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I admit, I don't understand people who think that 'Global Warming will eventually end the world'. I'm not denying it exists, nor that it can be devastating but

by Tenoke 8y ago

I admit, I don't understand people who think that 'Global Warming will eventually end the world'. I'm not denying it exists, nor that it can be devastating but end the world? No credible projections I've seen suggest that it will end up killing every human or blow up the planet or whatever you mean by that. Is it a case that 'the enemy' is saying Global Warming isn't real, so there is a push to reply that not only is it real, but even worse than we expect? A concious hyperbole so people will pay more attention to a real problem you perceive as neglected? An actual belief that it will genuinely end the world because you've heard it will be very bad so you conflate it with being the worst thing possible?

feanaro 8y ago
You're reading too much into what I said. I didn't mean to imply that global warming will end the world with certainty and definitely not that the planet will blow up. I simply meant that the probability of the world (in the sense of the human civilization in its current form; definitely not the planet itself) ending from global warming is greater than it ending from god-like AGI. I don't consider this a controversial statement. From my own reading of the relevant studies, I think there is definitely a non-negligible probability that runaway effects may make Earth very harsh or even completely unsuitable for human life, eventually. Are you saying the current studies outrule this scenario entirely or with near certainty?
- nuguy 8y ago
  AI is much more severe. Whether just automation or otherwise. We can come back from global warming. We can never come back from AI.
  - feanaro 8y ago
    That depends on a lot of factors which I am unconvinced can be determined beforehand. I agree that the worst-case AGI scenario is worse than the worst-case global warming scenario.
    - nuguy 8y ago
      Nothing is determined beforehand, you use what you know to try and guess what will happen. How can you look at it all, and my comments, and not think that the outcomes I’ve described are a very good guess? It doesn’t have to be definitive. GW is not definitively proven. All you need is to show that there seems to be a chance that something really bad will happen. How have have I not done that? What link in the chain is ambiguous to you?

by Tenoke 8y ago

feanaro 8y ago

You're reading too much into what I said. I didn't mean to imply that global warming will end the world with certainty and definitely not that the planet will blow up. I simply meant that the probability of the world (in the sense of the human civilization in its current form; definitely not the planet itself) ending from global warming is greater than it ending from god-like AGI. I don't consider this a controversial statement. From my own reading of the relevant studies, I think there is definitely a non-negligible probability that runaway effects may make Earth very harsh or even completely unsuitable for human life, eventually. Are you saying the current studies outrule this scenario entirely or with near certainty?

nuguy 8y ago
AI is much more severe. Whether just automation or otherwise. We can come back from global warming. We can never come back from AI.
- feanaro 8y ago
  That depends on a lot of factors which I am unconvinced can be determined beforehand. I agree that the worst-case AGI scenario is worse than the worst-case global warming scenario.
  - nuguy 8y ago
    Nothing is determined beforehand, you use what you know to try and guess what will happen. How can you look at it all, and my comments, and not think that the outcomes I’ve described are a very good guess? It doesn’t have to be definitive. GW is not definitively proven. All you need is to show that there seems to be a chance that something really bad will happen. How have have I not done that? What link in the chain is ambiguous to you?