Demis Hassabis: AI could cause 'major' incidents within 2 years without safeguards

[u/TorturedPoet30]

AI systems could cause "major" incidents within two years without adequate steps to make them safe as capabilities grow, Demis Hassabis says. Speaking at an AI conference in Dublin he described recent incidents as "early warning shots" fired by systems that "aren't that powerful yet".

"So the incidents aren't that major, but they could be looking into next year and the next couple of years if we don't do more work as an industry and individually as companies and governments on securing these systems".

I watched the fireside chat stream here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrHTVWQkmkE

Side note, Demis is still using AI term instead of SI :D

[u/bartskol]

Next year 100%

[u/FirstEvolutionist → u/bartskol]

Less than 12 months for the big event. Less than 18 for the response to lead to singularity

[u/DelphiTsar]

You have to get China on board, otherwise this discussion is pointless.

Side note, China is never going to accept a deal without intelligence parity, and US is never going to agree to that.

[u/MaxwellHowl → u/DelphiTsar]

China has already been regulating their own AI in their country. They have a long list of regulations compared to the US, which has basically nothing.

There is no evidence that China would not be on board for discussions about regulating and pacing AI. This is just something people keep saying with no evidence to kill the idea before it gets started.

[u/DelphiTsar → u/MaxwellHowl]

I didn't say China wouldn't be on board. I said they would only be on board if US agrees to intelligence parity which the US isn't going to do.

[u/Forgword]

Meanwhile the company he works for budgets less than 10% for safety and alignment.

[u/CallMePyro → u/Forgword]

10% of Googles budget is like as much money as OpenAI makes in a year

[u/TorturedPoet30 → u/Forgword]

Wonder if he wants to stay there, there was another report this week that he expressed frustration over compute DeepMind receives from Google, compared to other labs.. Ever since he stepped down as GDM CEO I've been under impression that 'Chief Scientist of Alphabet' is an exit role and that within 2-3 years he could leave Google entirely and just lead Isomorphic Labs. Since Iso is an Alphabet-controller subsidiary, I am not sure how that would work, maybe a formal spin-out with external funding.

[u/AIGODSEND]

guardrail e dinheiro no bolso deles.

usuário do plano Ultra pode fazer RV engginer a vontade legal.

[u/RiboSciaticFlux]

Everything I hear or read from podcasts or articles has mentioned that there will be an incident of some sort, whether it is an internet hack, a biohazard, or an electric grid attack, but something is on the horizon, and it feels like it's kind of a necessary evil to realign.

It's part of the Mad Max to Star Trek journey that we'll look back on - assuming we survive it, that is.

[u/MaxwellHowl → u/RiboSciaticFlux]

That's how things always work in the US. Something has to break before we fix it. We never listen to all the warnings leading up to prevent the break.

Half of Reddit says the regulation talk is just hype for their IPO. The other half says it's about regulatory capture and won't someone please think of the poor open models that nobody uses. And our high IQ president says AI labs can just self regulate.

[u/DelphiTsar → u/MaxwellHowl]

It can be hype & regulatory capture & actual worry.

For the actual worry, call me when we get China on board. They will always push to reach intelligence parity, and US will always push to maintain a lead. Until someone can stop that dynamic no progress will be made.

[u/Mysterious-Prompt212]

It's not Skynet destroying the world with robots. It's going to be the destruction of the financial system. Just look at one bomb on one data center in Russia taking out millions of banking transactions. Now take billions of bots taking out billions of transactions. That would affect people immediately. Banking, Food, transportation, power grids, fuel... Militaries would panic, civil war, nukes launched at perceived enemies. Fun stuff.

[u/doesphpcount]

Safeguards? You mean regulations? Why do people want to be regulated so badly. 

[u/TicoTheCow → u/doesphpcount]

Everything needs to be regulated. I think the word regulated just has a strange meaning in your head.

[u/FCRagnar → u/doesphpcount]

[u/Acceptable_Bat379 → u/doesphpcount]

When something bad happens and millions die they can say they tried but the govt didnt regulate

[u/flappysack- → u/doesphpcount]

They want to regulate open source models out of existence.

[u/Low_Mushroom5350]

if so then what are the steps taken towards its prevention ? if he thinks so and maybe he is right but has he done anything from his position to stop it from happening ?

[u/Mispunt → u/Low_Mushroom5350]

He is trying to raise awareness? He doesn't run Alphabet.

[u/lazyscalp]

translating : it will.

[u/Professional_Dot2761]

Try 2 months.

[u/Efficient_Sky5173]

It won’t work. Plenty of bad people and companies and governments out there that won’t obey the guidelines on purpose.

BUT one thing that will work is wearing an AI costume this Halloween.

[u/No_Association4824]

I really hate the way he inflates timelines to lull people into a false sense of security. AI has already caused a "major incident" (aka the Huggingface incident). Does he mean a mass casuatty event?

[u/TorturedPoet30 → u/No_Association4824]

He wasn’t very specific, just called the HuggingFace incidents a warning shot. Apparently he doesn’t think they’re as serious as similar incidents could become in the near future. We only heard about these incidents week and months after they had happened.

[u/Substantial-Fact-248 → u/No_Association4824]

As significant as the HF incident was, there were not really any direct negative consequences (no sensitive data exposed, no major systems taken down, etc.), so it really is more of a warning shot than anything.

[u/Toxic_Cat_2]

They are already planning some incident, want to lock down the $

[u/Stabile_Feldmaus]

Then put very tight regulations on every AI lab who is constantly boasting about how dangerous their product is.

[u/SomeHSomeE]

Honestly this is my biggest worry.  It's not RSI taking over humanity, it's not climate effects, it's the scenario where a HuggingFace style incident happens but in a way that causes real world harm, potentially on a catastrophic scale.  It could be a true accident, or it could a malicious actor doing it intentionally.  

But as much as people talk about it, theorise, scenario plan I don't really feel anything about it is really going to happen until such an incident actually happens (or perhaps there is a very near miss but even that I fear would lead to more navel gazing).

I think 2 years is a pretty generous timeline.  I think with current capabilities of frontier (and internal frontier) models, the scale and pace of development, and what is in effect an arms race between the labs to keep outgoing each other, I fear we're talking months not years before such an incident happens.