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Should we worry about other non-existing technology the same way? We had the nano technology people pushing all sorts of scary stuff a few decades ago and nothi

Should we worry about other non-existing technology the same way? We had the nano technology people pushing all sorts of scary stuff a few decades ago and nothing came of it, for example.

HDThoreaun 4y ago
Maybe. The thing about preparing for unlikely outcomes is that when they don't happen it's easy for detractors to say "see how stupid we were to worry about that" even though everyone agreed that nothing happening was the most likely outcome all along.
- ShredKazoo 4y ago
  Agreed, and the pandemic seems like a good recent example of this.
- RandomLensman 4y ago
  So how worried should we be about the impact of as yet to be invented anti gravity technology, for example? My point is: doomsday scenarios are often used to gain influence/funding/etc., which makes me somewhat skeptical of the motives of people pushing them.
  - ShredKazoo 4y ago
    For this argument to be persuasive, you'd have to argue that doomsaying gains more influence/funding/etc. than mainstream AI development. I'm not sure this is true in general? Like, I believe https://intelligence.org/ https://intelligence.org/ has operated on a comparative shoestring for most of its existence, e.g. no salaries above $100K https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/qqhdj3W3vSfB5E9ss/siai-an-examination https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/qqhdj3W3vSfB5E9ss/siai-an-ex... The default is: running a nonprofit generates less revenue than running a for-profit. I've talked to a lot of the AI "doomsayers" in person and I believe they are sincere in their worries. That's not to say I agree with all their ideas unreservedly -- there is a fair amount of disagreement among the doomsaying crowd. There is an entire spectrum of beliefs about the likelihood of doomsday, and lots of debate, see e.g. https://www.lesswrong.com/s/n945eovrA3oDueqtq https://www.lesswrong.com/s/n945eovrA3oDueqtq However I don't think this is a Machiavellian ploy for influence/funding/etc.
  - pixl97 4y ago
    How many companies are trying to make anti-gravity technology? No serious ones that I know about, we don't even know how that would work. We have 0 examples of anti-gravity. How many companies are working on AI? Well a number of the biggest most well funded companies in the world. And those companies have 8 billion copies of self booting intelligence to learn from. It is incredibly, i mean massively ignorant to say creation of intelligence is impossible when we're doing just that by having sex already. Nature did this by random walk. There was no magic here. No intelligent design. Applied chemistry and randomness created human intelligence. Now humans are taking their massive filtering capabilities of the mind and its reasoning ability it provides and working steadfast on making intelligence happen artificially and your response is about anti-gravity.... Ummm.....
    - RandomLensman 4y ago
      It is also massively arrogant to assume everything we observe in nature we can synthetically create - we might fail on some things. In fact so far, we fail on a lot in many areas. Btw. the fact that companies are wasting money doesn't really mean much.

Should we worry about other non-existing technology the same way? We had the nano technology people pushing all sorts of scary stuff a few decades ago and nothing came of it, for example.

HDThoreaun 4y ago

Maybe. The thing about preparing for unlikely outcomes is that when they don't happen it's easy for detractors to say "see how stupid we were to worry about that" even though everyone agreed that nothing happening was the most likely outcome all along.

ShredKazoo 4y ago
Agreed, and the pandemic seems like a good recent example of this.
RandomLensman 4y ago
So how worried should we be about the impact of as yet to be invented anti gravity technology, for example? My point is: doomsday scenarios are often used to gain influence/funding/etc., which makes me somewhat skeptical of the motives of people pushing them.
- ShredKazoo 4y ago
  For this argument to be persuasive, you'd have to argue that doomsaying gains more influence/funding/etc. than mainstream AI development. I'm not sure this is true in general? Like, I believe https://intelligence.org/ https://intelligence.org/ has operated on a comparative shoestring for most of its existence, e.g. no salaries above $100K https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/qqhdj3W3vSfB5E9ss/siai-an-examination https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/qqhdj3W3vSfB5E9ss/siai-an-ex... The default is: running a nonprofit generates less revenue than running a for-profit. I've talked to a lot of the AI "doomsayers" in person and I believe they are sincere in their worries. That's not to say I agree with all their ideas unreservedly -- there is a fair amount of disagreement among the doomsaying crowd. There is an entire spectrum of beliefs about the likelihood of doomsday, and lots of debate, see e.g. https://www.lesswrong.com/s/n945eovrA3oDueqtq https://www.lesswrong.com/s/n945eovrA3oDueqtq However I don't think this is a Machiavellian ploy for influence/funding/etc.
- pixl97 4y ago
  How many companies are trying to make anti-gravity technology? No serious ones that I know about, we don't even know how that would work. We have 0 examples of anti-gravity. How many companies are working on AI? Well a number of the biggest most well funded companies in the world. And those companies have 8 billion copies of self booting intelligence to learn from. It is incredibly, i mean massively ignorant to say creation of intelligence is impossible when we're doing just that by having sex already. Nature did this by random walk. There was no magic here. No intelligent design. Applied chemistry and randomness created human intelligence. Now humans are taking their massive filtering capabilities of the mind and its reasoning ability it provides and working steadfast on making intelligence happen artificially and your response is about anti-gravity.... Ummm.....
  - RandomLensman 4y ago
    It is also massively arrogant to assume everything we observe in nature we can synthetically create - we might fail on some things. In fact so far, we fail on a lot in many areas. Btw. the fact that companies are wasting money doesn't really mean much.