💡 Musings of The Angry Optimist: Bombing AI labs and crashing the Universe

🖥️ The AI alarmists are in full swing

There is AI panic right now. Alarmists stumble over each other to make sure their doomsday scenario is heard. Quite a few claim that AI could "crash the universe." I'm not kidding.

My "favorite" is Eliezer Yudkowsky, who in Time Magazine, writes that a mere six-month pause is not enough. No, "we need to shut it all down."

And if an AI lab keeps the lights on, they should be bombed. We must "be willing to destroy a rogue datacenter by airstrike."

It is both a bit scary, and funny at the same time. But it is important that we fight back. Not with airstrikes, but with arguments. Soon we are going to publish our own, optimistic version, of the open letter that proposed an AI pause.

By the way, that letter contains some far-reaching alarmism.

This is what they write: "Should we automate away all the jobs, including the fulfilling ones? Should we risk loss of control of our civilization?"

There are no facts to support these claims. It is pure speculation inspired by science fiction.

Theorizing about dangers and problems, and how to avoid them, is not wrong. The mistake is to make it sound as if this is a fact, something that will happen.

And if you really believe that this is what will happen, then you have to agree with Eliezer Yudkowsky, that a six-month pause is insignificant.

Waldemar Ingdahl is spot on in his piece on tech panics.

"In a technology panic, the technology is often described in an imagined future, completed form, and not in the initial versions available to the inventor, technicians, and early adopters."

❗ Challenge

Watch this clip without getting misty eyed.

💡 Tips

Reason is Fun -1
New podcast, Reason is Fun. The first guest is David Deutsch, on why the kind of AI we see now is nowhere near being super-intelligent AGI.

The Michael Shermer Show
Podcast with science fiction author David Brin about AI.

❗ Other stuff

Mathias Sundin
The Angry Optimist