Exactly. Even in the short term, there are some very worrying behaviours in AI systems which have real consequences. For instance: * Some researchers recently

Exactly. Even in the short term, there are some very worrying behaviours in AI systems which have real consequences. For instance: * Some researchers recently built an AI system to generate low-toxicity molecules as candidates for medicines. They realised if they changed their system to maximise toxicity, it designed thousands of toxic molecule candidates including the VX nerve agent (https://www.nature.com/articles/s42256-022-00465-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/s42256-022-00465-9) * When GitHub released their Copilot AI code completion tool, it could autocomplete things like `API_KEY: ` * AI models used for decision-making in hospitals and courts frequently exhibit extreme racial prejudice (eg https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03228-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03228-6) * and many many, other examples There's a real sense of utopianism and not much consideration of misuse even on a very short timescale. Even if you don't think AI will become an existential risk in the future, there are enough problems caused by misuse of current systems that it warrants attention. All of the money I've seen flowing in the AI safety EA space has been put to extremely good use - $30k to a YouTuber making videos on AI safety who introduced me to the field and is my go-to for explaining topics like alignment (what you want vs what you say you want), grants to extremely productive AI safety researchers, grants to fund educational bootcamps and scholarships, etc. (Disclaimer: I'm an EA aligned person myself so I'm fairly biased!)