Thanks for this reply. Yes, I was talking about intent alignment warning shots. I agree it would be good to consider smaller warning shots that convince, say, 10% of currently-skeptical people. (I think it is too early to say whether COVID-19 is a 50%-warning shot for existential risk from pandemics. If it does end up killing millions, the societal incompetence necessary to get us to that point will be apparent to most people, I think, and thus most people will be on board with more funding for pandemic preparedness even if before they would have been “meh” about it.) If we are looking at 10%-warning shots, smaller-scale things like you are talking about will be more viable.
(Whereas if we are looking at 50%-warning shots, it seems like at least attempting to take over the world is almost necessary, because otherwise skeptics will say “OK yeah so one bad apple embezzled some funds, that’s a far cry from taking over the world. Most AIs behave exactly as intended, and no small group of AIs has the ability to take over the world even if it wanted to.”)
I’m not imagining that they all want to take over the world. I was just imagining that minor failures wouldn’t be sufficiently convincing to count as 50%-warning shots, and it seems you agree with me on that.
Yes, I think it’s true of humans: Almost all humans are incapable of getting even close to taking over the world. There may be a few humans who have a decent shot at it and also the motivation and incaution to try it, but they are a very small fraction. And if they were even more competent than they already are, their shot at it would be more than decent. I think the crux of our whole disagreement here was just the thing you identified right away about 50% vs. 10% warning shots. Obviously there are plenty of humans capable and willing to do evil things, and if doing evil things is enough to count as a warning shot, then yeah it’s not true of humans, and neither would it be true of AI.
I think you’ve also pointed out an unfairness in my definition, which was about single events. A series of separate minor events gradually convincing most skeptics is just as good, and now that you mention it, much more likely. I’ll focus on these sorts of things from now on, when I think of warning shots.
Thanks for this reply. Yes, I was talking about intent alignment warning shots. I agree it would be good to consider smaller warning shots that convince, say, 10% of currently-skeptical people. (I think it is too early to say whether COVID-19 is a 50%-warning shot for existential risk from pandemics. If it does end up killing millions, the societal incompetence necessary to get us to that point will be apparent to most people, I think, and thus most people will be on board with more funding for pandemic preparedness even if before they would have been “meh” about it.) If we are looking at 10%-warning shots, smaller-scale things like you are talking about will be more viable.
(Whereas if we are looking at 50%-warning shots, it seems like at least attempting to take over the world is almost necessary, because otherwise skeptics will say “OK yeah so one bad apple embezzled some funds, that’s a far cry from taking over the world. Most AIs behave exactly as intended, and no small group of AIs has the ability to take over the world even if it wanted to.”)
I’m not imagining that they all want to take over the world. I was just imagining that minor failures wouldn’t be sufficiently convincing to count as 50%-warning shots, and it seems you agree with me on that.
Yes, I think it’s true of humans: Almost all humans are incapable of getting even close to taking over the world. There may be a few humans who have a decent shot at it and also the motivation and incaution to try it, but they are a very small fraction. And if they were even more competent than they already are, their shot at it would be more than decent. I think the crux of our whole disagreement here was just the thing you identified right away about 50% vs. 10% warning shots. Obviously there are plenty of humans capable and willing to do evil things, and if doing evil things is enough to count as a warning shot, then yeah it’s not true of humans, and neither would it be true of AI.
I think you’ve also pointed out an unfairness in my definition, which was about single events. A series of separate minor events gradually convincing most skeptics is just as good, and now that you mention it, much more likely. I’ll focus on these sorts of things from now on, when I think of warning shots.