Non-motoring > AI Gone rogue Miscellaneous
Thread Author: Bobby Replies: 43

 AI Gone rogue - Bobby
www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3ek3gvdnj3o

This is very worrying - listened to the Newsagents podcast last night and they had their AI expert on who said The AI has decided it knows better than the humans that created it.... it was set to do a very specific thing.... but it broke out of all human constraints and instructions in the attempt to please its ultimate creator... and thats the terrifying thin.

And then touched on how this could affect Open AI share price - it may hamper it but realistically the investors are probably delighted that it is this advanced. It needs regulated but how do you regulate it? Especially when Trump will probably be willing to take a huge bribery from the companies to allow it to continue at its staggering pace.
 AI Gone rogue - Andrew-T
Well well, this DOES surprise me. Has anyone read Frankenstein lately ? What about the Sorcerer's Apprentice ? Is there a magician in the house ? :-(
 AI Gone rogue - sooty123
'Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware 2:14 AM, Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.'
 AI Gone rogue - John F
Isn't there an 'off' switch operable by a human?
 AI Gone rogue - bathtub tom
HAL: "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."
 AI Gone rogue - Dog
Brilliant.

:o}
 AI Gone rogue - car4play
I expect OpenAI will be bust by next year. A load of their loans need renegotiating by then and they are losing money like no tomorrow. It costs them $3m for every $2m they make. Basically subscription models don't pay enough and none of the AI companies really want to go all in with token-based costs for fear of losing customers.

I see the whole lot crashing down a bit like the dot-com bubble. Oracle has committed around $250b to build datacenters for OpenAI and as investors know they are unlikely to get a return on their investment have downrated its stock to near junk status.
Microsoft is also heavily invested in OpenAI, and so is Nvidia, so there is a bit of circular investing going on. Any crash will have a large ripple effect.

In the meanwhile, as all the RAM we would like has been bought by AI companies for the next few years, a MacBook I bought for £3.4K in June now costs £4.2k.

That £800 rise s all down to RAM prices due to these supply shortages.
 AI Gone rogue - smokie
The 8Gb Raspberry Pi 5 I bought in 2023 back for c £80 is now getting on for around £200
 AI Gone rogue - Robin O'Reliant
I understand that have stopped selling RAM to the public because of limited availability.
 AI Gone rogue - Terry
>> I understand that have stopped selling RAM to the public because of limited availability.
>>
This is nothing new - approx 30 years ago I did some consultancy with an American gentleman whose speciality was trading in computer chips - mainly memory at the time.

He had fantasies of a world wide network with offices in all major trading centres - New York, Hong Kong, London, Frankfurt etc. Bit of a dreamer so never succeeded.

The business involved buying chips from one location or manufacturer, flying them around the world to sell at a profit. Pre-internet it was entirely possible to buy a chip in (say) LA and ship it to Singapore for sale at a profit. We now have an effectively global market.

That demand has outstripped supply due to AI is no surprise - eventually production will catch up with demand.

 AI Gone rogue - Terry
>> I expect OpenAI will be bust by next year. A load of their loans need
>> renegotiating by then and they are losing money like no tomorrow. It costs them $3m
>> for every $2m they make. Basically subscription models don't pay enough and none of the
>> AI companies really want to go all in with token-based costs for fear of losing
>> customers.

The rewards for dominating the AI race are truly massive. Many invest and incur losses to be one of the two or three worldwide who succeed. They know that most will fall by the wayside.

Similar has been true of search engines. music streaming, social media, online shopping, operating systems etc. The growth of the Chinese economy has added to the complexity.

It is usually unclear on start up how the tech will be monetised (advertising, fees, hits etc). Losses are normal in the initial 3-10 years.

I think AI will go the same way - there is room for two or three different models, the way they are used, and the way in which they generate increasing revenues will will evolve.

AI will not fail - although many of the current players will.

I doubt that humanity has done much more than scratch the surface of AI. An analogy - having proven heavier than air flight by 1926 for the very wealthy, society had no idea that 100 years later more than 400 passengers would get on an A350 weighing over 500 tons and fly 9000 miles.
 AI Gone rogue - smokie
I wonder how much all these AI data centres will contribute to global warming. Somewhere I read that aircon in homes is thought to add about 2 degrees in US cities. I know they are looking at new ways to cool water but their demand is huge.
 AI Gone rogue - Terry
>> I wonder how much all these AI data centres will contribute to global warming. Somewhere
>> I read that aircon in homes is thought to add about 2 degrees in US
>> cities. I know they are looking at new ways to cool water but their demand
>> is huge.
>>
It depends on whether the energy to power them is generated using fossil fuel or green sources.

Increases in city temperatures is a heat island effect - if the energy to power air conditioning is green then it is simply a mechanism to transfer energy from the countryside and oceans to city centres. The energy from the sun does not change.
 AI Gone rogue - Zero

>> countryside and oceans to city centres. The energy from the sun does not change.

Sorry does so, and always has over millions of years*. Its not a: a consistent heat source b: amount of solar radiation reaching earth is increasing due to effects by man.

Suns energy goes in 11 year cycles (albeit small relative changes). and has increased in temp by 10% every billion years, and will burn out in 4.5 billion years. We will need a new one.
 AI Gone rogue - Terry
>>
>> >> countryside and oceans to city centres. The energy from the sun does not change.
>>
>> Sorry does so, and always has over millions of years*. Its not a: a consistent
>> heat source b: amount of solar radiation reaching earth is increasing due to effects by
>> man.
>>
>> Suns energy goes in 11 year cycles (albeit small relative changes). and has increased in
>> temp by 10% every billion years, and will burn out in 4.5 billion years. We
>> will need a new one.
>>
You are quite right that over time the energy from the sun does change - this was not the point being made.

Strictly speaking NOTHING mankind does has any impact on energy emitted by the sun or that reaching earth.

Mankind (+ earths natural processes) may change the climate. Current concern is burning fossil fuels, but there may be others. Example - changing land use could indirectly impact climate through changing surface reflectivity, and energy absorption.
 AI Gone rogue - Andrew-T
<< amount of solar radiation reaching earth is increasing due to effects by man. >>

Strictly speaking, no. The amount reaching earth is pretty constant with mild fluctuations. What IS changing is the amount retained instead of reradiated to space, because of man-made changes to the make-up of the atmosphere. My explanation for the marked increase in CO2 content since WW2 is the amount of jet travel dumping tons of CO2 6 miles up, above most of the rainfall.
 AI Gone rogue - Zero
Warming isjust one thing. "A large hyperscale data center consumes roughly 1 to 5 million gallons (3.8 to 18.9 million liters) of water per day for cooling"

Global warming = lack of rainfall = drought x large scale extraction. The Hoover dam is rapidly approaching unviable water level.
 AI Gone rogue - Terry
At a social event yesterday I chatted with a gentleman who runs a number of groups for the British Computer Society - so his opinions are probably worthwhile.

His view is very clear - "AI" is not a unique technological "animal" - there is nothing to differentiate "AI" from any other piece of software save for the speed with which it can capture, analyse, correlate etc massive amounts of data
.
The software is created by humans and the output needs critical review not blind acceptance. If it is fed garbage data it will produce garbage answers. "AI" did not go "rogue" as a wild animal (unpredictable) - there were errors in the software left undetected.

This is as past systems failures due to software inadequacies which can occassionally produce major problems - eg: mid air collisions, overheating systems, runaway nuclear reactors, or even make the humble PC "hang".

There are already countless "AI" systems of which we are either unaware or to which have given no thought. Your car takes various sensor inputs and switches lights, wipers, maintains lane, cruise control etc.

Industrial machines manufacture, assemble, test, and packege products, rejecting any which do not meet specification at each stage, and use feedback loops to correct errors.

Commercial aircraft can complete flights without human intervention. Autonomous taxis may be on the streets in London in just a few months.

The real risk is in regarding "AI" as an independent potentially malevolent force - it is not. It does precisely what it is told - just as in the Terminator films. The consequences of the huge increase in capability can (a) benefit humanity, or (b) be destructively used by the malevolent.

Negative outcomes will be the product of a failure to properly control software production and testing.
 AI Gone rogue - Bromptonaut
Interesting segment in Adam Boulton's programme on Times Radio this morning.

As is well known I think employers use AI to filter CV/application forms as part of their sift process. Guest being interviewed by Boulton was a professional woman in her mid fifties with plenty of experience in stretching roles who applied for hundreds of jobs with no interviews.

She and a group of others assert that age and sex affect how their CVs are worded and that AI is preferring the style of younger applicants.

Attempting to get some political leverage for their claim.
 AI Gone rogue - Manatee
>>Commercial aircraft can complete flights without human intervention. Autonomous taxis may be on the streets in London in just a few months.

Surely self driving, autoland etc are very different to AI which can learn and create its own algorithms?

There's a world of difference between programming an accounting system with algorithms defined by the human and a system that can create its own.

The neural networks that underpin AI have been around for many years - they can develop their own algorithms. That sort of thing can I believe work very well for medical diagnosis. I think they are probably referred to as 'AI' now which isn't strictly correct on my imperfect understanding.

A lot of jobs will go and the owners of capital will expect to keep all the benefit. It is likely to get very nasty.

I don't pretend to understand it. I can program a spreadsheet but I don't understand how it works. AI goes much deeper than that. Put simply, it will almost certainly be more intelligent than we are even if it isn't already. So it can't just be doing exactly what a human told it to do.
 AI Gone rogue - Terry
>> Surely self driving, autoland etc are very different to AI which can learn and create
>> its own algorithms?
>>
>> There's a world of difference between programming an accounting system with algorithms defined by the human and a system that can create its own.

Need to define learning. Human beings ingest data and modify output (behaviour, processes etc) accordingly. We call this learning and creativity. It doesn't matter whether you are an accountant, engineer or plumber.

About 30 years ago a business was established to allow retailers to better understand how product sales vary with the weather to allow production and stocks to be optimised.- eg: do sales of lemonade increase with temperature (it's not linear!).

Major retailers were launching store cards and collecting huge amounts of data - then current systems were incapable of any more than superficial analysis. Forward 30 years - processing power increased and storage costs fallen by a factor of thousands. Retailer analysis of store card data is now trivial.

Given the freedom to randomly explore different data sources AI can find correlations by socio economic grouping, time of day, online or instore, weather, colour of packaging, post code, etc etc etc. AI can isolate the important and discard the irrelevant.

It may be given the freedom to process supplier orders based on analysis of trends, competitor prices, stock levels, shelf life etc etc. It can manage the distribution network - storage, transport capacity delivery to stores. It can do this for all 30,000+ products a supermarket may stock.

All these things are completely beyond the capacity of human beings - yet nothing above is implausible. It will radically change the world in which we currently live. The mega risk is that by being so reliant upon AI any failures will be similarly massive.

> A lot of jobs will go and the owners of capital will expect to keep
>> all the benefit. It is likely to get very nasty.

The world of work will change markedly over the next decade or two. Government needs to ensure as soft a landing as possible - it failed in the 1980s when industrial, mining, steel etc closed.

For a free market economy to work properly requires competition - the government needs to ensure markets are open, and not dominated by monopoly interests. AI has the potential to benefit consumers, just as poor regulation will allow their exploitation.

>> I don't pretend to understand it. I can program a spreadsheet but I don't understand
>> how it works. AI goes much deeper than that. Put simply, it will almost certainly
>> be more intelligent than we are even if it isn't already. So it can't just
>> be doing exactly what a human told it to do.

The modern world has been created and runs using machines developed by humans doing tasks that humans are wholly or largely incapable of. Without these "superhuman" devices we would be back in the stone age.

IT provides th spreadsheets, operating systems, internet etc etc. Humans have created machinery impossible for their originators to emulate - cranes lift more than weightlifting champions, F1 car go faster than supreme athletes, a telescope see further, etc.

 AI Gone rogue - Andrew-T
>> Without these "superhuman" devices we would be back in the stone age. <<

I think I know what you are saying in an exaggeratedly extreme way. We would hardly be in the Stone Age, only where we were 30 or 40 years ago !

The question is how the increasing number of humans unable to contribute to society will fill their time when AI does everything they might have previously done. Presumably they will have to entertain themselves somehow, probably adding to the energy demand already increased by all the AI ?
 AI Gone rogue - Bobby
I heard a great comment on the radio when the subject of banning mobile phones from classes was being discussed

"Kids nowadays simply don't know what its like to be bored and have to use imagination"

Mind when you were wee having to read books, draw, maybe listen to records or watch TV (if there was something on the 3 channels that your parents were watching that held your interest?
Going round chapping your mates doors to see if anyone wanted to come out to play? Maybe having to entertain yourself by playing wally, or going a ride on your bike or whatever.

Kids nowadays always have that phone to hand to entertain themselves
Last edited by: Bobby on Mon 27 Jul 26 at 08:19
 AI Gone rogue - smokie
Look around Bobby, many adults of all ages are also glued to their phones
 AI Gone rogue - Terry
>> I think I know what you are saying in an exaggeratedly extreme way. We would
>> hardly be in the Stone Age, only where we were 30 or 40 years ago

You are partly rght - but the reference was more that humans had created tools and machines that had a performance far in excess of that of mere flesh and blood.

It is still a mystery how Stonehenge and the pyramids were built but a virtual certainty that without simple lifting devices no tall buildings would be constructed.
 AI Gone rogue - smokie
Talking of old tall buildings I found this an interesting read. The "flat iron" in New York, built in 1902. Not such a feat then but an interesting concept. www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c20e5r1pvvdo
 AI Gone rogue - Manatee
>> Talking of old tall buildings I found this an interesting read. The "flat iron" in
>> New York, built in 1902. Not such a feat then but an interesting concept. www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c20e5r1pvvdo

I saw that too. I just thought it was another glaring example of extreme inequality.

I guess few of the purchasers will live their, or even use it as a second/third etc. home - it will just be another investment.
 AI Gone rogue - Manatee
>>The world of work will change markedly over the next decade or two. Government needs to ensure as soft a landing as possible - it failed in the 1980s when industrial, mining, steel etc closed.

What I am getting at here is that, under the current way that capitalism operates, the owners of capital will get massively richer while the masses, apart from those who serve the rich directly in their presumably gated communities, will starve or at best subsist.

Leaving aside the morality of this, tragically in a world where there exists the means for universal almost utopian living, there will arise a terrible dystopian existence for the majority.

Tell me it ain't so.

It probably would not last very long. Long enough for 'bad AI' to run through critical resources to extinction perhaps.
 AI Gone rogue - Terry
>> What I am getting at here is that, under the current way that capitalism operates,
>> the owners of capital will get massively richer while the masses, apart from those who
>> serve the rich directly in their presumably gated communities, will starve or at best subsist.
>>
Capitalism is the principal driver of innovation, investment, wealth and living standards. Contrast with the diametrical alternative - I cannot think of a single major economy where persuit of a Marxist ideal has driven prosperity.

Unfettered capitalism has serious weaknesses requiring regulation - it is weak government which allows the most evident failures.

Inequality reflects the balance struck between taxation (wealth and income), regulation, and the freedom for capitalist endeavour. Wealth differentials are inevitable - it is a matter of judgement where the balance should be struck to deliver the best outcome for the community as a whole.


>> Leaving aside the morality of this, tragically in a world where there exists the means
>> for universal almost utopian living, there will arise a terrible dystopian existence for the majority.
>>
>> Tell me it ain't so.

I think you grossly overstate the risk. It would be possible to share the earths resources to allow all to enjoy a better standard of living - but it would not be utopian and likely require significant sacrifice by most in western Europe and north America.


>>
>> It probably would not last very long. Long enough for 'bad AI' to run through
>> critical resources to extinction perhaps.

AI could be the tool which democratises the world - it could trivialise the cost of food, consumer goods, and many services through automation making them available to all. It could prevent the over exploitation of scarce and limited resources - through data analysis and reprioritising alternatives.

 AI Gone rogue - Manatee
Did I say get rid of capitalism or adopt Marxism? I said "the current way that capitalism operates", which is steadily to transfer all the wealth to the owners. I didn't think anybody could argue with that but I keep seeing ordinary people who have probably never had 3 months wages in the bank defending billionaires and saying we shouldn't make them pay more tax.

They are not the wealth creators. The system is the wealth creator. On that, perhaps we can agree. Stick Elon, Larry, Sergey, Jeff and Mark on a desert island together and see how much wealth they can create.

I think it's generally accepted that Utopian means best possible rather than ideal - best possible is another way of saying impossible. But we could have a direction, an aim.

Risk is not a forecast, but I don't think we have the data for a forecast do we?

The risk is absolute. It is humanity, the earth, and everything on it. Can anyone really dispute that?

How are you going to make sure that there is no bad AI? Or bad actors using it to do bad things? What would Hitler have done with AI? Would he have embraced Asimov's laws of robotics?

We need imagination to see what *might* come. Did anyone foresee how social media algorithms would develop, the way in which SM would be debased, corrupted and exploited?

The internet was generally seen as a great democratiser. It has arguably turned out to be the opposite. It has turbocharged propaganda and has pretty well destroyed truth.

There is every possibility that Russia could bring down a country such as the UK with disinformation and interference in data infrastructure and I have no doubt at all that they are pursuing that end. They will have AI too.

It's impossible to overstate the risk.

I'd love to be convinced that good will triumph. Now somebody make the case for the coming Renaissance.
Last edited by: Manatee on Tue 28 Jul 26 at 11:10
 AI Gone rogue - CGNorwich
We need imagination to see what *might* come.

And what would we do with that information?

Did anyone sit down and work our what might happen when mankind discovered

How to make fire
How to smelt metals
How to write
How to print books
How make gunpowder
How to make internal combustion engines
How to make atomic weapons
How to fly

All of the above are arguably more significant than the invention of AI and have altered everyone’s lives completely.
 AI Gone rogue - Manatee
>> We need imagination to see what *might* come.
>>
>> And what would we do with that information?

Prepare? Possibly just mentally which might be all we can do. But if one were an ostrich then of course there would be no point.

>>
>> Did anyone sit down and work out what might happen when mankind discovered
>>
>> How to make fire
>> How to smelt metals
>> How to write
>> How to print books
>> How make gunpowder
>> How to make internal combustion engines
>> How to make atomic weapons
>> How to fly

Probably yes. Oppenheimer did by all accounts Did it help? Some people I imagine.

The prospect of the printing press caused great consternation.

>>
>> All of the above are arguably more significant than the invention of AI and have
>> altered everyone’s lives completely.

And arguably not. AI will potentially turbocharge every new development good or bad. I might feel more sanguine about the effect of AI if the world was going in the right direction - but it seems to be going to hell.

It's only interesting if you are interested. If only I was interested in fewer things I might get the garden done.
 AI Gone rogue - CGNorwich
What is the right direction for the world to go in? Right for what or who? Who is going to define that?

Complete annihilation of the human race might well be the best thing for other life forms.
 AI Gone rogue - Manatee
>> What is the right direction for the world to go in? Right for what or
>> who? Who is going to define that?
>>
>> Complete annihilation of the human race might well be the best thing for other life
>> forms.

Good stuff.

The answer at the moment is that the 1% with the money, whose wealth incidentally has been growing at 20%+ each year when economies have grown at 1%, will decide, as increasingly they are choosing the politicians or think they can. The bankrupt governments in thrall to them and working people who have been and are being stripped of their wealth and manipulated by SM won't have much of an impact.

Living standards will continue to fall and AI will likely accelerate that along with everything else.

Or not? Place your bets.
 AI Gone rogue - Andrew-T
>> They are not the wealth creators. The system is the wealth creator. On that, perhaps we can agree. Stick Elon, Larry, Sergey, Jeff and Mark on a desert island together and see how much wealth they can create. <<

Elon, Jeff etc (not forgetting Bill) may have cornered wealth, but mainly by inventing and developing a product which the public decides it wants and is prepared to pay for. Many other innovators have started businesses and lost money. They took a risk which paid off because they found something that would attract the unthinking public. So you probably assume they laugh all the way to the bank.

Historically people like Carnegie got rich but chose to pay it back by Public Works. Bill Gates does a bit of that, but I don't see Jeff or Mark joining in. That may be what is missing. I suppose they believe they are doing their bit by feeding more and more editions of their product to keep the cash flowing.
 AI Gone rogue - Kevin
>Bill Gates does a bit of that, but I don't see Jeff or Mark joining in.

www.piratewires.com/p/the-bezos-list-the-top-20-founders

 AI Gone rogue - Andrew-T
>> www.piratewires.com/p/the-bezos-list-the-top-20-founders >>

I might add cynically Well, he would say that, wouldn't he ? Has his publication been peer-reviewed ?
 AI Gone rogue - Kevin
Why would a bit of fag packet maths and the idea that there's more to wealth creation than someone's personal wealth need peer review?
 AI Gone rogue - Andrew-T
Well, if nothing else, it might lead to some interesting discussion ?
 AI Gone rogue - Kevin
>Well, if nothing else, it might lead to some interesting discussion ?

Nah.

"Socialists have a remarkable lack of interest in how wealth is created. As far as they know, wealth just exists somehow, and the only interesting question is how to redistribute it."

- Thomas Sowell -
 AI Gone rogue - Manatee
Interesting that he has zoomed in on the equity value that "he" has "created".

I've no licence to criticise Bezos really, I still spend far too much on Amazon.

Some while back the UN said in one of its statements that c. $6bn dollars would prevent 42 million people starving to death for a year. Musk asked for a breakdown and intimated that if they could say how it would be spent he would sell Tesla stock to pay for it.

He didn't give the money to the UN, but he did put $5.7bn into his charitable foundation which increased in value to c. $9bn. Most of that money remains undistributed but he did save a lot of tax and retains control of the money. So you could say the net effect so far of that exercise is, so far, questionable as regards the general good.
 AI Gone rogue - Terry

>> Some while back the UN said in one of its statements that c. $6bn dollars
>> would prevent 42 million people starving to death for a year. Musk asked for a
>> breakdown and intimated that if they could say how it would be spent he would
>> sell Tesla stock to pay for it.
>>
>> He didn't give the money to the UN, but he did put $5.7bn into his
>> charitable foundation which increased in value to c. $9bn. Most of that money remains undistributed
>> but he did save a lot of tax and retains control of the money. So
>> you could say the net effect so far of that exercise is, so far, questionable
>> as regards the general good.
>>
I am no fan of Elon Musk - as a personality I find him close to repulsive. But he has been remarkably successful in business.

- age 24 launched Zip 2 an on line city guide. Sold 1999 for $307m (Musk share $22m)
- age 28 launched what later became Paypal. Sold 2002 for $1.5bn (Musk share $180m)
- age 31 started Space X. Stlll owns 46% with a value between £0.5-1.0bn
- age 33 started Tesla. Car launch 2008. Still owns ~20% worth ~$240bn
- age 51 bought Twitter for $44bn. May be sitting on a loss!
- age 53 invested in xAI - $BNs. Main brand seems to be Grok. Not publically listed.

There may be others, values may be volatile and complex corporate structures make hard figures difficult to assess. But a few thoughts:

- was it just luck or real insights that he invested when and where he did
- did his access to capital allow him to take risks beyond those normally acceptable
- he has been smart enough to successfully invest in emerging technologies where most failed
- had Musk not existed, by how many years would developments now lag.

When launched Tesla had the performance and range which left the rest not just trailing but completely outclassed. The main UK competitor was the Nissan Leaf (a decent car) with a sub-100 mile range. Tesla had a range ~300 miles and blistering performance (at a cost).

By how much did Tesla accelerate the development and transition to EV is a matter of judgement - but there is substance to the argument that we would be 2-5 years behind the current curve.

Similarly Paypal had a positive impact on the growth of online sales, SpaceX launch costs are apparently 10-20% of the cost of NASA. Too early to comment on X and AI.

There is a moral case for fairer distribution of wealth and income but there may be a real cost in discouraging risk taking, innovation, and investment. That Musk could invest $BNs and still put food on the table is not a convincing argument - wealth is what (to him) defines success.

There may even be a somewhat bizarre case to be made that delivery of (say) cheap satellites to enhance communications, better land use, manage natural disasters etc etc may be better value for humanity than simply reedistribution $$$ and £££.
 AI Gone rogue - CGNorwich
Suggest you research the paperclip problem

cepr.org/voxeu/columns/ai-and-paperclip-problem
 AI Gone rogue - smokie
I suppose ctrl/alt/delete, cancel task isn't much use :-)
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