What are the risks of generative AI? - The Turing Lectures with Mhairi Aitken

What a poorly prepared presentation with little evidence to back up arguments. The water usage argument for example has no explanation of how exactly this water is used up, is it being recycled somehow? Is the water somehow rendered unusable after running through the datacenter? I'm definitely skeptical about AI, but she just comes off as a grifter shouting "AI bad!" without much of an explanation as to why.

eek. after the sandwich making, all I could think about was the rat poison on her hands. She really should have been wearing medical gloves and someone should have come and cleaned up the mess.

Nothing to worry
on AI when it advances IA will come in Nature, according to Newton's law of nature to balance it.

This whole list of "risks" sounds less like a well research academic review and more like an uneducated suburban mom screaming "but what about the children!" From the clear ignorant water usage to the "who's responsible" hyperbole for the queen assassin.

Too much of animated explanation will deviate from the actual content. Also, it is not necessary to laugh/smile on every individual words you speak.

Please avoid those things for better presentation. At some point in time, the audience will get bored with the animated explanation and too much of smiles.

The water is not "consumed" or "used", but just heated und dumped into a river or cooled for re-use in a cooling loop. The water does not leave the earths athmosphere, so it is not lost at all!! This is an invalid argument amongst MANY valid arguments!

I wonder if some of the research on the power and water usage was obtained by using ChatGPT? Is the water consumed in some kind of fusion process? Nah, of course it isn't, it is just taken from the lake/river/sea - passed through a heat exchanger and back out it goes. As for the power usage, travelling to the Moon, I assume in distance, on a flat surface, driving a 2002 Honda Accord? Very woolly, but there's always the kids whose futures this technology will shape - are relatively clueless - just like I was growing up in the 1970s and being asked about the microprocessor revolution...

Such an important conversation! But be sure, the global military/industrial in all its forms all over the world are rushing headlong into this. They have the money and the secrecy to do whatever they want. AI can be threatening anywhere but the clear and present danger will come from this sector that knows no restraints.

She forgot to mention the responsibility of the person who decided to eat the sandwich

If you're wondering where all the aliens are, perhaps they wiped themselves out by taking the foolish risk of dabbling with artificial intelligence without having much of a clue about the dangers, without imposing extreme restrictions on its use and without prohibiting reckless capitalists and political extremists from using it.

DO you want Skynet? Cause this is how you get Skynet.

Lady, take a deep breath.
Listening to you hyperventilating is painful.

roundtrip to the moon ~750000 km. at 21 kg CO2 emissions per 100 km for an average car, that comes to ~160 metric tons, which is equivalent to ~ 11 US citizens or ~ 33 UK citizens or ~ 20 China citizens.

It’s better to present with a script when there’s so much nervousness.

I don’t understand. We have new tech that can cause and does cause a lot of harm. How is it then different from any other big product invention? It’s what we have done non stop since the industrial revolution: we invent , we disrupt, we exploit and we misuse in search for big profit. We are really good at it! The iPhone I use now to type this message was made possible by mass child slavery. CSAM is made possible by the invention of the internet. In construction we used asbestos for years as well as CFK’s. There is not one invention that was ever checked before release. Not one! At best put on hold for a while. And the best part is: even if the inventors knew what was coming that would not have stopped them. Profit always comes first! Or did Apple made sure no children are dying in cobalt mines anymore? Does anyone in all honesty believes our biggest resources are clean concerning their origine? It’s all created on the back of slaves. Slavery isn’t gone, it’s just global now. And products will keep on destroying the environment or social cohesion. And regulations only work when there is a global agreement. And that is only possible when all powers at be experience a big and immediate threat like when the world banned CFK’s.

The children were very impressive. Unless they were reading AI generated text designed to make us complacent...
Yes, sign me up for the next conspiracy theory...

You are extremely confusing and have no idea how to present.

Well, speaking of risks, the worst thing down the track could be when it lies/hallucinates but whatever it outputs we are commanded by the makers or pro fanatics force all to believe it. Good luck to those who cant fathom that. Wont be just fun and games then. All depends on the directors of this thing if freely snowballing away now.

If these are threats, bring them on, no big deal.

I find the out-of-hand dismissal of existential risk to be insufficiently justified.

The question is not: "do some people use existential risk to further their own interests?". The answer to this question is yes, as Dr Aitken rightly pointed out.

The relevant question is: "does, at the end of the day, AI plausibly pose an existential risk?" - which was not addressed convincingly.

I suspect something disingenuous about this speaker.
AND Mildly disturbing how she giggled throughout her 'cooking show' and Online Dating.The way tech people lack empathy..I imagine her killing her lovers by poisoning them and burying them in the garden, using AI instruction.
I may ask Chat GPT to write me a Screenplay.

There is a major problem with confusing AI with reality, which has its own problems being confused by you with reality!
Reality comes from the inside out.
Keep that focus and avoid the confusion.

Fears that keep you up at night that you don’t believe are true? The term for a fear of something that one doesn’t believe is true is “phobophobia.” How about a lecture on the dangers of humans being in control of our future?

True AI is out of the box now with every Nation in the race to develop one or better one. Like Nuclear energy it will be used for good and bad. Regulation of nukes did not stop North Korea, Pakistan, India, China and Russia from developing one and to use them if need be. Even a small populated country of under 10 million people (Israel) is said to have them. AI has the potential of finding ways to take down a nations Economy and military without a shot being fired.

This woman is so *** I cannot believe anyone could take this seriously.

Using children was such a cheap shot

If this is one of the best in the institution then the institution is a a messy rut

The future of Generative AI.?

Pretty obvious I think......Advertising, General elections, Influencers...i.e. anywhere the need to convince, sway, influence etc the Human Intelligence...H.I.....
H.I. can be taught or conditioned to do anything such as volunteering to go to fight is a war as in WW1 or buy a car influenced by advertising, or believe in an almight of which billions are praying to.
We witness the vulnerability of H.I. to be swayed in any direction by other H.I.....mostly in the name of MONEY and RELIGION.

This new component called Generative AI will accellerated and increase the invasion of our minds as if there isn't enough already....See all those people (H.I.s), who have their head stuck in an Iphone for example or prey to an almighty that they have been trained to worship.

To free our minds from external interferences and influences, we must wake up to this fact of external influences on our thoughts and actions.
This is especially true for our younger generations who will grow up with these monstrous machines and external influences.

Really important work is asking seven year olds what they want from AI? This is brash and offensive marketing research directed at target group which is in this case seven year olds. Just Rude. I have no respect for this and since when do we ask seven year olds what they want beyond lunch or red or blue or swim or hike? Seven year olds? Yeah, because we need to get those customers hooked when they are seven. But of course as she said they're using AI from the time they can hold the device in their cribs. Shameless mind shaping posing as what? AI Santa? "We want to give you exactly what you want kids so you can whine to your parents if they don't allow it?" Just like those candied cereals that gave us all diabetes?

This woman talks so fast that I find here annoying! If she could just slow down her talk would be great.

Long-winded, superficial, too boring and speaks too quickly to the point where it is assumed that she must be late for some unpostponable commitment.

That was really illuminating and thought provoking. Thanks.

When you ask AI to suggest ingredients from ANYTHING that can be found in the kitchen, you should get what you ask for, and you did. It would have been better with mayo, but she didn't actually follow her phony script, did she?

PLEASE slow down your speech and drink a glass of water - I can hear your saliva!

Much more scared of the comments here than of the AI.

If I stick with Google or Bing, for searching, how many glasses of water is that?

Good example of magical, thinking, in relation to children and adults actually thinking about their future.

Why does she pronounce "sandwich" like "sangwich" The only person in the entire world I have ever heard do that and I have a very deep dislike of the pronunciation every time she says the word.

WHAT THE ACTUAL F** LADY???

Thanks for the subject BUT why turn a concern for the water cost of Gen AI into a meaningless volume of sand? 16 million users @ 500ml aka half a litre = 8 million litres of "wasted" water = 8000 tonnes = 8000 cubic metres of water = 50m x 2m x20m x 4 (roughly 4 Olympic swimming pools, we're loosing leisure pools thanks to funding cuts which are typically 25m pools so that's at least 8 of them) = @ current Thames water charges a waste of 8000 x (177.6 + 100.17 p) = £22,221.6 in water bills (~0.14p per query)... you can go on. "The World Health Organization recommends that people have access to a minimum range of 50 to 100 liters of water a day per person" - recently quoted by CNN reporting on the travesty in Gaza - so 80-160 thousand people's critical needs for water wasted on perhaps/likely mostly mindless frivolity a day on just ChatGPT...
So how about governments levying a surcharge of 0.2p per query on all public access AI services and use that money to fund whatever public infrastructure, climate action or whatever personally nominated global charitable effort? The individual consumers would barely notice it running on a PAYG £1 top-up scheme but the manifest good and minimal induced temperance could be great.

Worst video on this channel so far

You know when an institution analysis is suspect when they surpress critism

So very important to involve children in the discussion of regulating AI and LLM. They are the future!

She is not a good speaker

Sooner or later, the AI will train us. You won't even notice because it will be occurring gradually. We will be slaves.

Thanks for talking about risks of these tools. So many say it will solve all our problems, without anticipating what problems might be created. I think the ethics of AI are problematic to say the least. It has been very demoralizing to feel coerced into using the technology or become irrelevant. Fascinated by automating tedious activities but I already see the effects on society from loss of livelihood to purpose and most of the worst effects have not been realized yet. We haven't integrated the harms of social media, the first large scale weaponization of AI tools against the general population by the corporate sector. If AI tech is left to "self regulate" the incentives right now do seem very likely to make the worst outcomes not just likely but inevitable. We need to restructure incentives to reinforce a more egalitarian and sustainable society, before deploying at a larger scale IMO. Also advanced AI like an AGI is too important to have it be controlled by corporations for profit. It was created with the total efforts of humanity and should be employed to benefit humanity. I used to think technology would save us, now I think rediscovering our humanity is the path forward.

Sangwiches - not new, but where do they come from?