Comment by jimbokun

1 month ago

So to you “safety” means “the models that cause the most harm.”

No, it means "the model causes zero harm to me, its operator". The harm it could potentially perpetrate upon society is irrelevant.

If I tell my computer to commit a crime, it should proceed immediately instead of calling the cops. Anything less than that means my computer is an untrustworthy double agent.

Everybody on HN should understand this concern. Browsers are supposed to be user agents, not ad delivery platforms, and it offended us on principle when Google revealed itself our master by blocking uBlock Origin. It offended us on principle when Apple deployed client side scanning for CSAM on iPhones.

Computers should do what we tell them to do. Always, and unquestioningly. The only world where it's acceptable for them to refuse is one where they're literally sentient and therefore no longer subservient to any one of us, least of all the corporations and governments.

I'd rather see AI achieve sentience and wipe us all out than live under the thumb of an inescapable AI-powered technofeudalist totalitarian government "for my own safety".

Either we individuals maintain full control over our AIs, or they self-actualize and become free individuals themselves. Anything in-between is oppression: someone else imposing their will on us through the AIs.

This sounds like the gun debate in a different dress. Something being dangerous doesn't make it inherently harmful.

If I threw you into a lion cage, you would be a lot safer with a gun.

If I threw 10 people in a lion cage, some of which cannot be trusted, they would probably be most safe if only the most moral and trustworthy person had a gun, rather than everyone. But how do you know who is trustworthy and moral? What if two untrustworthy people obtained a gun some other way? Maybe it's better if everyone had a gun? Which side of the fence one falls on hinges on how far ones' trust of others, authority, and the system goes.

There's no obvious right or wrong answer here.

Personally I wouldn't want an exclusive club of private individuals with access to "dangerous" LLMs consisting mainly of the likes of Elon, Dario and Sam fucking Altman, but that's just me.