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To quote Bret Victor (from memory): worrying about general AI when climate change is happening is like standing on the train tracks in the station when the trai

To quote Bret Victor (from memory): worrying about general AI when climate change is happening is like standing on the train tracks in the station when the train is rushing in, worrying about being hit by lightning. Work is being done on climate change, but at the current rate, we're way off preventing catastrophic effects. I'd say that our current level of effective effort basically amounts to ignoring the problem.

nopinsight 9y ago
Au contraire, climate change will not pose an existential risk within the next 30 years. The chance of that happening is pretty much nil and no one serious argues otherwise. Even in 100 years, there could be much suffering and dislocations, but it still most likely won't be an existential risk to all of humanity. There is a non-negligible possibility that AGI will be invented in 30 years. Many AI experts agree on that. A number of experts also believe that its invention could be highly beneficial or catastrophic, depending on its form and our preparation. With cost-benefit analysis based on the best knowledge we have weighed by probabilities, it is clear that AGI risks are more substantial and worth at least as much investment as climate change. The current funding for AI Safety Research is not even 1/10th, perhaps less than 1/100th, of climate change funding. Inaction is also an action. If you do not trust intelligent domain experts, and also intelligent non-experts with almost no conflict of interests like Bill Gates and Stephen Hawking, then please let us know which source(s) of knowledge we should rely on instead. Note: I believe we should fund both. A certain but slow train wreck and an uncertain but even more catastrophic and possibly speedier train wreck are both worth preventing.
- lemming 9y ago
  Au contraire, climate change will not pose an existential risk within the next 30 years. The chance of that happening is pretty much nil and no one serious argues otherwise. That's not true. Arctic methane release has the potential to become devastating within a small number of decades. From [1]: Shakhova et al. ... conclude that "release of up to 50 Gt of predicted amount of hydrate storage [is] highly possible for abrupt release at any time". That would increase the methane content of the planet's atmosphere by a factor of twelve. That would be catastrophic by anyone's measure. Also: In 2008 the United States Department of Energy National Laboratory system identified potential clathrate destabilization in the Arctic as one of the most serious scenarios for abrupt climate change. [2] is a video from the Lima UN Climate Change Conference discussing this. The people talking about this are certainly not "no-one serious". See 34:23 for Ira Leifer, an Atmospheric Scientist at the University of California, saying that 4 degrees of warming means the Earth can probably sustain "a few thousand people, clustered at the poles". I see 4 degrees of warming being bandied about a lot these days, but very little discussion of how catastrophic that would be. It also seems a lot more likely than AGI becoming a problem, to me at least. Sure, we should fund research into both but only one of them has me worried about the world my daughter will inherit - one is basically purely hypothetical right now. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_methane_emissions [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPdc75epOEw
21 9y ago
Climate change is not adversarial, the weather will not try to disrupt and avoid you fixing it. Fighting a passive adversary is a much easier thing than fighting an active one (especially one smarter than you).
- lemming 9y ago
  Actually, when it comes to climate change, humans are doing a pretty good job at being adversarial to our own best interest already. We don't need anything much more intelligent than us to avoid fixing the problem.

nopinsight 9y ago

Au contraire, climate change will not pose an existential risk within the next 30 years. The chance of that happening is pretty much nil and no one serious argues otherwise. Even in 100 years, there could be much suffering and dislocations, but it still most likely won't be an existential risk to all of humanity. There is a non-negligible possibility that AGI will be invented in 30 years. Many AI experts agree on that. A number of experts also believe that its invention could be highly beneficial or catastrophic, depending on its form and our preparation. With cost-benefit analysis based on the best knowledge we have weighed by probabilities, it is clear that AGI risks are more substantial and worth at least as much investment as climate change. The current funding for AI Safety Research is not even 1/10th, perhaps less than 1/100th, of climate change funding. Inaction is also an action. If you do not trust intelligent domain experts, and also intelligent non-experts with almost no conflict of interests like Bill Gates and Stephen Hawking, then please let us know which source(s) of knowledge we should rely on instead. Note: I believe we should fund both. A certain but slow train wreck and an uncertain but even more catastrophic and possibly speedier train wreck are both worth preventing.

lemming 9y ago
Au contraire, climate change will not pose an existential risk within the next 30 years. The chance of that happening is pretty much nil and no one serious argues otherwise. That's not true. Arctic methane release has the potential to become devastating within a small number of decades. From [1]: Shakhova et al. ... conclude that "release of up to 50 Gt of predicted amount of hydrate storage [is] highly possible for abrupt release at any time". That would increase the methane content of the planet's atmosphere by a factor of twelve. That would be catastrophic by anyone's measure. Also: In 2008 the United States Department of Energy National Laboratory system identified potential clathrate destabilization in the Arctic as one of the most serious scenarios for abrupt climate change. [2] is a video from the Lima UN Climate Change Conference discussing this. The people talking about this are certainly not "no-one serious". See 34:23 for Ira Leifer, an Atmospheric Scientist at the University of California, saying that 4 degrees of warming means the Earth can probably sustain "a few thousand people, clustered at the poles". I see 4 degrees of warming being bandied about a lot these days, but very little discussion of how catastrophic that would be. It also seems a lot more likely than AGI becoming a problem, to me at least. Sure, we should fund research into both but only one of them has me worried about the world my daughter will inherit - one is basically purely hypothetical right now. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_methane_emissions [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPdc75epOEw

21 9y ago

Climate change is not adversarial, the weather will not try to disrupt and avoid you fixing it. Fighting a passive adversary is a much easier thing than fighting an active one (especially one smarter than you).

lemming 9y ago
Actually, when it comes to climate change, humans are doing a pretty good job at being adversarial to our own best interest already. We don't need anything much more intelligent than us to avoid fixing the problem.