By definition, apocalyptic predictions will always be wrong, until they are right exactly once.
Also know as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey_illusion
To date, all apocalyptic predictions about nuclear war and nuclear winter have all been wrong too.
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/2193933.The_Real_Worl...
If any past apocalyptic prediction had been true, you would not have been around to write this sentence and we would not have been around to read it. It’s not a very convincing argument when we cannot in principle observe the counterfactual.
It is not like history was composed of happiness and roses only. Some of the really really bad stuff happened within last 100 years and a lot of that bad stuff was enabled and made possible by technology.
Like it's fine to say this but the worst exterminations of human beings weren't enabled by anything much kre sophisticated then the pointy stick, or at most, the railroad.
While history doesn't show us apocalypses from new technology, it does show us cases of increased human suffering.
Nice straw man...
> There is no evidence that this will happen.
No, non at all... Presumably if there was a risk we'd be seeing the majority of researchers at AI labs having a p(doom) somewhere within the range of 10-90%. We be seeing AI swarms showing misaligned behaviours already and trying to hack out of their sandboxes. We'd see AIs that are able to demonstrate capabilities in fields like Maths and Computer Science that exceed most experts.
Are we seeing this?
Ah crap, wait... I guess there is some evidence when I think about it. And I suppose even if there is just a low percentage that we literally all die we should probably be taking that prety seriously and not just leaving our fate in the hands of a handful of US billionaires?
Actually, fuck it, I agree with OP. If people can ignore the consensus on climate change because it suites them, might as well ignore the consensus expert opinion on AI x-risk too. Yeah, there's no evidence. Yudkowsky needs stop yapping and let the billionaires get on with building ASI.
In general, the way things work in the USA is that megacorporations write the regulatory frameworks for their own industries. These regulations are typically burdensome enough to be shouldered by the megacorporations while crushing the smaller players in the given market(s). The AI companies are now advocating for this very arrangement. They will likely get they want, and with that they will gain legal shielding for bad behavior just like Dupont, Monsanto, and so many others.
Is this supposed to make me trust their opinions on tech regulation?
Therefore, anything that gets in the way of profits will not be shipped.
People working on alignment focus on "big picture" like existential threats meanwhile building the technology today, not tomorrow or in a near future, is already using a massive amount of resources (GPUs, RAM, themselves consuming a lot of energy, establishing data centers in water poor areas, using gas turbine to temporary power them) and horrendous work condition (for supervising learning, curating datasets, etc) while being an actual excuse for job destruction (regardless for how AI itself does the job) so that in fine kids cheat on their homework while imagining their have no job prospect.
So... who gives a shit really?
watwut•49m ago
Like, no. The worst custodian is someone like Thiel or Musk or Altman.
> In foreign countries, particularly the United Kingdom and Europe, where national governments have fewer constitutional guardrails on their power
Somehow their democracies hold longer and better then American one. For example, you don't get murders that get defended by top ranks, at least yet. They are also less likely to start random wars - that is structural it is not like those countries dont have government players who would like them too.
BariumBlue•18m ago
> They are also less likely to start random wars EU lack of aggression, to defend themselves physically, economically, or otherwise, has been criticized constantly - slow and late to react to the Russian invasion, slow and late to react to new technologies like AI, electric cars.
Thy're not immune to deadlock either - sometimes going months or even a year or two to form a valid governing coalition.
The grass definitely looks greener though, especially if you've been in one pasture a long time.
BirAdam•7m ago
It is questionable whether any democracy truly exists at this point as I've seen no nation where the will of the people is typically manifested in the actions of the state.
watwut•5m ago
It is the one the most at risk of ending right now.
> Thy're not immune to deadlock either - sometimes going months or even a year or two to form a valid governing coalition.
It is unrelated claim, but they do have better solution for that particular problem. The governmental shutdown seem to be about the most easy to abuse way to do it.
I think they do have large problems too. And they may fall too, AfD won local elections after all. It is dubious whether Orban run Hungary was really democracy and electoral system was not reformed yet. But in this very moment, the one crumbling and dismantling itself the fastest is not UK nor in Europe.
graemep•4m ago
Depends how you define it and what you count.
Do you take the union of the English and Scottish parliaments as breaking continuity or not? What do you define as democracy? If some of the population (women, slaves, etc.) are excluded from the electorate is it a true democracy?