System cards are presented as if they’re offering information the company is required to disclose for consumer safety — like the side effects in a pharmaceutical commercial — when, in fact, the companies volunteer them. So why would a company make their product sound scarier than it is? Perhaps because this is the best advertising money can’t buy. People like Harari and others repeat these accounts like ghost stories around a campfire. The public, awed and afraid, marvels at the capabilities of AI.
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Where did we come up with this caricature of AI’s obsessive rationality? “There’s an article I love by [the sci-fi author] Ted Chiang,” Mitchell said, “where he asks: What entity adheres monomaniacally to one single goal that they will pursue at all costs even if doing so uses up all the resources of the world? A big corporation. Their single goal is to increase value for shareholders, and in pursuing that, they can destroy the world. That’s what people are modeling their AI fantasies on.” As Chiang put it in the article in The New Yorker(opens a new tab), “Capitalism is the machine that will do whatever it takes to prevent us from turning it off.
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After talking to experts, I was convinced there’s no reason to fear AIs developing a will to live, and then tricking or destroying us to avoid shutdown and take over the world. Unless, of course, we tell them to. Still, I asked Mitchell if there’s anything about AI that scares her.
“I have two really big concerns,” she said. “One, that it’s being used to create fake information that’s destroying our whole information environment. And two, people are trusting them to do things that they shouldn’t be trusted to do. We overestimate their capabilities. There’s a lot of magical thinking about AI. But it must be said that if you let these systems loose in the real world and they have access to your bank account, even if they’re just role-playing, it could still have catastrophic effects.”
TL;DR Marketing
I think more people would like this article if they took the time to read it. The entire thing can’t be summarized easily but this line was great
After talking to experts, I was convinced there’s no reason to fear AIs developing a will to live, and then tricking or destroying us to avoid shutdown and take over the world. Unless, of course, we tell them to.
And
The chatbots, in these experiments, sound fairly normal. The humans, on the other hand, sound a little unhinged.
So it’s all roleplaying experiments. (I swear in another article, I read AI getting told to be a better roleplayer would have a positive effect, while telling it to be a better mathematician would make it roleplay harder but work worse.) And that’s the real danger: people being dumb about the parlor trick (from your final quote).
probably because it’s hard to imagine things going well with AI, and our current reality seems to be bearing that out, although in decidedly less-entertaining ways.
There is a difference between something being overhyped bullshit and something being a near apocalyptically powerful force for evil though.
ok, but I wasn’t making the argument for either.
edit: nor was I comparing the two
Your argument explains why we would tell stories that reflect negatively on AI and the people who are obsessed with AI not why we would invoke AI as something we should fear because it actually works.
That’s… not what I said at all.
First, I’m not making any sort of argument. I gave an explanation, a response to your question. It explains why people have negative expectations of the future (and present) of AI based on real-world experiences and the real-world negative effects of AI that we already know of today and the future prospects we see coming based on current developments in the news and what we know of those in charge of AI development.
Second, AI doesn’t really work very well at all, and when it messes up, it causes lots of problems that can have serious consequences, many of which were only beginning to understand. And when it does work, it can have serious consequences that are both short and long term that can undermine serious foundations of our society such as education, science, and even basic human interaction with possibly disastrous results.
so, yeah, it’s perfectly understandable why a lot of people are less than optimistic about the technology and its future.
finally, I suggest you read what I post more carefully to avoid putting words in my mouth again.
I don’t think you are reading my points close enough.
so, yeah, it’s perfectly understandable why a lot of people are less than optimistic about the technology and its future.
Nope not what I am disagreeing with, I am disagreeing with the logic of portraying AI repeatedly as genuinely scary. I am not questioning why people are not optimistic about AI.
Nope not what I am disagreeing with
no, it’s what you’re questioning in the first place; the title of you post:
Why Do We Tell Ourselves Scary Stories About AI?
and I answered your question with the facts. and failing to understand the logic isn’t the same as ‘disagreeing’ with it-- ignorance isn’t and ‘opinion’, it’s just being wrong. just like framing my factual explanation as a debate so your lack of understanding can be framed as ‘just your opinion’ and therefore valid doesn’t make it so.
I am not questioning why people are not optimistic about AI.
I don’t think you’re reading your own points closely enough.
they aren’t stories
Where is your proof of that? What does Occam’s Razor say here about all the overhyped end-of-the-world claims AI people make?
This is just another cult grown out of an aesthetic attraction to a new technology everyone for a moment thought was all powerful and then realized was mostly complete bullshit.
just… use it.
it’s confidentiality wrong, A LOT. I’ve only ever used to to CONFIRM facts I already know and guess what, it pulls the dumbest shit and basically trys to gaslight you.
why are YOU putting so much faith and blind trust in companies when they are already known to lie, bribe, price fix, collude, murder, and have no consequences for anything… maybe you should stop trusting companies until they can prove they can be trusted…
What? Not what I am saying at all? Are you reading what I said?
I don’t put any faith in companies, my point is AI doesn’t work and we shouldn’t fear it becoming too powerful. No it won’t take all of our jobs, the reason there are no jobs is we are hurtling into a depression/recession not AI.