Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm convinced religious beliefs/feelings are an unavoidable emergent property of human minds.
And soon, AI minds.
So it’s going to be as disappointing as Battlestar Galactica :/
AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion
21–30 of 244 posts
Re: AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion
#22There is "A.I. doomism" in general and there is also a specific cult-like group at the lesswrong website that really is an apocalyptic religion. It is astonishing how anything that deviates from its dogma in any way has to have "trigger warnings" and the senseless comments that users write on anything that suggests there could be intrinsic limits on intelligence. There ideology is such that a higher intelligence is g…
The US initiative to block chips and chip fab tech from getting to China cites preventing China from getting their hands on advanced AI as the main reason.
This report from CSIS (good read) is titled "Choking off China's Access to the future of AI"
https://www.csis.org/analysis/choking-chinas-access-future-a...
Re: AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion
#23[deleted]
Re: AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion
#24I mean, Yann is paid by Meta to propagate an "only positive vibes" stance. "AI doomism" itself is a ridiculous phrase meant to demonize anyone with legit concerns, of which there are many. I say this as someone who is very excited about recent developments and sees the potential upside as well as anyone, I think.
Yann is also known for constantly denigrating the abilities of LLMs and being comically wrong all the time, saying they can't do X only to be proven wrong immediately after. He's pretty much a meme at this point.
He spent all his years at FB building ivory towers of mathematics attempting the analytical route for building AI systems only to be out done by the bitter lesson.
He's perpetually salty about the current state of LLMs, you can sense it from all the negative commentary on the matter if you look at his Twitter feed lol. For shame.
Re: AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion
#25The thing that makes the singularity so difficult (edit: to rein or reason about), compared with say development of the nuclear weapons, is that we know it will be a positive feedback system.
So at some point, the point of no return will be passed, and we will have no idea that we passed it.
Re: AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion
#26I'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…
[deleted]
Re: AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion
#27A religion is arguably when you refuse to engage with other people's arguments Lecun has refused to engage with anyone's arguments, so why are the people worried about AI ex-risk the religion?
> A religion is arguably when you refuse to engage with other people's arguments I've never heard of that definition.
Me neither, but I like it. When you refuse to engage with other people's arguments due to strongly held beliefs you are engaging in a religious activity. Those strongly held beliefs are your religion.
Re: AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion
#28There 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
Perhaps organized religion was a Chesterton’s Fence that we removed at our own peril.
Re: AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion
#29I'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…
AI can also completely liberate all of us. This fear mongering is irrational. We already live in an extremely advanced reality, with organic life having organic nanomachines performing incredibly complex operations in a universe, in realtime, performing impossibly complex calculations. Even to simulate a square meter of our universe in realtime is outlandishly beyond our compute access. Perhaps AI unleashes the creation of the sort of reality we exist in.
Just because someone has the background and knowledge to build something, does not mean they have the philosophical chops nor the aptitude to understand it, or understand how to properly use it. We should take these doomsday scenarios with a grain of salt. If it happens, there is no stopping it anyway. It is better to try and create the most benevolent AI possible, that is an ally to humanity and invested in our success, than to dwell on our destruction.
Re: AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion
#30There is "A.I. doomism" in general and there is also a specific cult-like group at the lesswrong website that really is an apocalyptic religion. It is astonishing how anything that deviates from its dogma in any way has to have "trigger warnings" and the senseless comments that users write on anything that suggests there could be intrinsic limits on intelligence. There ideology is such that a higher intelligence is g…
Paul, can you point at anything at all other than your general vibes that would indicate that anyone from LessWrong intends to literally participate in mass suicide, as your link implies? Did I miss the big group buy of phenobarbital?
I’m not Paul, but this here has some serious Jonestown overtones: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/j9Q8bRmwCgXRYAgcJ/miri-annou.... It makes Yudkowski seem (to me) like the leader of a suicide cult more than anything else.
The argument “yeah but what if he’s right?” is pretty much Pascal’s Wager by now, given how way out there the AI Doomers have gotten. I choose not to worry about the God from the Bible (ie I don’t make make Pascal’s Wager) so why should I worry about this new Evil Nerd-God Apocalypse?
Don’t drink the Kool-Aid, kids!