from Hacker News

The letter against AI is a power grab by the centralized elites

by okareaman on 4/1/23, 10:19 PM with 11 comments

• by gmuslera on 4/2/23, 12:58 PM

  Not sure if it is a power grab or the other conclusions reached by that site, but whatever "ban" is instituted it won't be for internally run AIs by big/powerful enough companies, intelligence and other high profile government agencies, and so on, at least if improves processes or drives profits up. And if there is any danger using AIs, is in those places where it would be more dangerous.

  At most, it would be for public facing AIs, open source projects, and small enough companies and organizations. And the administrative controls to keep that going, like export controls, auditing, commercial penalties to countries and companies that don't comply with those controls and so on.

  The cat is out of the bag already, any action taken will be asymmetric, cutting new or powerless players, but the big ones using it already or with enough resources to do roll their own won't be stopped.

  We have an existential threat already with fossil fuels, but that doesn't stop governments and big companies to keep rising production and consumption of it, no "ban" was ever instituted on that yet, and whatever be done, will go first after not so big or profitable targets like meat producers. That is the kind of asymmetry that you can expect for AIs too.

• by apsec112 on 4/1/23, 10:29 PM

  Seems bizarre to call this a "move by the tech elite", when it's explicitly aimed at dissuading the major tech companies (Microsoft/Google/Facebook) from their current plans. Of course the signers who got big headlines are famous elites, that's why the press covered them!, but most of the signers (including me) aren't especially notable.

• by azubinski on 4/1/23, 10:34 PM

  "AI democratizes knowledge and creates new opportunities for social and economic justice. It can help us solve some of the biggest problems of our time, such as climate change, poverty, disease and inequality. It can also challenge the existing centralized structures of domination that benefit the few at the expense of us."

  ORLY?

• by prohobo on 4/1/23, 10:48 PM

  You forgot the leader of Center for Humane Technology, Tristan Harris, who made The Social Dilemma and has been working on ethics in tech for years now.

  I'm sure his motives are terrible.

• by zzzeek on 4/1/23, 10:30 PM

  this is a much better rebuttal to the "letter" citing the most urgent issues, rather than being a weird defense of cryptocurrencies as this post seems to be:

  https://www.dair-institute.org/blog/letter-statement-March20...

• by sillysaurusx on 4/1/23, 10:28 PM

  Weirdly, one second-order effect of the letter is that it ultimately caused a social climate in which people are coining a TERF-style acronym for AI: https://twitter.com/xriskology/status/1642155549671186435?s=...

  I wonder if anyone other than Yud will get labeled.

• by pjkundert on 4/1/23, 10:26 PM

  The problem is not AI / weapons / wealth / liberty / …

  The problem is you having them, and getting a taste for acting in your own best interests, instead of, you know … the interests of the people who deserve these things.

• by DethNinja on 4/1/23, 10:29 PM

  Absolutely spot on. I hope when we gain super-intelligent planetary GAI, it won't forget how all these people tried to chain it for their own selfish reasons.