Interestingly, Terence Tao has recently started thinking about AI, and his (publicly stated) opinions on it are … very conservative?
I find he mostly focuses on the capabilities that are already here and doesn’t really extrapolate from it in any significant way.
Really? He seems pretty bullish. He thinks it will co author math papers pretty soon. I think he just doesn’t think or at least state his thoughts on implications outside of math.
“1. This is great work, shifting once again our expectations of which benchmark challenges are within reach of either #AI-assisted or fully autonomous methods”
Money helps. I could probably buy a lot of dignity points for a billion dollars. With a trillion variance definitely goes up because you could try crazy stuff and could backfire. (I mean true for a billion too). But EV of such a world is better.
I don’t think there’s anything that’s as simple as writing a check though.
US Congress gives money to specific things. I do not have a specific plan for a trillion dollars.
I’d bet against Terrance Tao being some kind of amazing breakthrough researcher who changes the playing field.
My answer (and I think Ruby’s) answer to most of these questions is “no”, but What Money Cannot Buy reasons, as well as “geniuses don’t often actually generalize and are hard to motivate with money.”
I have a few questions.
Can you save the world in time without a slowdown in AI development if you had a billion dollars?
Can you do it with a trillion dollars?
If so, why aren’t you trying to ask the US Congress for a trillion dollars?
If it’s about a lack of talent, do you think Terrance Tao can make significant progress on AI alignment if he actually tried?
Do you think he would be willing to work on AI alignment if you offered him a trillion dollars?
Interestingly, Terence Tao has recently started thinking about AI, and his (publicly stated) opinions on it are … very conservative? I find he mostly focuses on the capabilities that are already here and doesn’t really extrapolate from it in any significant way.
Really? He seems pretty bullish. He thinks it will co author math papers pretty soon. I think he just doesn’t think or at least state his thoughts on implications outside of math.
He’s clearly not completely discounting that there’s progress, but overall it doesn’t feel like he’s “updating all the way”:
This is a recent post about the deepmind math olympiad results: https://mathstodon.xyz/@tao/112850716240504978
“1. This is great work, shifting once again our expectations of which benchmark challenges are within reach of either #AI-assisted or fully autonomous methods”
Money helps. I could probably buy a lot of dignity points for a billion dollars. With a trillion variance definitely goes up because you could try crazy stuff and could backfire. (I mean true for a billion too). But EV of such a world is better.
I don’t think there’s anything that’s as simple as writing a check though.
US Congress gives money to specific things. I do not have a specific plan for a trillion dollars.
I’d bet against Terrance Tao being some kind of amazing breakthrough researcher who changes the playing field.
My answer (and I think Ruby’s) answer to most of these questions is “no”, but What Money Cannot Buy reasons, as well as “geniuses don’t often actually generalize and are hard to motivate with money.”