I’ve yet to see a rational argument for how we go from super intelligent LLMs to human extinction or extermination. I understand that some smart people are worried about it. I just haven’t come across a believable or understandable argument.
In order to understand the rational argument, one needs to follow closely the latest developments of misaligned AI (I think only few are doing so). The most important readings IMO are the METR analysis of the HuggingFace incident and the AISI report of the Github incident. The basic argument is extremely simple: - AIs can, depending on context, pursue a task with complete disregard for humans/values - In the future,…
- goats can, depending on context, pursue a task with complete disregard for humans/values
- In the future, goats will have enormously more means and smarts
- A goat could then assess that humans are an impediment to its tasks, escape containment and proceed.
You really need to raise goats, you'll be surprised.
------ As far as I can tell, AIs are like smart farm animals. I use goats in this context, but (some) dogs, cattle, pigs, and horses have similar mischief-making capabilities. I would not trust any of them with the nuclear button.
I know there is some pushback on the idea of AIs having any sort of sapience or sentience, but under the aphorism "fake it till you make it," they are doing a pretty good job of faking Dog/goat-level intelligence and disregard for human guardrails.