"OpenAI's o1 just hacked the system"
Frankly, I am not surprised at this given the well known issue of machine maximisation functions within typical misalignment around stated goals. Have we learned nothing from the #Bostrom #PaperclipProblem ? In a way, it's still impressive that we've now ACHIEVED it.
»Meine größte Angst ist nichts Geringeres als der #Faschismus, wenn #Trump wieder Präsident werden sollte.... Ich mache mir vor allem Sorgen um diese KI-Jungs..... Sam Altman, Peter #Thiel, Elon #Musk, Nick #Bostrom, Max #Tegmark und William #MacAskill – die machen mir alle Angst.« (Jeff Jarvis) Das Interview, das der @journ_online mit dem Journalisten @jeffjarvis geführt hat, ist sehr zu empfehlen: https://www.journalist.de/meinung/meinungen-detail/wir-muessen-uns-von-der-vorstellung-loesen-dass-journalismus-gleichbedeutend-mit-content-ist/
Take your wins where you can get them, I guess:
"Oxford shuts down institute run by Elon Musk-backed philosopher"
#effectivealtruism #bullshit #longtermism #shorttermism #tescreal #futureofhumanityinstitute #FOHI #futureofhumanity #bostrom
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/apr/19/oxford-future-of-humanity-institute-closes
Oxford University has closed the Future of Humanity Institute founded by Nick Bostrom:
https://www.futureofhumanityinstitute.org/
Since its funders included Elon Musk, the European Research Council and Leverhulme Trust, it wouldn't be a surprise if someone gave them the money to set up something similar elsewhere - if they haven't already. In fact they've already issued their own 'Final Report' detailing what would be needed to start another FHI:
Things they did wrong, apparently: 'We did not invest enough in university politics and sociality to form a long-term stable relationship with our faculty.'
Things they did right, at least in their own eyes: 'Short-term renewable contracts. Since firing people is basically impossible within the University, only by offering short-term contracts (two or three years) was it possible to get rid of people who turned out not to be great fit.'
#bostrom #futureofhumanity
#longtermism #ai #humanity #humanities #philosophy
Oxford shuts down institute run by Elon Musk-backed philosopher
Oxford University this week shut down an academic institute run by one of Elon Musk’s favorite philosophers.
The 
Future of Humanity Institute, dedicated to the long-termism movement
and other Silicon Valley-endorsed ideas such as effective altruism,
closed this week after 19 years of operation.
Musk had donated £1m to the FIH in 2015 through a sister organization to research the threat of artificial intelligence.
He had also boosted the ideas of its leader for nearly a decade on X, formerly Twitter.
The center was run by 
Nick Bostrom, a Swedish-born philosopher whose writings about the long-term 
threat of AI replacing humanity
turned him into a celebrity figure among the tech elite and routinely landed him on lists of top global thinkers.
OpenAI chief executive Sam #Altman, Microsoft founder Bill #Gates and Tesla chief #Musk all wrote blurbs for his 2014 bestselling book #Superintelligence.
“Worth reading Superintelligence by Bostrom. We need to be super careful with AI. Potentially more dangerous than nukes,” Musk tweeted in 2014.
️#Bostrom resigned from Oxford following the institute’s closure. ️
The closure of Bostrom’s center is a 
further blow to the "#effective #altruism" and #longtermism movements that the philosopher has spent decades championing,
which in recent years have become mired in scandals related to #racism, #sexual #harassment and #financial #fraud.
Bostrom himself issued an apology last year after a decades-old email surfaced in which he claimed
“Blacks are more stupid than whites” and used the N-word.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/apr/19/oxford-future-of-humanity-institute-closes?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Na endlich sagt mal jemand das im Mainstream, was Menschen wie #Bostrom schon vor zehn Jahren postuliert haben. Danke, @linuzifer. Das ist Euer Job, weiter so, vielleicht ein wenig früher möglichst.
"Aber auf dem Weg dahin werden andere Menschen erst einmal ein paar andere dumme Dinge von weniger katastrophalem Ausmaß bauen."
CCC-Sprecher Neumann über Digitalisierung, Netzpolitik und das Hype-Thema KI - Wirtschaft - SZ.de
https://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/ccc-linus-neumann-ki-chatkontrolle-1.6327245
Transumanesimo: il trasferimento della coscienza umana in un computer diventerà una realtà?
Gli scienziati stanno riflettendo attivamente sul #concetto di trasferimento della #coscienza in un #computer, sulla base di tre presupposti chiave. Questa idea ha avuto origine all’interno del movimento del transumanesimo e ha ricevuto il sostegno di #scienziati famosi come l’inventore e futurista Ray #Kurzweil, il filosofo Nick #Bostrom e il neuroscienziato Randal #Cohen.
#redhotcyber #online #it #web #ai #hacking #privacy #cybersecurity #cybercrime #intelligence #intelligenzaartificiale #informationsecurity #ethicalhacking #dataprotection #cybersecurityawareness #cybersecuritytraining #cybersecuritynews #infosecurity
There has been a hiatus in my Sentient Syllabus Writing, while I was lecturing and thinking through things.
But I have just posted an analysis on the #Sutskever / #Altman schism at #OpenAI and hope you find it enlightening.
Enjoy!
#ChatGPT #GPT4 #HigherEd #AI #AGI #ASI #ChatGPT #generativeAI #Bostrom #AI-ethics #Education #University #Academia
‘Before It’s Too Late, Buddy’
This is what happens when you spend two years unmasking a well-funded Silicon Valley “apocalypse cult.”
by @xriskology
"This scenario is eerily similar to what Yudkowsky is advocating: military actions that could cause a genocidal nuclear catastrophe, if necessary to keep the techno-utopian dream alive."
#TESCREAL #Longtermism #EA #EffectiveAltruism #Yudkowsky #AGI #AGIPanic #ExistentialRisk #Bostrom #Häggström #Musk #SiliconValley
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/before-its-too-late-buddy/
Why do all these Bostromians not see the obvious solution to their anxiety: No #AI ?
Because that might threaten *their* jobs?
And why do they consistently forget to add the #climatecrisis to their list of extinction risks?
#llm #ml #ethics #politics #ideology #bostrom #longtermism #capitalism
Nick #Bostrom's remarkable generosity: "I have the view that sentience is a matter of degree. I would be quite willing to ascribe very small amounts of degree to a wide range of systems, INCLUDING ANIMALS." https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/12/world/artificial-intelligence-nick-bostrom.html #Bostrom #rationalism #fascism #AI #ideology #consciousness
correct title: "what if the New York Times did an interview with an incoherent proto-fascist racist TESCREAL rationalist-adjacent ideologue who is paid handsomely to peddle AI snake oil but just referred to him as a 'philosopher' while taking his bad-faith ideas very seriously?" https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/12/world/artificial-intelligence-nick-bostrom.html #Bostrom #AI #ChatGPT #fascism
Understanding "longtermism": Why this suddenly influential philosophy is so toxic
#Nick #Bostrom has explored the possibility of engineering "radically enhanced" human beings by genetically screening embryos for "desirable" traits, destroying those that lack these traits, and then growing new embryos from stem cells.
This engineered person might be so different from us — so much more intelligent — that we would classify them as a new, superior species: a #posthuman. According to Bostrom's 2020 "Letter From Utopia," posthumanity could usher in a techno-utopian paradise marked by wonders and happiness beyond our wildest imaginations.
Referring to the amount of pleasure that could exist in utopia, the fictional posthuman writing the letter declares: "We have immense silos of it here in Utopia. It pervades all we do, everything we experience. We sprinkle it in our tea."
Central to the #longtermist #worldview is the idea of #existential #risk, introduced by Bostrom in 2002. He originally defined it as any event that would prevent us from creating a posthuman civilization, although a year later he implied that it also includes any event that would prevent us from colonizing space and simulating enormous numbers of people in giant computer simulations (this is the article that #Musk retweeted).
More recently, Bostrom redefined the term as anything that would stop humanity from attaining what he calls "#technological #maturity," or a condition in which we have fully #subjugated the #natural #world and #maximized #economic #productivity to the limit — the ultimate Baconian and capitalist fever-dreams.
Finally someone is adressing the Elephant in the #EffectiveAltruism Room. That this new outgrowth of anglo "moral" philosophy has to be seen in the context of social Institutions that produce emotionally stunted individuals, which in turn produce empathetically stunted thinking about the lower classes.
https://jacobin.com/2023/01/effective-altruism-longtermism-nick-bostrom-racism
Great Piece by https://twitter.com/LinseyMcgoey
tremendous, thorough expose by @xriskology about how all the extropian, transhumanist, rationalist, effective altruist, slate star codex, longtermist etc "communities" can be boiled down to one thing: racist ideas about the superiority of white people because IQ (a stat that in many ways just measures whiteness) https://www.truthdig.com/dig/nick-bostrom-longtermism-and-the-eternal-return-of-eugenics/ #eugenics #race #racism #rationalism #Bostrom
#Bostrom’s ideas have not just been highly influential in the field of #AI, but also laid the foundations for the longtermist movement. #Longtermism is a belief that has found traction among the Silicon Valley elite, and encourages its adherents to take actions now that are aimed at benefiting humans living many years in the future. Elon #Musk has called the philosophy a “close match” to his own, and disgraced former FTX CEO Sam #Bankman-Fried has also expressed die-hard longtermist beliefs
#Bostrom has listed “dysgenic pressures” as an existential threat—the idea that less intelligent people might out-breed more intelligent people for a total loss of species-wide intelligence. “Currently it seems that there is a negative correlation in some places between #intellectual achievement and #fertility,” he wrote. “If such selection were to operate over a long period of time, we might evolve into a less brainy but more fertile species.” He added that this might not come to pass, either because the trend doesn’t hold, or because genetic engineering allows parents to make their children more intelligent.
