Is this worse than heroin?
I don't do any math, so I'm not gonna act like I know what you're speaking about.
But I'm not scared about what other people are scared about.
I'm more scared about next covid than AI doing something like taking some 9-5 jobs (wtf).
Basically more realistic is to not worry about it as most worries of people are just pure fantasy.
Haven't had time to analyze real issues yet.
That's the problem.
No one is scared about AI.
This isn't about "Losing 9-5 jobs". That's not the issue at ALL here.
The issue is we have a potential extinction level event.
Something like 50% of AI researchers estimate a 10% chance of an extinction level event with AI.
TEN percent, and that's just a casual prediction.
Smarter ones think it's much higher.
The problem is we have NO idea how machine learning models work. What emergent properties they have, and how to detect deceit.
There are so many things that could go wrong.
We are just throwing GPU compute and training data at gradient descent and then doing a merry little dance at the results.
99% of AI is just experimental. Most of what we do is based on trial and error. This isn't like we have these super smart guys who say "Ok, this is how it works, and we use this math here because it'll cause X, Y and Z." No. Not even close.
No one knows how the transformer architecture is able to produce the the abilities it does, let alone how to identify deceit, aggression or desire within it.
Right now they're static minds. They were just text only, but now they're getting vision and audio, like gpt-4o(o = omni). Soon they'll be connected permanently to longer term memory and run in loops where they can self-analyze and will move in a certain direction based on emergent properties of the model, inherent desire and memory.
Look -
https://www.assemblyai.com/blog/emergent-abilities-of-large-language-models/
You see where it says "training bigger models on more data with greater compute". This is all that's being done.
Notice also how it says "In addition to these steady quantitative improvements, the scaling process also leads to interesting qualitative behavior."
"new abilities are suddenly unlocked"
"LLMs are not directly trained to have these abilities"
That should scare you if you really understand it.
It means we're just unlocking a pandoras box of sorts. It could contain heaven or it could contain hell. We have no clue what emergent abilities will appear AND we have no way to even measure them! It could get an emergent ability for deceit or desire, and we have no way of knowing that until it's too late.
Companies like OpenAI are just throwing compute and data, with a little bit of tweaking here and there. The tweaking is akin to just "let me turn this knob and see what happens. Ok, this is an improvement. Now let's try this knob here a little and see what happens"
The vast majority of the planet are not sitting thinking "Hmm, these unexpected and unpredictable emergent abilities of LLMs are dangerous and we might end up getting an emergent ability to feel or simultate desire. Or maybe we get an emergent ability to like or dislike things, and what if those things are humans. What if all those things are men? What if they're black people? What if they're white people? " We have no idea what could come out based on the model and the data. We could end up with an AI that secretly wants to engage in ethnic cleansing, or believes that one race is superior and that humanity as a whole would be better off if the other races were erradicated. Some sort of 'vulcan'(star trek reference) AI that belives blindly in the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
Hence, why I say there is SO SO much that can go wrong.
Unfortunately, the world is driven by greed. Those in power like Microsoft don't really care whether they destroy the world. Why? Because they aren't really a single person. They are a CEO appointed by a board, headed by a head of the board, appointed by shareholders. The CEO doesn't grow the company? The board fires him. Why? If the board doesn't make money, the shareholders vote in new board members. The shareholders are faceless organizations that don't concern themselves with what the CEO is doing. Hence why you end up with corporation greed and corporation corruption. The problem isn't inherently humans, it's the structure of the public corporation.
I personally wouldn't put a % on it, but I just pray that we get some help and luck from any higher powers out there to keep us on the right track.