as the Internet and modern global logistics would not have been conceived from them. And also consider that the early architects of capitalism always assumed the social benefits of domestic capital investment would benefit domestic workers and thus create a level of social class harmony in that all would share in capital returns. Outsourcing to achieve lower costs is not really a part of classic capitalism. It is a form of rent-seeking that breaks with the core tenants of capitalism as a social system... treating it like all profit taking is good and fits into the capitalism bucket.
Next is workforce automation... software and robots replacing the remaining jobs.
So we have a GDP that requires fewer workers and less work.
Let's play this out in terms of the health of humanity... support of the human condition... and general health of society.
I think this is the piece that many globalist conservatives and big government and social services liberals don't get... don't understand.
Were we are headed with this is Universal Basic Income. The concept is that automation and outsourcing is ramping up corporate profits and Wall Street returns without the need for workers, and thus we tax those profits at a higher rate and give the non-working people enough to live off.
That will not work.
Without work people will not have enough activities to feed their life-purpose / life-meaning needs. And thus they will drift into other activities... many if not most that are not good for them and not good for society. They will be resentful being locked out of a two-tier class hierarchy where some have jobs and a much better life... and the rest get just enough to get by. (read the novel "Beggars in Spain")
The psychological needs to do work supporting a life are a necessity for any functioning society to fill. Only when we get to retirement age can we let go of that need and find other activities that fulfill our psychological needs.
We need an economic policy that provides enough work and career opportunity for the citizens to earn their own reasonable economic life. It is clear that we do NOT have this today and it probably explains much of our social decay. Increase that with more robots and AI and we will see just more social decay.
In the right hands this technology might have some societal value. In the wrong hands, well, let's just say the metaphorical Big Brother is smiling ear to ear. Replacing jobs is the least of it. Read Jacob Siegel's "Hoax of the Century". You are out of your lane on this one.
Erick, you miss the point entirely. Its not about displaced jobs, it’s about massive flaws, exploits, and total lack of transparency the LLM AI builders have shown while throwing their products out in the wild. These leaders believe it is totally irresponsible of OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft to act this way. Read Gary Marcus’ substack blog and you’ll see why.
Maybe my thinking needs to evolve on this.... but whenever I think of AI.... the only thing that comes to mind is Skynet and machines wanting to wipe out humanity...
Attributed to Milton Friedman, "... if it’s jobs you want, then you should give these workers spoons, not shovels.”
In 1994, the French Marxist Andre Gorz in his short book, "Farewell to the Working Class," said capitalism was not, as Marx predicted, creating an ever-larger working class. It was doing the opposite: It was using technology to destroy the working class. Robots were replacing industrial workers, and computers.
This group of smart, accomplished people have not forgotten the history of what capitalism is all about, they in their atheist hubris have become part of the marxists evolution. They know better, they are enlightened, and you either agree and fall in line or the autocracy will come for you.
I started out as a bit level programmer, so I know a little about this.
The discussion is about “Open” & “AI”, two different subjects that are mashed together.
The move to “OPEN” began almost 30 years ago, at the dawn of the internet age. This movement placed computer source code in a public spot, where anyone could access it, in the hopes that the collective brain would improve it. The rule was that you could use it, but you had to publish your improvements for all to access.
You may not know it but if you surf up anything on the internet, and buy anything online, or access most online services, its guaranteed you are using some part of this OPEN development.
The “AI” part of this is just one shiny object. It’s been evolving for at least 20 years that I can recall. It takes in the collective information from the web, and any other data source it can access, and attempts to offer logical solutions. Its only as good as the data in, which will evolve exponentially as more coders jump in.
It's not a bad thing, just a new thing. It will be used in bad ways to hack and scam, but it will also be used in good ways to deliver more complete answers when you phone a business.
This isn’t Blade Runner or Soylent Green. It's just a new technology frontier that is finally becoming monetized.
Elon Musk is a smart guy. I'd be interested to hear why he is so opposed to OPEN AI.
Cheers
AI is like steam or electricity. It’s here to stay, and no cabal of New Age Luddites can stop it or put it back in the bottle. Will it have warts and flaws? You bet your bottom dollar. Which is exactly why Microsoft and OpenAI’s approach of working in the open - exposing this warts and flaws to the world - is exactly the *RIGHT* approach. Shut them down and you can bet your bottom dollar that some bad actor will be plowing ahead in secret. (Heck, you can bet your bottom dollar that some nefarious characters are researching in secret right now.)
For goodness sake’s don’t try to shut it down. Blow the doors open. Adapt to the things it changes which you don’t like. Adapt it in ways helpful to you.
Nobody shops from a Sears and Roebuck catalog. As much as I miss Sears, not learning how to use online shopping is dysfunctional. Generative AI will change things, some of which I will like and some of which I won’t. Some of which you will like and some of which you won’t. Get over it. It’s coming. Become part of the force to mold it into something good.
I worry that AI responds to what it is fed. Garbage in = Garbage out. So AI can respond to what it has been given. Say it only gets the information published in the NYT and Washington Post. What kind of responses will it give in answer to questions. Also, a lot of the information it gives a user is interpreted by an algorithm that is built to someone’s specs. What are those specs and how are they weighted. AI responded probably cannot be taken as fact but if we come to the point where AI is taken as fact it can ruin our Judicial System and our trust in anything touched by AI.
We have a slippery slope that must be traversed with care and discerning thought.
The thing I worry about with it is that people will use it to replace logical thought without even questioning the outcome or answer it provides. Of course, this is already happening with other technologies but this may go further. I have used chat GPT a little to make myself more efficient at my job but did find that some of the answers it provided were not quite correct. Now, that could be how I framed the conversation but if I didn’t know what I was looking for then I might provide an incorrect answer to someone.
I also tried the thing that was going around about asking ChatGPT about Donald Trump where I asked it to write a poem about him. It did not indulge me and basically told me it doesn’t do politics. Then, I asked the same thing of Joe Biden and received an approximately 10 stanza poem on how he’s so great and basically has saved the world.
The problem with AI is the inherent danger of it. As Michael Chrichton's character, Ian Malcolm says so well: "“Scientists are actually preoccupied with accomplishment. So they are focused on whether they can do something. They never stop to ask if they should do something.”
While I agree that AI must be used with caution, I disagree with how you predict it will impact the culture and economy.
Unlike the evolution of agriculture technology, AI will impact the mid-level techno-managers and the creative class long before the HVAC techs and grass cutters will feel it.
Perhaps one reason Elon Musk is saying to tap the brakes is because he attempted to purchase OpenAI but was rebuffed.
And OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has donated piles of money to Democrat candidates and causes, which explains the well-documented bias towards progressive ideology seen in chatGPT outputs.
I have been fascinated by what I can do with the OpenAI products and I am following the topic closely. I also agree with the notion that AI is going to be baked in to a wide variety of applications as we learn to exploit its capabilities.
Here’s to hoping that AI is the one that’s exploited and not us.
A rogue AI taking over the world and enslaving or destroying biological life. Only happens in movies. And sometimes video games. But nowhere else.
I think the establishment conservative types that are absolutes in free market support are failing to consider, or otherwise don't understand, some important negative tradeoffs.
If we consider labor as a global commodity like we have, then there are problems. Note that none of the early architects of capitalism ever considered that potential as the Internet and modern global logistics would not have been conceived from them. And also consider that the early architects of capitalism always assumed the social benefits of domestic capital investment would benefit domestic workers and thus create a level of social class harmony in that all would share in capital returns. Outsourcing to achieve lower costs is not really a part of classic capitalism. It is a form of rent-seeking that breaks with the core tenants of capitalism as a social system... treating it like all profit taking is good and fits into the capitalism bucket.
Next is workforce automation... software and robots replacing the remaining jobs.
So we have a GDP that requires fewer workers and less work.
Let's play this out in terms of the health of humanity... support of the human condition... and general health of society.
I think this is the piece that many globalist conservatives and big government and social services liberals don't get... don't understand.
Were we are headed with this is Universal Basic Income. The concept is that automation and outsourcing is ramping up corporate profits and Wall Street returns without the need for workers, and thus we tax those profits at a higher rate and give the non-working people enough to live off.
That will not work.
Without work people will not have enough activities to feed their life-purpose / life-meaning needs. And thus they will drift into other activities... many if not most that are not good for them and not good for society. They will be resentful being locked out of a two-tier class hierarchy where some have jobs and a much better life... and the rest get just enough to get by. (read the novel "Beggars in Spain")
The psychological needs to do work supporting a life are a necessity for any functioning society to fill. Only when we get to retirement age can we let go of that need and find other activities that fulfill our psychological needs.
We need an economic policy that provides enough work and career opportunity for the citizens to earn their own reasonable economic life. It is clear that we do NOT have this today and it probably explains much of our social decay. Increase that with more robots and AI and we will see just more social decay.
THAT is the reason that AI is a threat.
In the right hands this technology might have some societal value. In the wrong hands, well, let's just say the metaphorical Big Brother is smiling ear to ear. Replacing jobs is the least of it. Read Jacob Siegel's "Hoax of the Century". You are out of your lane on this one.
Erick, you miss the point entirely. Its not about displaced jobs, it’s about massive flaws, exploits, and total lack of transparency the LLM AI builders have shown while throwing their products out in the wild. These leaders believe it is totally irresponsible of OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft to act this way. Read Gary Marcus’ substack blog and you’ll see why.