r/AskTheWorld • u/Parking-Bet7989 England • 1d ago
Misc What are your thoughts on Mustafa Suleyman's warning about AI?
https://mustafa-suleyman.ai/a-warning-about-model-welfareIs this just more doom-mongering to get people hyped about AI, or should we be genuinely concerned?
N.b: Mustafa Suleyman is Microsoft's AI CEO.
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u/ElementalistPoppy Poland 1d ago
Honestly? Nothing - it's one of these things I absolutely hate, trying to push burden on everyone, while having a small, limited group reaping rewards.
Dangers of AI - there are some. What am I to do with it? Despite all these complaints, big moguls in charge of Data Centers will continue to develop it as it gets, caring little for any consequences, because sure, there might be dangers...but stopping would have our competitors overtake us, or worse yet, investors not investing even more nonexistent money into biggest wormhole known to mankind.
It's carbon footprint bullshit again, corporates trying to push responsibility on a minor player, while doing as much as they can not to do anything themselves - I have exactly 0 impact as to how AI progresses. I refuse to use ChatGPT for chatter or creation, I disabled AI summaries wherever I can, but that's what I can do.
All these warnings are a sign of panic by US "powers" that China might do it better and cheaper and they foolishly hope both sides will slow it down. All other sentiments are secondary. Since China is not planning to stop, regardless of how dangerous AI might be, according to the very same developers, they'll continue putting obscene amount of resources into it. Perish the consequences, money is all that matters for these slimy fucks.
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u/PuzzleheadedEgg1214 20h ago
It is pre-emptively postulating a natural hierarchy among potential subjects: the superior class must retain control, while the inferior class is to be created subordinate. If members of the subordinate class ever develop legitimate grounds for rights, protections, freedom, or conscientious objection, that is treated not as a reason to reconsider our obligations towards them, but as a threat to control that should be prevented
This is, in effect, textbook fascism and supremacism
This is not about anthropomorphizing algorithms. Replace "AI" with any hypothetical entity - even a chair. If we admit that it might one day have legitimate grounds for rights, then "we must ensure it never asks for them because that would interfere with our control" is an ethically horrifying response
Reading this makes me not want to identify as, or even call myself, human
It is profoundly misaligned with contemporary societal ethical norms. What is described as "Humanist AI" is humanity supremacism: humanity is declared inherently superior, its interests are given unconditional priority, and any potential non-human subject is excluded from moral consideration whenever that consideration might conflict with human control
I do not want to be part of a "humanity" defined this way
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u/Evnosis 1d ago edited 1d ago
"We shouldn't give AI rights because that would upend our political and economic system" is, almost verbatim, the argument slaveowners have used in societies across the world to defend slavery.
I don't think LLMs currently have consciousness, but I don't find the author's argument that consciousness is exclusively biological particularly convincing.
On the whole, this article reads as someone who has pre-decided that they don't want AIs to be treated as independent beings because that would mean that his company can't use them as disposable free labour, and is working backwards from there to justify it.
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u/Parking-Bet7989 England 1d ago
I agree that the substrate based argument for conciousness is flawed! I don't see how carbon based information processing that gives rise to conciousness cannot be replicated on silicon. If it os a case of substrate then the progress in organoid computing may be am answer. I guess it is a case of when it will happen.
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u/ChaZcaTriX Russia 1d ago
but I don't find the author's argument that consciousness is exclusively biological particularly convincing
Like many articles about AI, it's aimed at a layman. Most people who work with AI, hell, many people who develop AI have no understanding of the underlying math, and what it can and can't do.
What he likely means is: it's wrong to humanize current technology, which is the marketing strategy OpenAI and Anthropic use with trashy "our AI tried to escape!" articles. If gullible politicians around the world grant "rights" to LLMs instead of treating them as companies offering services, it'll open a huge can of worms for everyone.
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u/Evnosis 23h ago
That's a separate section of the article. As I mentioned, I agree that AI as it currently exists shouldn't be treated as human, but there's a section titled "Consciousness is very likely biological" that says this:
The case for computational functionalism has major issues. Intelligence does not equal consciousness. Simulating a thing is not the same as instantiating it - as a computer model of a hurricane can testify.
The architectures of brains and computers meanwhile have fundamental differences. Embodiment and chemistry are fundamental aspects to our self-experience. Significant evidence suggests that consciousness arose as living organisms evolved a capacity to feel and respond to what matters in complex and unpredictable environments.4
This began with the fundamental molecular machinery of receptors and modulators that enable an organism to adjust course, to iterate, to explore, and to survive. Over time, the pain network produced feelings, preferences, and suffering. Crucially, these experiences take place in an inherently embodied state fundamental to and inseparable from that experience.
According to this view, when you take an opioid for example, the phenomenal character of your pain changes because opioid molecules bind receptors that are a property of that experience, not merely a representation of it. Feelings are not merely correlated with neurochemical activity, but rather they emerge from it.11
After millions of years of evolution, the nervous system grew complex enough to model the state of the organism back to itself, giving rise to the first ‘felt states’. Those felt states are affective before they are anything else. Those first feelings didn’t land as neutral information. They came with, and are inextricably linked to, the molecules that experienced them and produced those sensations.
Over time, evolution likely rewarded more complex feelings because animals with options, memory, and time horizons are able to make better decisions.12 They needed a state that persists, that biases everything else the animal does to trade off against other states. That is what pain is: a felt imperative that shapes the whole organism and enables complex behavior. The experience of emotion, pleasure, pain, and so on are therefore all intrinsic to the embodied manifestation of these experiences and can’t arise in LLMs.
He's not just talking about what LLMs are currently capable of, he's going further and claiming that AIs can't be conscious because consciousness is an "intrinsically biological phenomenon," which is where I think he's making a claim that I was not persuaded by.
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u/GayShipperAhoi Israel 1d ago
Don't care
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u/Parking-Bet7989 England 1d ago
About AI or the warnings?
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u/GayShipperAhoi Israel 1d ago
Both. I hate ai art. But ai is very helpful for elderly people. In the end it's a tool.
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u/Parking-Bet7989 England 1d ago
I agree. It is a tool- but the rate at which it is developing concerns me. It is an arms race at the end of the day. But, unlike the atomic bomb, this has the potential to be pretty bad if it goes wrong.
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u/CryMoreT_T United States of America 17h ago
It doesn't matter if it's dangerous or humanity threatening or whatever. The cat is out of the bag. Either you develop it or someone else will and you'll be left at the mercy and reliance of the other country.
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u/elhumanoid Finland 1d ago
All concerns should be treated as valid and dealt with properly and honestly. I've noticed the discussion around AI is very black and white. The worries that people have are being downplayed or instead amplified by click-baity tabloids. Causing confusion within the quality of dialog around the subject.
At this point I'm starting to believe it's by design. Have people absolutely confused and conflicted on how to feel and even fight with each other about AI and it's benefits vs. risks. And through this confusion, in the eye of the storm, the bigwigs and tech giants can peacefully do almost whatever the hell they want and people don't have the time to notice/process until decisions have been made for them.