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To continue contributing to climate change takes very little: you need some guy willing to spin a stick for long enough to start a fire, or to feed and protect
by 4bpp 3y ago
To continue contributing to climate change takes very little: you need some guy willing to spin a stick for long enough to start a fire, or to feed and protect a flock of cows. To continue contributing to AI, you need to maintain a global multi-billion supply chain with cutting edge technology that might have a four-digit bus factor.
The mechanisms that advance climate change are also grandfathered in to the point that we are struggling to conceive of a society that does not use them, which makes "stop doing all of that" a hard sell. On the other hand, every society at least has cultural memory of living without several necessary ingredients of AI.
- ImPostingOnHN 3y agoto continue contributing to the harm caused by AI only requires that 1 person use an existing model running off their laptop to foment real-world violence or spread disinformation en masse on social media, or use it on a cheap swarm of weaponized/suicide drones, for a few examples
- 4bpp 3y agoThere's a qualitative barrier there. The AI risk people in the know are afraid of is not a flood of AI-generated articles, but something that probably can't be achieved yet with current levels of AI (and more slop generated from current-day AI won't hasten the advent of). On the other hand, modern-day greenhouse gases are exactly the greenhouse gases that climate activists are afraid of in the limit.
- ImPostingOnHN 3y agoThe AI risks people in the know are afraid of, are indeed what I listed: pretty much any person, anywhere, using an existing model running off their laptop to foment real-world violence or spread disinformation en masse on social media, or use it on a cheap swarm of weaponized/suicide drones, for a few examples That's what we're already seeing today, so we know the risk is there and has a probability of 100%. The "skynet" AI risk is far more fringe and farfetched. So, like you said about climate change, the harm can come from 1 person. In the case of climate change, though, the risks people in the know are afraid of, aren't "some guy willing to spin a stick for long enough to start a fire, or to feed and protect a flock of cows"
- mayd 3y agothe collective noun for cows is herd - not flock. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animal_names https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animal_names>