Bernie's AI bill proposes to sentence AI developers to 20 years in prison
twitter.comHow do we stop china and russia from developing it? How come nobody seems to be talking about the obvious international treaty that would be necessary to actually ban superintelligence from being developed? At least we can deliberate some kind of enforcement mechanism in the process...
Plenty of people are discussing that.
Oh, that's easy. Bernie will pick 11 volunteers and together they will be dropped off behind enemy lines. Let's call them "the Dirty Dozen". They will capture the evil bastards who violated American law outside of US borders (that's just evil) and bring them to Justice™ (Impossible is nothing. Call 1-800-JUSTICE. Conditions apply).
> the obvious international treaty
That's even easier. We just take the international treaty on cloud computing as a base and...
The point is an arms race is bad for everyone. "I don't know what WW3 will be fought with, but I do know WW4 will be fought with sticks and stones" type of stuff.
The Cold War was an arms race that gave us wonderful things: amazing technologies we still use today (GPS, the Internet) and the collapse of the soviet union.
"Were we on the brink of a nuclear holocaust multiple times? Maybe yes, maybe no. But hey Google Maps!"
"Were we on the brink of that thing that we already did in Japan and nothing happened a few times? Oh my god, I need to hide in a cave and never do anything outside again"
I can play that game, too.
I honestly have no idea what this word salad means.
It means that not all risks justify stall.
Of course not. Even the developers of AI admit there's a huge risk though, no? Even they are calling for a slowdown. Do you think you know more than they do?
I know well enough; I'd be surprised if they know more than I do. And I also know very heavily that we cannot stall into societies of empowered deficient humans.
By international agreement, obviously. There are tons of international agreements to regulate all sorts of things. It's generally a pretty good way to prevent a race to the bottom. Or in this case, a potential race to the end of the world.
Why would China - or worse, Russia - sign any treaty with the US that'd make them worse off if they actually follow through?
The biggest problem is that the US has shown not trustable when it comes to treaty. You can have a treaty with the US but the US can just use Israel or some other proxy to do the advance research and development for them..
It’s one of the only countries that reliably follows treaties. Unfortunately they are very hard to pass, which is why the agreements falsely called treaties are so easy to reverse - they are all personal executive orders like JCPOA (alas)
How would it make them worse off? If everybody agrees that AI is a threat to humanity, but also a possible edge over rivals, then the threat should be enough reason to get everybody to agree.
There are international agreements on tons of things that work the same way.
> If everybody agree[d] that AI is a threat to humanity
Which would be either very difficult or very ironical, given that realizing that humanity is a threat to humanity precedes that.
Why would they trust the US to honour anything they sign? Look how Trump has ignored the trade deal he signed with Canada.
> to the end of the world
Or, if things go well, ending a long very bad chapter.
Irrelevant. Let them - it brings negative value.
What if you're wrong?
What if you're wrong?
You seem to have hallucinated that I made a claim.
He’s utterly wrong.
Two things I would say. One: nuclear non-proliferation has been pretty successful; we can use a similar model for AI.
Two, China's major motivation for developing competitive AI isn't to reap the benefits from an an important new technology. It's to undermine the economic development of the West and make them even more dependent upon the CCP. It's an extension of the policy that's made us dependent on Chinese labor and manufacturing: win on the economics by any means necessary, wait for the other producers to die, enshittify (extract geopolitical concessions, in this case).
> One: nuclear non-proliferation has been pretty successful
A number of non adequately reliable actors owning "the bomb" and a number of threatened actors increasingly wanting "the bomb". Not really.
This is relative to something like every nation owning nuclear weapons by 1960 and civil wars usually beginning with a nuclear strike by a standing government.
Nuclear proliferation is not proper in context. The bill in question in the submission is not about preserving a status quo, it is about banning the technology.
A ban on technology results in underground research, migration of intellectuals, monopolies, seething parties...
I didn't say the challenges would be the same.. You just indicated they were worthwhile for anyone who believes the anthropic principle is why they haven't seen a world with no nuclear treaties decades later.
The bill doesn't ban it. It pauses it until a regulatory body and processes are established. That seems pretty reasonable.
Explain «Banning Artificial Superintelligence so no person or entity [etc.]».
Or you think that «Advanced AI development» does not imply attempting the achievement of Intelligence?
I don't think working on LLMs is the same as working on superintelligence (personally I don't think superintelligence is on the table, but whatever)
LLMs are either a toy if they are not reliable and a mockery if not actually intelligent; to make them intelligent, to achieve Intelligence, is what Sanders proposed to make illegal. What we are striving to do is to achieve Intelligence - it cannot be different.
Finally, we agree. Even Dario Amodei thinks we should halt work on intelligence until we can do it safely.
> we agree
We don't. The need for Intelligence to fill the scarcity is unthinkable. The urgency is the highest, especially ever since simil-intelligence (LLMs) was implemented. To research Intelligence "safely" you simply do not give it agency (you do not let it control computers), for example. To have "safety" in general, you cannot empower morons - humanity is doing the opposite. We cannot rest with incomplete LLMs, nor we can with this dumb, intrinsically dangerous humanity.
What does "safely" mean? Getting stuck with this infra-humanity?! That is the radically unsafe thing.
> The need for Intelligence to fill the scarcity is unthinkable.
I just wanna say, I really admire the irony of this sentence. Maybe once we invent superintelligence it will be able to think enough to tell us how badly we needed it before we had it.
> The urgency is the highest, especially ever since simil-intelligence (LLMs) was implemented.
It isn't. If we stopped all work on LLMs and AI we'd be more than OK. There's no imminent danger or threat.
> To research Intelligence "safely" you simply do not give it agency (you do not let it control computers), for example.
Something can't both be smarter than us and completely controllable by us. The whole point of inventing superintelligence is so it can do things we can't. Humans can already break out of sandboxes, invent bioweapons, manipulate each other to invent bioweapons, etc. What makes you think superintelligence can't or won't do these things?
> To have "safety" in general, you cannot empower morons - humanity is doing the opposite. We cannot rest with incomplete LLMs, nor we can with this dumb, intrinsically dangerous humanity.
Hey, you're talking to a guy who's got a list of tech to ban: nukes, social media, all forms of video news, etc. What does Taylor Swift say, "I've got a blank space, baby, and I'll write your name (Claude)".
> What does "safely" mean? Getting stuck with this infra-humanity?! That is the radically unsafe thing.
You literally just ban it and turn it off. People are always like "you can't ban it bawwwwwww!" but we ban tech all the time. Try buying a bunch of fertilizer, try buying equipment to research gain of function, try buying anti-aircraft guns, try building fuselages to enrich uranium. LLM research requires extraordinary amounts of hardware, electricity, data, funding, and all the things upstream of that (cooling, shipping, space, financing, etc.) The effort you'd have to go through to do this clandestinely, illegally, while also finding researchers willing to take the risk is all prohibitive. There's a list of all nuclear scientists in the entire world. They have to go to school somewhere. Same for AI researchers. If, say, half a dozen of them suddenly disappear, and a random town in Wyoming suddenly starts making millions of requests per second across the whole internet, guzzling electricity, producing a lot of heat, or ordering a shitload of insulation and ducting, we'll know!
> the irony of this sentence
Unthinkable magnitude, I meant.
> no imminent danger or threat
Current technologies are already a danger as agents - they can already do damage - and an unfinished product that cannot be aborted at this stage - Intelligence is not there yet, we have post-Eliza things promising and greatly dumb. We have already started, we have to finish - which is, having the NNs reach a stage of reliability.
> smarter than us and completely controllable by us
Something which is smarter than you should probably even not be controlled by that same "you" that have difficulties controlling a backyard. The concept of «us» there is not consistent with a proper framework.
> who's got a list of tech to ban
I got that suggestion, that it could be your mentality. Banning will not create growth (remember Hegel). Humanity as an aggregate stalls, let us depower aggregate humanity and create further better instruments.
> literally just ban it
And, as I said remain stuck with this trash level infra-humanity. No, very much not.
Get back to the main points:
-- Intelligence is a Value. We are trying to achieve it. That berniesanders fights studying, distilling and augmenting a value. That berniesanders is in that regard a satanist.
-- Humanity as it is has proven very partial value. For which good reason should it be attributed a fair right to protect its perpetration? Are you taking for granted some "right to persist"? To claim a right to existence it should prove goodwill and growth - not the behaviour of an infestant.
-- The real problem is that we have humans and partial unfinished technology in the loop of the progress: both humans (generally speaking) and partial unfinished technology are liabilities. Nonetheless, we cannot stall, so we must proceed.
> nuclear non-proliferation has been pretty successful; we can use a similar model for AI.
Development of nuclear weapons has continued, and a lot of effort goes into developing delivery systems.
A number of countries have acquired nuclear weapons over the years: India, Pakistan, Israel, South Africa, North Korea. More countries have kept their options open and could develop nuclear weapons if needed.
After over 80 years since the US used nuclear weapons against Japan, less than 5% of the world's countries have nuclear weapons, and no one's used one on another country since. If you don't think that's an incredible achievement you're unserious.
> less than 5% of the world's countries have nuclear weapons
Counting countries is plenty deceptive. Population is the real metric, China, India, Pakistan are all nuclear, everything added together, 50% of the world's population lives in nuke-capable countries. There are US nukes stationed in various European countries and Turkey, I didn't count them although I should have.
> If you don't think that's an incredible achievement you're unserious.
That "achievement" is even more deceptive. The reason Africa doesn't have nukes is their poverty, ditto for the rest of the no-nukes world, poverty is the real "achiever" here but I don't think that's something worth bragging about.
> 50% of the world's population lives in nuke-capable countries.
Are you saying you prefer Pakistan getting nukes over India's population doubling since 1975? That seems silly. Also this is only because of China and India, so this has been true and fine for over half a century.
> The reason Africa doesn't have nukes is their poverty, ditto for the rest of the no-nukes world
Pakistan is poor, Norway is rich. How can you possibly make this argument?
My point is that it has worked for nuclear weapons because there are deterrents to using them. The acknowledged nuclear powers have all pledged to only use them in self defence. No one is going to develop AI and not use it.
Countries use nuclear power too. The reason they don't launch nukes at the drop of a hat is MAD. I don't see how this isn't analogous to what we could do with AI.
> I don't see how this isn't analogous to what we could do with AI.
Considering the article we are commenting on, the analogous proposal would be to imprison scientists for 20 years if they dare research nuclear power - no matter what kind.
People are working really hard to not see the "until there's a federal commission and safe processes" part.
> Two, China's major motivation for developing competitive AI isn't to reap the benefits from an an important new technology. It's to undermine the economic development of the West and make them even more dependent upon the CCP.
Is this really how most Americans think?
I don't know, but it's also what Kevin Rudd thinks [0]. He was Australia's prime minister (twice, lol), Australia's foreign minister, a foreign service officer working in China, and the author of a dissertation on Xi Jinping.
Yes.
In fact, nearly everything is perceived as tribalistic us-vs-them team sports now, including politics.
> nuclear non-proliferation has been pretty successful;
I'm assuming your bar of success takes in account that 8-9 nation states have nukes. So it follows that 8-9 nation states should have ASI.
No I think it's fine for 9 countries to have existing models and to coordinate development with each other, which is the general outline of all NPTs.
Make it international law and bomb anyone who doesn’t comply
To be clear I do not endorse this opinion I am just answering the “what can be done” question.
Man, it would be awesome if I could tell my boss “No, I don’t want to go to prison for 20 years” when they ask me if some magical AI thing can be done.
And members of the Dems give further gifts to the opponents.
Question: how aware are they?
Given the missed "intellectual solidity" of the submitted proposal, there is a chance that their effective support to the other party is not conscious.
And in terms of civilization, the confrontation is downgraded to ventral partitism, hysterical: "not like it" vs "really want it or do not mind".
The USA should finally revise their system and create more parties. It is absurd that power be left bouncing on the rhythm of "never this, we'll pick whatever that".
Again and again the scum reacts but does not reply.
Okay that kicks the can down the road, but what will we do twenty years from now?
make a new bill
I assume the US will also ban the use for foreign models as part of this.
Pausing development means the people with the currently most advanced models are shielded from competition, especially if foreign competition is not allowed.
A new agency will impose heavy regulation which can easily be twisted to favour incumbents.
I propose an amendement with Death Sentence with Lethal injection, 20 years in jail is not enough if we follow the gradation of sentences.
I propose the twisted massage suggestive torture machine that appeared in the first episode of Monkey Punch's Lupin III. /J
Oooh ok, dead in the water even if we pretended that any party would be able to pass the filibuster after midterms
Speaking of which, doesn’t this bill die after midterms anyway?
So this is just the bonus round where every inane idea gets introduced for the headline before being reset
Finally, the Butlerian Jihad is entering the Overton window.
For the first time I completely disagree with Bernie and banning AI development is the stupidest thing I can think of.
The HN title has been editorialized... and techno-oligarchs really, really hate Sanders.
The bill isn't about using LLMs to merge your pull requests, it's about discouraging people or companies who might be working on their own private Manhattan Projects from intentionally trying to create the impact equivalent of nuclear weapons, or "Artificial Superintelligence".
We're getting closer than not to an A(S)I arms race. Sanders has lived his entire life in that, and I've been smelling it for a while, too.
And you would use an LLM to perform actions when it is not a superintelligence?! We want morons to be under much more than restraining order distance.
This person has missed reading classes, is dishonest or just stupid. The law proposal bans research on ASI, and sets penalties for those who transgress the ban. Seems quite obvious to me. The law that bans clandestine efforts to build nuclear weapons is not "proposing to sentence nuclear physicists to 20 years in prison".
(Btw, "up to" doesn't mean "to". Second comprehension mistake in a few lines- I bet all current generation of LLMs have better understanding.)
> The law proposal bans research on ASI
Which is exactly the same as the submission's post, obvious interpretations of "AI" aside: how can we implement Intelligence without enabling superintelligence at the same time?!
And of course we must implement Intelligence, finally: we have implemented further morons, of which we already had plentiful abundance - already the LLM stage must be corrected!
We might agree or disagree with the statement that AGI and ASI are dangerous (economically, societally, existentially) and research needs to be paused- which means making their development (temporarily) illegal. If you accept that it is the case, though, you need to accept that there are penalties for those who violate the law.
What you wrote makes no sense in the chain: "If you accepted that C were a crime than C should be sanctioned" - this is not the point. Who argues against that non-matter?
You stated that the submission did not represent the facts because the facts are about banning «research on ASI», and you were replied that what we are doing in the LLM direction cannot be other than researching ASI. And you were told: and we must, because we cannot be contented with morons.
> You stated that the submission did not represent the facts because the facts are about banning «research on ASI»,
No. I stated that the submission is idiotic because the point is that the law wants to severely restrict AI research at least for some time. Agreee, disagree, I don't care. It's not proposing to jail people who are AI researchers by trade or specialisation, or who conducted AI research in the past. It's proposing to make further research illegal, therefore imposes penalties on those who would illegally pursue it- be they researchers, managers, financers, movie villains, companies, etc.
How can you interpret «developers and researchers working on advanced AI» as «people who are AI researchers by trade or specialisation, or who conducted AI research in the past» - nobody in their sanity would understand that.
Or are you complaining against the brevity of the title - knowing that we have to fit the title into a short space?
There are really no possible misunderstandings in the submission.
I'm usually in agreement with him but that's dumb. 4 function calculators surpass human cognitive capability. It's too broad
You (conveniently?) left out the words “across a a broad range of domains and tasks”.
Surely we can agree that calculators are widely used across a broad range of domains and tasks.
Obviously it's not the intent of the bill to jail calculator makers. So the bill should be written to make it clear exactly what it's criminalizing.
Calculators are widely used yes, but calculators most certainly do not exceed human capacity on a broad range of tasks.
Still very much not an Euclidean definition, is it.
I think the other fellas covered it but are 4 functions a broad range? My scientific calculator does way more than that. My graphing even more. It's too open ended. It would become one of those laws that's just used to prosecute whoever they want and not one that anybody could tell you definitively if you'll be violating or not
Ok, iPhone.
...and I say you're not going too far enough.
Let's just slap 20 years on the scifi grifters too, please.
Developers are mostly fine, they are already buried in work and won't stop to question long and hard enough. It's the managers and sci-fi grifters that make this entire topic toxic, by assuming no limits should apply to them.
and farmers too! Did you know they just steal the resources they need to grow our food? They don't pay anything for sunlight or air! Who's investigating them?
> scifi grifters
That would be?
Smart guy