>The two world wars and surrounding economic upheaval arguably came close to that in many ways. "We somehow managed to survive previous technological advances" is hardly a convincing argument that we need not worry about the implications of a new technology.
I don't disagree with your rebuttal, but if the idea that "we survived so we don't have to worry" is invalid, than the idea "if we don't do something we don't survive" is equally invalid. I don't pretend to have the answer either way.
> The implication doesn't follow. You haven't explained how you would differentiate a system that had plenty of safety margin left from one that was on the brink of collapse. Without that distinction the statement is no more than hand waving.
My point is to those experiencing the revolution in real-time they had no ability to estimate the impact or understand there were any margins, and we very well may be in that position too.
> You certainly seem to be taking a stance of "nothing to see here, this is business as usual, these recent developments pose no cause for concern".
Respectfully, I am absolutely not taking any such position. I don't appreciate the straw man, and won't bother to address it.
> It's difficult for you to see how computers being able to speak natural language on par with an undergrad is more transformative than long distance communication? You can't be serious. Prior to this you could only converse with another human.
The first principles are the same: they're all "radical" technologies which were as of a decade or two prior, utterly unfathomable. I could generalize your last statement to "Prior to you could only ."
My point is making value judgements about which is _more_ impactful is difficult to see from the ground floor. It's too early to tell; At the time it's occurring, each innovation may as well have been magic, and magic is impossible to understand, and scary.
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We've entirely diverged from the original issue I was trying to make, which was that people have actively put themselves in bubbles that confirm their own bias since the dawn of time. I'm not looking to change your mind on AI, so I can call this exchange complete from my end. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.