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AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion

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Re: AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion

#131

Post by lamontcg »

verdverm wrote: post #2

There are a lot of religious like beliefs about things as people have moved away from traditional religions. I wonder if it is in our nature to have something bigger than ourselves to believe in based on faith in the message

I suspect that this is mostly a first-generation atheism problem, and most atheists these days were still raised religiously. They spend a lot of time being religious about other things, or treating atheism religiously and attacking religion with religious levels of fervor.

Re: AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion

#132

Post by FormerBandmate »

oliwarner wrote: post #126

We're already seeing jobs being done by AI. Many creative jobs that would take a team a week to handle are being shopped out to a bot to handle in an hour. VFX are going to get hit particularly hard by this. Everything Everywhere All at Once is a visually stunning film yet had a 6-member team handling graphics post. They were smart, but they also shopped out all the dull rotoscoping work to AI. Look at any Marvel fil…

This has been happening forever. How do you think all those Rust Belt workers who got outsourced to China felt?

Tons of jobs were eliminated by the computer too. It’s just part of life, there’s always more work to be done. We need better ways to help people than the crap way we handled outsourcing job losses in the 90s, however

Re: AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion

#133

Post by anongraddebt »

luckylion wrote: post #33
moonchrome wrote: post #15

I've seen multiple top people in AGI space say that total annihilation threat from AGI exists. I think I've heard Karpathy say something along the lines of worst case scenario of AGI is worse than a nuclear armageddon on Lex Friedman podcast. Honestly the fear of AGI worst-case scenario is worse than any other fear I've experienced. I've accepted the fact that I can die a long time ago, I was afraid but mortality is…

> We've had inquisitions historically, I would very much support a global AI inquisition. You know how inquisition usually goes. "You've been playing starcraft against 'the AI'. What do you have to say in your defense?" Maybe I'm just weird, but "a tech-based superintelligence emerges and decides to destroy humanity because it was in a bad mood" is something I'm totally fine with. Doom-Cults on the other hand I don't…

I think a lot of this stuff is probably just a coin flip, because we just don’t know.

I find it odd, however, when people, who seemingly accept an ASI will be developed, focus the downside risk on extinction of us as a species. Sure, that’s a risk. You know something else an ASI would likely have the ability to do, (or at least, one of its progeny)? Keep you alive and torture you for eons in weird and surreal ways.

Why is the downside always focused on paltry, meaningless things (relatively speaking) like extinction of life on earth?

Re: AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion

#134

Post by FormerBandmate »

blibble wrote: post #101
antonvs wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That seems like an absurd comparison given people like LeCun are actively and intentionally working towards creating this super-human entity. There's a disconnect in that statement. The imagined superintelligence that people like the LessWrong cult speculate and worry about is not the same thing as the AI that LeCun is working towards. The cultists simply speculate, against all evidence, that they somehow could end…

> The cultists simply speculate, against all evidence, that they somehow could end up being the same thing. something as stupid as bitcoin consumed a vast amount of resources while producing nothing useful to humanity, simply because of economic incentives it's not difficult to imagine something slightly smarter than bitcoin

Bitcoin’s negative impact on the world is 1/10th that of freon. AI risk people’s predictions sound like they’re writing bad Terminator fanfiction.

AI has real dangers completely dissimilar from what people describe. It is very good at creating clickbait, misinformation, and persuasive material the unsuspecting might not immediately see. Phenomenal for scammers and propagandists, the same way as the internet

Re: AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion

#135

Post by uxp100 »

cwmoore wrote: post #45
lumenwrites wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an inaccurate and ignorant comment that does not engage with the arguments people on LessWrong are making. If you have something smart to say about why these people are wrong in their beliefs, please do. Name calling a group of people a "cult" or "apocalyptic religion" is not an argument that contributes anything interesting to the conversation. If anyone is actually curious about what these people are saying…

That link is not at all a list of "why AI is extremely dangerous and extremely likely to kill us all". I skimmed it (there's a lot of writing assuming grave danger) but found only the following example of AI lethality, and it appears fantastical: > ...nanomachinery builds diamondoid bacteria, that replicate with solar power and atmospheric CHON, maybe aggregate into some miniature rockets or jets so they can ride the…

It’s interesting how the Eric Drexler influence clearly colors a lot of apocalyptic AI stuff, in fiction, and on Less Wrong.

First because afaik the progress in nanotechnology has not been particularly fast over the past 40 years since his big book came out, and second because it really seems like it is only tangentially related. In a world with highly advanced assembler mnt, seems like the world could end in a way akin to a serious chemical accident accident, few computers involved. But the assumption is AI will certainly create nanotechnology, where humans have so far been unable to? That’s less like AI risk and more like, one smart research lab risk.

Re: AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion

#136

Post by pid-1 »

The_Colonel wrote: post #11

> Complete with prophecies of imminent fire and brimstone caused by an omnipotent entity that doesn't actually exist. That seems like an absurd comparison given people like LeCun are actively and intentionally working towards creating this super-human entity. (Some) scientists were rightfully worried when creating a nuclear bomb as well. The fact that we managed to survive 70 years with its existence does not automat…

The irony in this statement is that LeCun is a huge LLM sceptic.

Re: AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion

#137

Post by alphanullmeric »

oliwarner wrote: post #126

We're already seeing jobs being done by AI. Many creative jobs that would take a team a week to handle are being shopped out to a bot to handle in an hour. VFX are going to get hit particularly hard by this. Everything Everywhere All at Once is a visually stunning film yet had a 6-member team handling graphics post. They were smart, but they also shopped out all the dull rotoscoping work to AI. Look at any Marvel fil…

It’s so wonderful to see all the artsy people get automated out of existence after claiming that software engineers contribute nothing to society. The only downside is that even more of them will now be living off of taxpayer money than before.

Re: AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion

#138

Post by cubefox »

skrebbel wrote: post #68
charcoalhobo wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI this article was published on April 1 and is labelled as "April Fool's".

hhhahaahha woa I missed that completely I'm pretty sure i'm not the only one who took it seriously. Thanks! I wonder if mr LeCun made the same mistake, it's just... almost believable! Good April fools joke I gotta admit. EDIT: it's now 5 minutes later and I'm still laughing. I believed for months that Yudkowski had started a death cult.

It wasn't entirely in jest. See this article, published a short while later: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/uMQ3cqWDPHhjtiesc/agi-ruin-a...

And more recently: https://time.com/6266923/ai-eliezer-yudkowsky-open-letter-no...

Re: AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion

#139

Post by low_tech_love »

Like all cults, they will take the sentence ”you’re being a bit extreme” and respond with ”oh so you think there’s no danger at all?” I love the fact that the top response is by that Yudkowski guy ”oh so you think it’s not the end of the world? Then prove it!”

It’s just a bunch of people trying to feel and look better by attaching themselves to something and then trying to convince others that they are that something. Yes, there are dangers; no, LessWrong is not the right place to discuss them.

Re: AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion

#140

Post by blibble »

FormerBandmate wrote: post #134
blibble wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The cultists simply speculate, against all evidence, that they somehow could end up being the same thing. something as stupid as bitcoin consumed a vast amount of resources while producing nothing useful to humanity, simply because of economic incentives it's not difficult to imagine something slightly smarter than bitcoin

Bitcoin’s negative impact on the world is 1/10th that of freon. AI risk people’s predictions sound like they’re writing bad Terminator fanfiction. AI has real dangers completely dissimilar from what people describe. It is very good at creating clickbait, misinformation, and persuasive material the unsuspecting might not immediately see. Phenomenal for scammers and propagandists, the same way as the internet

> Bitcoin’s negative impact on the world is 1/10th that of freon.

the difference is freon did something useful

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