A scientist who wrote a leading textbook on artificial intelligence has said experts are “spooked” by their own success in the field, comparing the advance of AI to the development of the atom bomb.
Prof Stuart Russell, the founder of the Center for Human-Compatible Artificial Intelligence at the University of California, Berkeley, said most experts believed that machines more intelligent than humans would be developed this century, and he called for international treaties to regulate the development of the technology.
“The AI community has not yet adjusted to the fact that we are now starting to have a really big impact in the real world,” he told the Guardian. “That simply wasn’t the case for most of the history of the field – we were just in the lab, developing things, trying to get stuff to work, mostly failing to get stuff to work. So the question of real-world impact was just not germane at all. And we have to grow up very quickly to catch up.”
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“AI has been designed with one particular methodology and sort of general approach. And we’re not careful enough to use that kind of system in complicated real-world settings,” he said.
For example, asking AI to cure cancer as quickly as possible could be dangerous. “It would probably find ways of inducing tumours in the whole human population, so that it could run millions of experiments in parallel, using all of us as guinea pigs,” said Russell. “And that’s because that’s the solution to the objective we gave it; we just forgot to specify that you can’t use humans as guinea pigs and you can’t use up the whole GDP of the world to run your experiments and you can’t do this and you can’t do that.”
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One concern is that a machine would not need to be more intelligent than humans in all things to pose a serious risk. “It’s something that’s unfolding now,” he said. “If you look at social media and the algorithms that choose what people read and watch, they have a huge amount of control over our cognitive input.”
The upshot, he said, is that the algorithms manipulate the user, brainwashing them so that their behaviour becomes more predictable when it comes to what they chose to engage with, boosting click-based revenue.
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ROME (Reuters) – Leaders of the world’s 20 biggest economies (G20) will endorse an OECD deal on a global minimum corporate tax of 15%, draft conclusions of the two-day G20 summit showed on Saturday, with a view to have the rules in force in 2023.
“We call on the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting to swiftly develop the model rules and multilateral instruments as agreed in the Detailed Implementation Plan, with a view to ensure that the new rules will come into effect at global level in 2023,” the draft conclusions, seen by Reuters, said.
The conclusions are to be formally adopted on Sunday.
In October, 136 countries reached a deal on a minimum tax on global corporations, including internet giants like Google , Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft or Apple to make it harder for them to avoid taxation by establishing offices in low-tax jurisdictions.
“This is more than just a tax deal, it’s a reshaping of the rules of the global economy,” a senior U.S. official told reporters.
Leaders formally endorse corporate global minimum tax, a win for Biden
President Biden and the other national leaders representing “Group of 20” economies have formally endorsed a new global minimum tax designed to prevent big companies from shifting profits to low-tax countries. News of the accord came as the first in-person G-20 leaders’ summit in two years got underway in Rome.
Rachel Maddow reports on a new letter to special counsel John Durham and Attorney General Merrick Garland from the lawyer for a tech expert that pushes back on how researchers’ findings about interactions between a server related to Alfa-Bank and a server related to the Trump Organization are characterized in Durham’s indictment of Michael Sussmann.
Rick and I will be spending Halloween night on Cape Cod. We have timeshare points that we carried over from 2020… we have to use them or lose them. We’ve never been to the seacoast this late in the year. But it’s projected to be sunny and have above average temps for the week. At least we can eat lots of fresh seafood!
Kids don’t trick or treat in our neighborhood – gotta walk too far between houses.
Enjoy the coast Renee. Weather in NYC today has been pleasant and dry contrary to the forecast for rain.
Some of you in the northern areas may get a Halloween treat.
“..,the Northern Lights could be visible from Portland Oregon to New York City. It may also be visible on the horizon as far south as Carson City, Nevada, Oklahoma City, and Raleigh, North Carolina.“
Bill recaps the week’s top stories, including the Halloween weekend and President Biden’s meeting with Pope Francis.
speaking of other spooky things
‘Yeah, we’re spooked’: AI starting to have big real-world impact, says expert | Artificial intelligence (AI) | The Guardian
Yellow house canyon murder mystery outside Lubbock on True Crime channel.
Einstein
G20 leaders endorse global minimum corporate tax deal for 2023 start (msn.com)
Biden at G20 summit: Live updates – The Washington Post
oopsie barr boomerang
Rachel Maddow reports on a new letter to special counsel John Durham and Attorney General Merrick Garland from the lawyer for a tech expert that pushes back on how researchers’ findings about interactions between a server related to Alfa-Bank and a server related to the Trump Organization are characterized in Durham’s indictment of Michael Sussmann.
Rick and I will be spending Halloween night on Cape Cod. We have timeshare points that we carried over from 2020… we have to use them or lose them. We’ve never been to the seacoast this late in the year. But it’s projected to be sunny and have above average temps for the week. At least we can eat lots of fresh seafood!
I will be playing dominoes and eating candy
Every move Zuckerberg makes . Makes me think he did cheat the twins
Our household is simple. The grandson has trick or treat duty while the older generations hit the sack.
Kids don’t trick or treat in our neighborhood – gotta walk too far between houses.
Enjoy the coast Renee. Weather in NYC today has been pleasant and dry contrary to the forecast for rain.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/29/weather/northern-southern-lights-us-europe-wx-scn/index.html
Some of you in the northern areas may get a Halloween treat.
“..,the Northern Lights could be visible from Portland Oregon to New York City. It may also be visible on the horizon as far south as Carson City, Nevada, Oklahoma City, and Raleigh, North Carolina.“
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