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I think people that are feeling real anxiety due to AI to the point it is affecting their lives should go seek therapy and not look to alarmist blog posts like

I think people that are feeling real anxiety due to AI to the point it is affecting their lives should go seek therapy and not look to alarmist blog posts like this for advice.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
mcbits 4y ago
PsychGPT listened to my concerns and referred me to DocGPT who prescribed an IV drip of Xanax and Thorazine. Everything is going to be fine. Just fine.
- autoexec 4y ago
  People using PsychGPT when they need real help is somewhat worrying, I mean, Dr. Sbaitso has decades more experience treating patients.
flangola7 4y ago
I am in therapy, she's advised me to treat it not unlike having a terminal illness. Enjoy the days you have, accept that life isn't forever, but still fight for what you can. The only people not feeling anxiety are ignorant at best. Part of "fighting for what you can" means informing others and boosting public awareness of the dangers ahead, and countering dismissive narratives.
- James_Henry 4y ago
  Don't you think it's a little presumptuous to say that those "not feeling anxiety are ignorant at best"? Many people fully understand the ideas behind the Yudkowskian doom scenario and they simply don't agree with this or that foundational assumption.
  - rosywoozlechan 4y ago
    Or we don't want to spend the time we have left feeling anxiety the entire time.
  - flangola7 4y ago
    They clearly don't understand the scenario if they're still not seriously concerned about the danger. There might also be people who "simply don't agree with this or that foundational assumption" that a hungry leopard stalking them is a sign of danger, but that won't stop them from being leopard lunch. It also won't stop the rest of the group from slapping them for being an idiot and seeing them as a liability to the group's overall safety.
- rosywoozlechan 4y ago
  Some people don't feel anxiety even when sitting in a trench under fire from 30mm autocannons with their buddy lying dead next to them. We're not all the same.
lame-robot-hoax 4y ago
For some people, including me, it’s not quite this simple (long comment incoming). The problem is with some things, like OCD, you can constantly seek reassurance over your obsession, as a compulsion. Like, “oh god do I have this disease, let me look up the symptoms over and over to try and convince myself I don’t have it.” Or “I have to knock on wood three times so my family is safe.” My anxiety stems from my OCD, and ever since I first saw Yudkowsky’s podcast saying we were all going to die, I’ve been unable to go even one day without thinking about this. I’ve read a lot about alignment and AGI development (whether alignment is hard or easy, AGI timelines, are we close, etc.) but since I don’t have real knowledge and expertise in this domain, I feel that I need reassurance (typical OCD trait) from someone that does that I’m not going to die soon. With OCD, even logical explanations as to why your obsessions or anxieties are not real or unfounded can’t always get rid of them. I know knocking on wood doesn’t do anything. That doesn’t mean during a flare up it’s not incredibly hard to resist. Or I know logically I don’t have rabies. That doesn’t mean it’s not hard to convince yourself through massive jumps in logic that you do (something hit me at night, I know it was a small bug but your mind convinced yourself it was a bat that bit you). My OCD goes through dormant periods, so I don’t go to therapy or take medication, but that podcast and reading through the list of lethalities and other stuff on LW ramped it up again. And I don’t know enough about AI/ML/DL to discount EY or that viewpoint in general. From what I’ve read online, a lot of people discount EY as not having a technical understanding of ML/DL, and his worries are unfounded and the assumptions he makes are unrealistic. But at the same time, I myself don’t have the expertise to truly determine if they’re right, so the doubt eats me up. The last couple days I’ve found myself blocking AGI Doomers on Twitter, while trying to read Tweets from prominent people (Chollet, Hassabis, Sutskever, Ng, LeCun, etc.) in ML that these doomer takes are unfounded or blown out of proportion. Or going through their likes and seeing if they like any Tweets that are dismissive of doomerism that help me feel like those that actually research this stuff don’t worry about these things. My mental model is that the whole “We hit AGI unknowingly, it somehow self improves exponentially fast until it’s able to figure out a way to kill us all (even if it doesn’t hate us” seems quite improbable, mostly the “the very first AGI or AGI proximate is able to vastly improve itself exponentially” part. But again, idk. So I look to the experts for reassurance. Ultimately, this is probably going to make me delete Twitter. It’s turned into a massive crutch that has probably stolen 15-20 hours from me in the last week or so, and that’s not including all the reading, researching, video watching, etc. all this has caused me to go through. I thought I got over this earlier this week but my incessant browsing and reading on this topic has ramped up again. I feel like the only way I can deal with it is by getting to that point where I feel somewhat dismissive and relieved (oh this person says it’s bullshit and they’re knowledgeable) and then immediately delete Twitter. Like when four days ago Chollet said we aren’t close and doomer takes are primarily just Sci-fi and nothing more. I should’ve deleted it then. But now even rereading that tweet isn’t enough to give me relief. So, yeah, that’s how this can turn into real anxiety that affects someone’s life. Luckily I know I’ll get over this eventually, probably to only have flare ups every now and then (small ones, not like this). I probably sound a little crazy, but I don’t feel like this episode will last long enough for me to go to therapy over, and honestly I just feel like I’m not really the “type” for therapy. It just doesn’t mesh with my mind and how I improve myself. Not that I have anything against therapy and think it’s great for many people, just probably not me.

I think people that are feeling real anxiety due to AI to the point it is affecting their lives should go seek therapy and not look to alarmist blog posts like this for advice.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

mcbits 4y ago

PsychGPT listened to my concerns and referred me to DocGPT who prescribed an IV drip of Xanax and Thorazine. Everything is going to be fine. Just fine.

autoexec 4y ago
People using PsychGPT when they need real help is somewhat worrying, I mean, Dr. Sbaitso has decades more experience treating patients.

flangola7 4y ago

I am in therapy, she's advised me to treat it not unlike having a terminal illness. Enjoy the days you have, accept that life isn't forever, but still fight for what you can. The only people not feeling anxiety are ignorant at best. Part of "fighting for what you can" means informing others and boosting public awareness of the dangers ahead, and countering dismissive narratives.

James_Henry 4y ago
Don't you think it's a little presumptuous to say that those "not feeling anxiety are ignorant at best"? Many people fully understand the ideas behind the Yudkowskian doom scenario and they simply don't agree with this or that foundational assumption.
- rosywoozlechan 4y ago
  Or we don't want to spend the time we have left feeling anxiety the entire time.
- flangola7 4y ago
  They clearly don't understand the scenario if they're still not seriously concerned about the danger. There might also be people who "simply don't agree with this or that foundational assumption" that a hungry leopard stalking them is a sign of danger, but that won't stop them from being leopard lunch. It also won't stop the rest of the group from slapping them for being an idiot and seeing them as a liability to the group's overall safety.
rosywoozlechan 4y ago
Some people don't feel anxiety even when sitting in a trench under fire from 30mm autocannons with their buddy lying dead next to them. We're not all the same.

lame-robot-hoax 4y ago

For some people, including me, it’s not quite this simple (long comment incoming). The problem is with some things, like OCD, you can constantly seek reassurance over your obsession, as a compulsion. Like, “oh god do I have this disease, let me look up the symptoms over and over to try and convince myself I don’t have it.” Or “I have to knock on wood three times so my family is safe.” My anxiety stems from my OCD, and ever since I first saw Yudkowsky’s podcast saying we were all going to die, I’ve been unable to go even one day without thinking about this. I’ve read a lot about alignment and AGI development (whether alignment is hard or easy, AGI timelines, are we close, etc.) but since I don’t have real knowledge and expertise in this domain, I feel that I need reassurance (typical OCD trait) from someone that does that I’m not going to die soon. With OCD, even logical explanations as to why your obsessions or anxieties are not real or unfounded can’t always get rid of them. I know knocking on wood doesn’t do anything. That doesn’t mean during a flare up it’s not incredibly hard to resist. Or I know logically I don’t have rabies. That doesn’t mean it’s not hard to convince yourself through massive jumps in logic that you do (something hit me at night, I know it was a small bug but your mind convinced yourself it was a bat that bit you). My OCD goes through dormant periods, so I don’t go to therapy or take medication, but that podcast and reading through the list of lethalities and other stuff on LW ramped it up again. And I don’t know enough about AI/ML/DL to discount EY or that viewpoint in general. From what I’ve read online, a lot of people discount EY as not having a technical understanding of ML/DL, and his worries are unfounded and the assumptions he makes are unrealistic. But at the same time, I myself don’t have the expertise to truly determine if they’re right, so the doubt eats me up. The last couple days I’ve found myself blocking AGI Doomers on Twitter, while trying to read Tweets from prominent people (Chollet, Hassabis, Sutskever, Ng, LeCun, etc.) in ML that these doomer takes are unfounded or blown out of proportion. Or going through their likes and seeing if they like any Tweets that are dismissive of doomerism that help me feel like those that actually research this stuff don’t worry about these things. My mental model is that the whole “We hit AGI unknowingly, it somehow self improves exponentially fast until it’s able to figure out a way to kill us all (even if it doesn’t hate us” seems quite improbable, mostly the “the very first AGI or AGI proximate is able to vastly improve itself exponentially” part. But again, idk. So I look to the experts for reassurance. Ultimately, this is probably going to make me delete Twitter. It’s turned into a massive crutch that has probably stolen 15-20 hours from me in the last week or so, and that’s not including all the reading, researching, video watching, etc. all this has caused me to go through. I thought I got over this earlier this week but my incessant browsing and reading on this topic has ramped up again. I feel like the only way I can deal with it is by getting to that point where I feel somewhat dismissive and relieved (oh this person says it’s bullshit and they’re knowledgeable) and then immediately delete Twitter. Like when four days ago Chollet said we aren’t close and doomer takes are primarily just Sci-fi and nothing more. I should’ve deleted it then. But now even rereading that tweet isn’t enough to give me relief. So, yeah, that’s how this can turn into real anxiety that affects someone’s life. Luckily I know I’ll get over this eventually, probably to only have flare ups every now and then (small ones, not like this). I probably sound a little crazy, but I don’t feel like this episode will last long enough for me to go to therapy over, and honestly I just feel like I’m not really the “type” for therapy. It just doesn’t mesh with my mind and how I improve myself. Not that I have anything against therapy and think it’s great for many people, just probably not me.