Why this top AI guru thinks we might be in extinction level trouble | The InnerView

[Music] coni is one of the world's leading Minds in artificial intelligence he's a hacker who sees the rise of AI as an existential threat to humanity he dedicates his life to make sure its success doesn't spell our Doom there will be intelligent creatures on this planet that are not human this is not normal and there will be no going back and if we don't control them then the future will belong to them not to us Ley is the CEO of conjecture AI a startup that tries to understand how AI systems think with the aim of

aligning them to human values he speaks to the interview about why he believes the end is near and explains how he's trying to stop [Music] it and Connor Ley joins us now on the interview he's the CEO of conjecture he's in our London Studio good to see you there good to have you on the program Connor You're Something of an AI Guru and you're also one of those voices saying we need to be very very careful right now and a lot of people don't quite have the knowledge or the they don't quite have the vocabulary

or the deeper understanding as to why they should be worried they just feel some sort of sense of Doom but they can't quite map it out so maybe you can help us along that path why should should we be worried about AGI and tell me the difference between AGI and what is widely perceived as AI right now so I'll answer the second question first just to get some definitions out of the way sure the truth is is that there's really no true definition of the word AGI and people use it to mean all kinds of

different things when I talk about the word AGI usually what I mean by this is AI systems or computer systems that are more capable than humans at all tasks that they could do so this involves you know any scientific task programming remote work uh science business politics anything and these are systems that do not currently exist but are actively attempting to be built there are many people working on building of systems and many experts believe these systems are close and as for why these systems could are going to be a problem well I actually think

that a lot of people have the right intuition here the intuition question here is just well if you build something that is more competent than you it's smarter than you and all the people you know and all the people in the world it is better at business politics manipulation deception science weapons development everything and you don't control those things which we currently do not know how to do well why would you expect that to go well yeah it reminds me a little bit about the debate about whether we should be looking for life in in

the universe beyond our solar system Stephen Hawking said be careful look at the history of the world anytime you sort of invite us a stronger power more more competent power they might come and destroy you but then the counter to that is that you're mapping human behavior human desires passions needs wants onto this thing is this natural to do and fair to do because humans created it humans humans created the parameters for it so it's actually worse than that in that it's really important to understand that when we talk about AI it's easy to imagine

it to be software and the way software generally works it is written by a pro by a programmer they write code which tells the computer what to do step by step this is not how AI Works AI is more like organic it's more like it is grown you use these big supercomputers to take a bunch of data and grow a program that can solve the problems in the data now this program does not look like something written by humans it's not code it's not lines of instructions it's more like a huge pile of billions and

billions of numbers and we know if we can run all these numbers re execute these numbers they can do really amazing things but no one knows why so it's way more like dealing with a biological thing like if you look at like a bacterium or something and the bacteria can do some crazy things and we don't really know why and this is kind of how our AIS are so the question is less you know will humans impart emotions into these systems we don't know how to do that it's more if you build systems if you

grow systems if you grow bacteria who are designed to solve problems to you know solve games to make money or whatever what kind of things will you grow and by default you're going to grow things that are good at solving problems at gaining power at tricking people at you know building things and so on because this is what we want you reverse engineered gpt2 at the age of 24 which was a few years ago that's well part of the legend I mean that's part of the the the credentialing of you before they say well this

guy is saying we're in big trouble they say well by the way you know he knows what he's talking about because because technically he knows what he's doing tell me tell me about the pivot point between being a Believer and enthusiastic about this to becoming a Warner what happened so uh the story goes back even further than that um reverse engineering is um a bit generous it's more like I built a system I found out that no one can reverse engineer it oh and this is a big problem um but it was even before then

so I've been very into AI since I was a teenager because I want to make the world a better place and I think that a lot of people who believe in AI a lot of the tech people who are doing the things which are think are dangerous I think most of them maybe not most but most of them probably are good people they're trying to build technology to make the world a better place you know when I grew up uh technology was great you know the internet was making people more connected we were getting access

to better medicines and there was you know solar power was improving there's all these great things that science was doing so I was very excited about more science and about more technology and well what is the what is the best technology than intelligence if we just had intelligence well wow we could solve all the problems we could do all the science we could you know invent all the cancer medicines we could you know develop all the cool stuff so I was thinking when I was a teenager and this is I think a common trajectory is

that people when they're kind of like first exposed to some of these like techno utopian AGI dreams it sounds great you know it sounds like such a great great solution but then as you think about this problem more you kind of realize that like the problem with AGI is not really how to build it it's how to control it that's much harder just because you can make something which is smart or that solves a problem does not mean you can make something that will listen to you that will do what you truly want this is

much much harder and this is and as I started looking into this problem more in my early 20s I start realizing like wow we are really really not making progress on this problem so in that worst case scenario whether we have an apocalyptic ending for all of us we get destroyed existentially or we become enslaved in The Matrix or whatever it might be tell me how it actually happens in your mind how does this AGI um assume control I mean there these famous moments in Terminator and Elsewhere One of the Terminators that final scene where

the nuclear bombs are going off all over I mean there lots of different ways people have imagined this the way you see it tell me how it happens and how if things continue to go in in the direction that you fear how long will it take to get there well of course I don't personally know how exactly things will play out I can't see the future and I can give you a feeling though of how I expect it to feel how I expect it to feel like when it happens the way I expect it to

feel is kind of like if you play chess against a grandmas now I'm really bad at chess I'm I'm not good at chess at all but I you know I can play you know a little bit of an amateur game and then but when you play against a Grandmaster or someone who's much much much better than you the way it feels it's not like you're having a heroic battle against the Terminator you're having this incredible back and forth and then you lose no it feels more like you think you're playing well you think everything is

okay and then suddenly you lose in one move and you don't know why this is what it feels like to play chess like against a grandm and this is what it's going to feel like for Humanity to play against AGI what's going to happen is not some dramatic battle that you know the Terminators rise up and try to destroy Humanity no it will be things get more and more confusing more and more jobs get automated faster and faster more and more technology gets built which no one even quite knows how the technology works there will

be mass media movements that don't really make any sense like do we really know the truth of what's going on in the world right now even now with social media do you or I really know what's going on well how much of this is fake how much of it is generated you know with AI or other methods we don't know and this will get much worse imagine if you have extremely intelligent systems much smarter than humans that can generate any image any video anything trying to manipulate you well and being able to develop new technologies

to interfere with politics the way I expect it will go is that things will seem like mostly normal just like weird just like things are getting weirder and weirder and then one day we will just not be in control anymore just it won't be dramatic there won't be a fight there won't be a war it will just be one day the machines are in control and not us and and even if there is a fight yeah sorry to even if there is a fight or a war they've handed us the gun and the bullets and

we've done it I mean it's us that might might do all of this precipitated by being controlled in some way absolutely possible I don't think an AI would need to use humans for that cuz you know it could develop extremely advanced technology but it's totally possible humans are not secure it is absolutely possible to manipulate humans like you know everyone knows this you humans are not immune to propaganda not immune to mass movements imagine if you know an an AGI gives Kim Jong Un the call and says hey I'm going to make your country run

extremely well and tell you how to build super weapons in return do me this favor I mean Kim jamong is going to think that's great and it's very easy to gain power if you're extremely intelligent if you're capable of manipulating people of developing new techologies weapon trading to on the stock market to make tons of money well yeah you can do whatever you want so you're sounding the alarm Jeffrey Hinton seen as the founder or father or Godfather of AI he's sounding the alarm and has distanced himself from a lot of his previous statements others

in the mainstream are coming out heavily credentialed people who who are the real deal when it comes to a AIS saying we need guard rails we need regulation we need to be careful maybe we should stop everything yet open AI Microsoft Deep Mind these are companies but then you have governments investing in this everybody's still rushing forward hurtling forward towards a possible Doom why are they still doing it despite these very legitimate and strong warning is it only about the bottom line and money and competition or is there more to it this is a great

question and I really like how you phrase you said they were rushing towards because this is really the correct way of looking at this it's not that it is not possible to do this well it is not that it's not possible to build safe AI I think this is possible it's just really hard it takes time it's the same way that it's much easier to build a nuclear reactor that melts down than to build a nuclear reactor that is stable like of course this is just hard so you need time and you need resources to

do this but unfortunately what we're we're in the situation right now is we're currently in a situation right now where at least here in the UK there is currently more regulation on selling a sandwich to the public than to develop potentially lethal technology that could kill every human on earth this is true this is this is the current case and a lot of this is because of slowdown it's just you know governments are slow people don't want and vested interest you make a lot of money by pushing AI pushing AI further makes you a lot

of money it gets you famous on Twitter you know look how much the like these people are rock stars you know people like Sam alman's a rock star on Twitter you know people love these people they're like oh yeah they're bringing the future they're making big money so they must be good but like I mean it's just not that simple unfortunately we're in a territory where we all agree somewhere in the future there's a precipice which we will fall down if we continue we don't know where it is we don't maybe it's far away maybe

it's very close and my opinion is if you don't know where it is you should stop well other people who you know gain money power or just ideological points like a lot of these people is very important to understand do this because they truly believe like a religion they believe in transhumanism in in the Glorious future where AI will love us and so on like so there's many reasons but I mean yeah I mean the cynical take is just I could be making a lot more money right now if I was just pushing AI I

could get a lot more money than I have right now how do we do anything about this without just deciding to cut the uny internet cables and blow up the satellites in space and just start again how do you actually because this is a technical problem and it's also a moral and ethical problem so where do you even begin right now or is it too late so the weirdest thing about the world to me right now as someone who's deep into this is that things are going very very bad we have you know crazy you

know just corporations with zero oversight just plowing billions of dollars into going as fast as possible with no oversight with no accountability which is about as bad as it could be but somehow we haven't yet lost it's not yet over it could have been over there's many things where it could be over tomorrow but it's not yet there is still hope there is still hope I don't know if there's going to be hope in a couple years or even in one year but there currently still is Hope Oh wait hold on one year I mean

that's come on man I mean we're probably going to put out this interview like a couple of weeks after we record it a few months will pass we could all be dead by the time you I know this gets 10,000 views I mean just just for explain this timeline line one year why one year why why is it going so fast that even one year would be too far ahead explain that I'm not saying one year is like guaranteed by any means I think it's unlu unlikely but it's not impossible and this is important to

understand is that Ai and computer technology is an exponential it's like covid this is like saying in February you know a million covid infections that's impossible that can't happen in six months and it absolutely did this is kind of how AI is as well exponentials look slow they look like you don't go have one infected two infected four infected that's not so bad but then you have 10,000 20,000 40,000 you know 100,000 yeah you know within a single week and this is how te this technology works as well is that as our computers get there's

something called Moors law which is it's not really a lot it's more like an observation that every two years our computers get about you know there's some details but about twice as powerful so that's an exponential and our Tech and it's not just our computers are getting more powerful our software is getting better our AIS are getting better our data is getting better more money is coming into this field we are on an exponential this is why things can go so fast so while I'm not like you know it would be weird if we would

all be dead in one year it is physically possible you can't rule it out if we continue on this path the powerful people who can do something about this especially when it comes to regulation when you saw those Congressman speaking to Sam Alman they didn't seem to know what the hell they were talking about so how frustrating is it for you that the people who can make a difference have zero clue about what's really going on and and more important than that they didn't seem to want to actually know they had weird questions that made

no sense and so you're thinking okay these guys are in charge I mean no wonder the AI is going to come and wipe us all out maybe maybe we deserve it well I wouldn't go that far but um this used to annoy me a lot this used to be extremely frustrating um but I've come to I've come to peace with it to a large degree because the thing that I've really found is that understanding the world is hard understanding complex topics and technology is hard not just because they they're complicated but also because people have

lives and this is okay this is normal people have families they have responsibilities they have there's a lot of things people have to do deal with and I don't shame people for this you know like you know I have turkey you know with my family over Thanksgiving and whatever and you know my aunts and uncles look they have their own lives going on they maybe don't really have time you know to listen to me give them a rant about it so I don't so I have a lot of love and a lot of compassion for

that things are hard this is of course doesn't mean it that solves the problem but I'm just trying to say that like it is of course frustrating to some degree that there are no adults in the room this is this is how I would see it is that there is sometimes a belief that somewhere there is someone who knows what's going on there's an adult who's got under control you know someone in the government they've got this under control and as someone who's tried to find that person I could tell you this person does not

exist the truth is is the fact that anything works at all in the world is kind of a miracle it's kind of amazing that anything works at all with how chaotic everything is but the truth is is that there are quite a lot of people who like who want the world to be good you know they might not have the right information they might be confused they might be getting lobbied by various people with bad intentions but like most people want their families to live and have a good life most people don't want bad things

to happen most people want other people to be happy and safe and luckily for us most normal people so not Elites not necessarily politicians or technologists most normal people yeah do have the right intuition around AI where they see like wow that seems really scary let's be careful with this and this is what gives me hope so when I think about politicians and them not being in charge I think this is now our responsibility as citizens of the world that we have to take this into our own hands we can't wait for people to save

us we have to make them save us we have to make these things happen we have to you know we have to make our voices hurt we have to say hey how the hell are you letting this happen like one of the Beautiful Things is that you know to a large degree politicians can be moved they can be reasoned with and they can be moved by the voters you can vote them out of office that's a good argument for democracy that's a great argument for democracy that's that's wonderful you know democracy is the worst system

except for all the other ones yeah um so to the point of people's feeling and and I asked about this at the very beginning that intuitive feeling of like something's up here there's something ominous there did seem to be a little bit of a plateau with something like chat GPT so initially people were very anxious very surprised very wowed by what this thing could do it could write your University thesis and whatever it could you know do all these these fancy gimmicks they seem like magic tricks but then once the hype died down a little

bit uh people began to input new things ask maybe better questions and you could see some of the limitations of something like you know chat G GPT and its uh forerunners and that led a lot of people to say well I mean okay sometimes this thing just sounds like a PR department or an HR department in a company sometimes it it actually it's there to detect plagiarism but sometimes it feels like a plagiarized like college um paper which led to and this is anecdotally a lot of friends of mine going ah maybe this thing maybe

we're okay for a while because this thing has severe limitations address that for me because a lot of people are still sort of like well I know there was the hype but now I'm not so sure tell me about that so there is a story I'm not sure if the story is actually true or not but it's a good metaphor where if you take a frog and you put it into a pot of water you know cold pot of water the Frog will sit there happily if you slowly and turn up the heat on your

pot the Frog will sit there there no problem and if you do it very slowly you very slow slly slowly increase the temperature the Frog will get used to the temperature and won't jump out until the water boils and the frog dies I think this is what is happening with people is that um people are extremely good at making things which are crazy normal is that if it's a normal thing if it's a thing all your friends do then it just becomes normal this is like during war why people can Slaughter other people because if

all your friends are doing it well it's normal it's a yeah you slaughter people it's normal you killing people is fine this is how it can happen and the same thing applies here is that well okay you can talk to your computer now like sure we can argue about oh chat jpt it's not that smart you could talk to your computer like slow down if this was a sci-fi movie from 20 years ago everyone would be yelling at the screen like what the hell are you doing like this thing is obviously like crazy like what

the hell is going on but because it's you know available now you know cheaply online he doesn't feel special so the way to address this is I think a lack of coordinated campaigning effort what I mean by this is is that the general when we think about our civilization not just individual people when we think about our civilization how does our civilization deal with problems how does it decide which problems to address because there's always so many problems you could be putting your effort on how does it decide which one to pay attention to and

this is actually very complicated and it can be because of a natural catastrophe or a war or whatever it can be because of some stupid fashion hype just like some viral video on Tik Tok makes everyone freak out sometimes yes but usually if you actually want your civilization to address a problem a big problem it takes long hard grinding effort from people trying to raise this to saliency to raise it to attention because again people have lives you know like most people don't have time to go go online and read huge books about AI safety

and like oh how do we integrate chat gbt or how do we deal with like the safety TR they don't have time for that of course they don't and I'm not trying to judge these people I understand it's not their job in a good World there should be a group of people that deals with this the problem is they don't really exist before we go I'm glad you mentioned that people don't know where to look look if there was one resource that you could Point people in the direction of so that they can educate themselves

about the reality of the situation and can bring themselves up to speed that would be what there's not one who I think has the whole thing which is a big problem someone should make that resource if someone make that resource please let me know but what I would probably Point people towards is control AI which is a group of people who I'm also involved with who are campaigning for exactly these issues who are trying to bring Humanity together to solve these problems because this is a problem that not you or me can solve no human

can solve these problems we're dealing with right now this is a problem that Humanity has to solve right that our civilization needs to solve and I think our civilization can do this but it won't do it without our help it won't help it won't happen without us working together so if there's one thing I can go go on Twitter or Google or whatever go to control AI and support them listen to what they to say and this is the campaign I'm behind well I support them okay we'll put the link also in the YouTube description

uh if anybody wants to check it out Conor you have a brilliant mind and I'm really grateful that we got to talk thank you very much for joining us on the interview thank you so much take care