> We are in the process of birthing, bootstrapping, giving autonomy to beings who are relative to us in power as we are to insects. We can barely even form a co

> We are in the process of birthing, bootstrapping, giving autonomy to beings who are relative to us in power as we are to insects. We can barely even form a concept of just how much of us they can see, and to what extent they know our thoughts and actions. We are nowhere near that. Just getting AI to perform at the level of an actual insect would be a huge achievement (but then, how would we know we're there?), scaling from that will require a whole bunch of big breakthroughs in a whole bunch of fields. But I don't think we'll have to worry at all about a hypothetical AI singularity if we don't get a much better handle on our impact on the world we are a part of, and quick. Because we're in the midst of a mass extinction of geological dimensions, and if our limited understanding of past extinction events is any guide, this will get ugly way beyond any scenario I've seen discussed in the mainstream, and possibly quite abruptly. We're not prepared, and we're hugely vulnerable. Yet we, as a collective, don't seem to "get" this beyond some very abstract recognition that most people brush aside as alarmism or "can't do anything about it anyway". I've talked to a whole bunch of people who, in essence, are kinda happy with all this; mostly warmer weather, less nasty insects, what's not to like? To me, that's wayyy scary.