Exactly. It always boils down to people wielding tools and possibly weaponizing them. As we can see in the Ukraine, conventional war without a lot of high tech weaponry is perfectly horrible just by itself. All it takes is some determined humans to get that.
I look at AI as a tool that people can and will wield. And from that point of view, non proliferation as a strategy is not really all that feasible considering that AI labs outside of the valley in e.g. China and other countries are already producing their own versions of the technology. That cat is already out of the bag. We can all collectively stick our heads in the ground and hope none of those countries will have the indecency to wield the tools they are building or we can try to make sure we keep on leading the field. I'm in in camp full steam ahead. Eventually we reach some tipping point where the tools are going to be instrumental in making further progress.
People are worried about something bad happening if people do embrace AI. I worry about what happens if some people don't. There is no we here. Just groups of people. And somebody will make progress. Not a question of if but when.
It's debatable whether for most English speakers the "The" in "The Ukraine" really carries the implications discussed in [1], but nonetheless it's a linguistic tic that should probably be dispensed with.
Try to take AI like a genetically modified organism and im sure your "full steam ahead" notion fades.
But you are right, at the beginning is a human, making a decision to let go and with pretty much any technology, we had unforseen consequences. Now combine that with magical/god like capabilties. This does not imply something bad but something vast and scale alone can make something bad.
Dont get me wrong im pro GMOs like im pro AI. Im just humble enough to appreciate my limited intellect.
I'm not so sure. All this means is some people will outsmart other people with AI support. When those other people are not us, that scares people. There really is no royal "we" here. The reality is that there are independent groups of people each making their own plans and decisions and some are going to run ahead of the others.
The point of full steam ahead is being in the group that gets there first so that "we" don't get outsmarted. It's an evolutionary concept. Some groups go extinct. Others survive and prosper. AI is now part of our tool set. Luddites historically get wiped out eventually, every time.
I look at AI as a tool that people can and will wield. And from that point of view, non proliferation as a strategy is not really all that feasible considering that AI labs outside of the valley in e.g. China and other countries are already producing their own versions of the technology. That cat is already out of the bag. We can all collectively stick our heads in the ground and hope none of those countries will have the indecency to wield the tools they are building or we can try to make sure we keep on leading the field. I'm in in camp full steam ahead. Eventually we reach some tipping point where the tools are going to be instrumental in making further progress.
People are worried about something bad happening if people do embrace AI. I worry about what happens if some people don't. There is no we here. Just groups of people. And somebody will make progress. Not a question of if but when.