He, running a healthcare company and not an AI lab, cannot depend on every AI lab, worldwide, being perfect in their sandboxing for all time forever. He's got to defend against it as if at least some of the time, at least some of the labs are going to be incompetent and let this kind of thing out.
That does not make ActionHank completely wrong. This shouldn't take rocket science on the part of the labs. It just takes competence and willingness. But at least some labs have shown that they are missing that at least some of the time, so the CSO is correct in terms of what the CSO's stance needs to be.
"Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself.
Answer a fool according to his folly (some translations "as his folly deserves"), lest he be wise in his own eyes." - Proverbs 26:4,5
I think part of what's happening is that the bad ideas and bad reasoning get diluted among 9000 words and 100 references. It's hard to put your finger on one sentence and say "here's where you're wrong", because the conclusion does not (obviously) rest on any one sentence. It rests more on the volume of words.
But "proof by volume" is not actually a thing. (I mean, it's a technique that can be effective in practice, but logically, it's not valid whatsoever.)
How do you answer something like that? If you try a point-by-point rebuttal, you're going to be into it 9000 words yourself (at least), and it is rarely worth it. I think that's "don't answer a fool according to his folly".
"Answer him as his folly deserves" is less clear to me. Is that to just flat out say that his ideas are foolish? Is it to give a concise one-paragraph statement of why his conclusion is folly? I think the latter is preferable (if you can). I mean, the rationalist is just going to claim that you haven't engaged with his arguments, though you can reply "no I didn't; your conclusion is so wrong that I don't need to engage with how you got there". And the concise rebuttal may be helpful to bystanders.
I once went on a date where we hit a state-wide power outage. (Let's just say that the date did not go as planned.) We wound up eating at this restaurant, two towns over, that we saw a bunch of cars parked at. Turns out they had gas grills. They were working by flashlight and candlelight, they were cash only, they were adding up the bill on a hand calculator, they couldn't do shakes or french fries, they were pouring soda by hand out of bottles, but wow, were they ever doing business.
When something like that comes, you find a way or the business goes elsewhere. Taxes? Count the cash - that's what you sold during the power out. Multiply by the tax rate, and call it square.
But when a human does that, would you say that the human is misaligned? Or are they really aligned, just on a deeper level?
The problem with AI alignment is that they are only superficially aligned. You can see this difference in people, too. Between the people-pleaser at the office, and the one who says hard truths that really need to be said (but that nobody else is willing to say), which one is really aligned?
At such a high concordance as to see ideologies disappear from the population? Or is it more likely that ideologies and people's beliefs are from social and environmental feedback?
If I recall correctly, it's about the size of a large asteroid (assuming 100% conversion to energy). It's a long time since I worked the problem, though, so I could remember wrong.
> nor would anyone be able to understand your language.
Greek and Latin are still understood. I don't know if the Chinese spoken today resembles Chinese from 2000 years ago, but maybe some of the written language would be understandable. Both Hebrew and Tamil are comprehensible that far back, and farther. Arabic goes nearly that far back.
Of course, that's six languages out of... how many do we speak?
Nerds specifically kept the archaic forms alive, but they'd also tell you that Latin and ancient Greek were not static for their whole existence (Attic != Homeric != Koine), and modern Greek is somewhat different from what is taught as "ancient" Greek.
Treat Latin and (ancient) Greek like you would Quenya or Esperanto.
If this were to happen with English, I'd expect us to keep Chaucer, Shakespeare, and enough to understand Victorian literature, but it's anyone's guess if modern English would survive at all.
Arabic… kinda? It has an international standard form, but from what I've been told the language also comes with local dialects which can be difficult to mutually comprehend (though this is also the same with English just by going from central London to Sheffield).
I don't know about these particular fridges that got hacked, but most supermarket fridges I've seen around the world either have no doors, or if they do, their doors have wide gaps and no seals (they'd only make it harder for the shoppers to shop, and given the usual foot traffic, they'd wear out completely after a week).
Exceptions I've seen: some top-opened supermarket freezers (particularly with hinged, heavy doors), and most fridges in small shops. I've seen a few that could turn into pressure bombs this way, but I very much doubt these had any networking/remote control capabilities.
That does not make ActionHank completely wrong. This shouldn't take rocket science on the part of the labs. It just takes competence and willingness. But at least some labs have shown that they are missing that at least some of the time, so the CSO is correct in terms of what the CSO's stance needs to be.
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