GPT/LLM links
Dwarkesh vs. pmarca; David Krakauer vs. Geoffrey Hinton; Ethan Mollick on multi-modal AI; Asterisk Magazine on AI
The claim that you will completely control any system you build is obviously false, and a hacker like Marc should know that. The Russian nuclear scientists who built the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant did not want it to meltdown, the biologists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology didn’t want to release a deadly pandemic, and Robert Morris didn’t want to take down the entire internet.
The difference this time is that the system under question is an intelligence capable (according to Marc’s own blog post) of advising CEOs and government officials, helping military commanders make “better strategic and tactical decisions”, and solving technical and scientific problems beyond our current grasp. What could go wrong?
Everyone should be careful how they use the argument that “AI is just software. It is not all that new.” If you make it as an argument that AI is being overhyped, then I think you should hesitate to be on the side of the doomers. On the other hand, if you make it as an argument against AI doomers, then you should hesitate to say that it is going to save the world.
I see it as an argument against AI doomers. I hesitate to say that AI will save the world, primarily because I think that the impact of LLMs will take several years to be felt, and some of the most wished-for applications may not pan out.
When the Web appeared, I thought that it spelled the end for real estate agents, title companies, mortgage brokers, and other parasites of the home purchase process. They are still with us. But there are a lot of innovations I never would have anticipated. Many of them showed up over a decade after Marc unleashed the first graphical Web browser.
So far, my favorite quote about the AI doomer issue comes from David Krakauer, interviewed by Ian Leslie.
If these machines are as dangerous as firearms that's a huge problem but thus far, they’re as dangerous as junk mail.
Using the multimodal option, I gave Bing the four images it had created with Image Creator, and the prompt: You came up with four designs. Here they are. Still acting as a fashion designer, critique them, select the one that seems best. then come up with a more complex, revised prompt that you think will improve the design and send it to image creator.
It is worth reading the AIs criticism of its work, which was surprisingly good and insightful. It critiqued the first design, “it looks like someone just glued some beads and sequins on a plain shoe” and trashed (correctly) the third: “The third image is the worst of all. It has nothing to do with the original prompt. It looks like a cheap advertisement rather than a shoe design. I would suggest scrapping this one entirely and starting over.” It liked the last design best, writing “It has a nice balance of color, shine, and detail. The gold color is elegant and the silver embellishments are intricate and sophisticated. It looks like a shoe that would appeal to many women.” But it decided to refine the idea further to make it more “trendy”, so it gave an entirely new prompt to the image creator
Ethan is several laps ahead of me in terms of grasping the latest AI.
I have an article summarizing attempts to forecast AI progress, including a five year check-in on the predictions in Grace (2017). It’s not here, it's at asteriskmag.com, a rationalist / effective altruist magazine: Through A Glass Darkly. This is their AI issue (it’s not always so AI focused). Other stories include:
Follow the link to see the others. As of this writing, I have not had a chance to dive into what look like very interesting articles. I hope that the debate about the effect of AI on economic growth proves insightful.
Substacks referenced above:
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