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People who are concerned about global warming or nuclear weapons are also in cults?
by theragra 3y ago
People who are concerned about global warming or nuclear weapons are also in cults?
- RandomLensman 3y agoAre nuclear weapons and their effects only hypothesized to exist? You could still create cults around them, for example, by claiming nuclear war is imminent or needed or some other end-of-times view.
- ethanbond 3y agoThere were people who were concerned about global annihilation from pretty much the moment the atom was first split. Those people were correct in their concerns and they were correct to act on those concerns.
- RandomLensman 3y agoIn a way, they were not correct so far (in part also because of their actions, but not only due to their actions).
- ethanbond 3y agoPretty much exclusively due to their actions and some particularities of the specific technology which don’t seem to apply to AI.
- RandomLensman 3y agoIf you put, for example, US presidents in the concerned group, i.e., actual decision makers then fair enough. But it wasn't just concerned scientists and the public.
- ethanbond 3y agoUhh correct. Unsurprisingly though, many of the people with the deepest insight and farthest foresight were the people closest to the science. Many more were philosophers and political theorists, or “ivory tower know-nothings.”
- RandomLensman 3y agoMaybe. There were also those scientists working actively on various issues of deterrence, including on how to prevail and fight if things were to happen - and there were quite a few different schools of thought during the cold war (the political science of deterrence was quite different from physical science of weapons, too). But the difference to AI is that nuclear weapons were then shown to exist. If the lowest critical mass had turned out to be a trillion tons, the initial worries would have been unfounded.
- ethanbond 3y agoNone of whom were people saying "there's no risk here just upside baby!"
- RandomLensman 3y agoPeople were on totally opposing sides on how to deal with the risk, not dissimilar to now (with difference that the existential risk was/is actual, not hypothetical).
- ethanbond 3y agoSure, there are also some (allegedly credible) people opening their AI-optimist diatribes with statements of positive confidence like: “Fortunately, I am here to bring the good news: AI will not destroy the world” My issue is not with people who say “yes this is a serious question and we should navigate it thoughtfully.” My issue is with people who simply assert that we will get to a good outcome as an article of faith.
- thefaux 3y agoThe problem is we have stigmatized the concept of cults into more or less any belief system we disagree with. Everyone has a belief system and in my mind is a part of a kind of cult. The more anyone denies this about themself, the more cultlike (in the pejorative sense) their behavior tends to be.
- __loam 3y agoThe tech cults of the bay area are at least amongst the most obnoxious.
- ummonk 3y agoThey’re nowhere near as obnoxious as evangelicals in small towns in the Bible Belt.
- __loam 3y agoSure but I don't have to live in the Bible belt.
- goatlover 3y agoWhat sort of influence do evangelicals in small towns wield compared to tech giants?
- kridsdale3 3y agoWell a woman was forced to go to the state Supreme Court this week to get a routine medical procedure, and thanks to evangelicals was denied.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- makeitdouble 3y agoBeing concerned and making it part of your identify are two very different things. For the latter, yes it's basically a religion.
- madrox 3y agoI don't think we're dealing with "concerned" citizens in this thread, but with people who presuppose the end result with religious certainty. It's ok to be concerned about the direction AI will take society, but trying to project any change (including global warming or nuclear weapons) too far into the future will put you at extremes. We've seen this over and over throughout history. So far, we're still here. That isn't because we weren't concerned, but because we dealt with the problems in front of us a day at a time.
- ethanbond 3y agoThe people who, from Trinity (or before), were worried about global annihilation and scrambled to build systems to prevent it were correct. The people saying “it’s just another weapon” were incorrect.
- __loam 3y agoIt's kind of infuriating to see people put global thermonuclear conflict or a sudden change in atmospheric conditions (something that has cause 4 of the 5 biggest mass extinctions in the entire history of the planet) on the same pedestal as a really computationally intense text generator.
- ethanbond 3y agoIt’s kind of infuriating to see people put trench warfare or mustard gas on the same pedestal as a tiny reaction that couldn’t even light a lightbulb. There are different sets of concerns for the current crop of “really computationally intense text generators” and the overall trajectory of AI and the field’s governance track record.
- sensanaty 3y agoMy worries about AI are more about the societal impact it will have. Yes it's a fancy sentence generator, the problem is that you already have greedy bastards talking about replacing millions of people with that fancy sentence generator. I truly think it's going to lead to a massive shift in economic equality, and not in favor of the masses but instead in favor of the psychopathic C-suite like Altman and his ilk.
- wishfish 3y agoNot at all. But I think one's feelings on global warming & nukes can be influenced by previous exposure to eschatology. I was raised in American evangelicalism which puts a heavy emphasis on the end of the world stuff. I left the church behind long ago. But the heavy diet of Revelations, etc. has left me with a nihilism I can't shake. That whatever humanity does is doomed to fail. Of course, that isn't necessarily true. I know there's always a chance we somehow muddle through. Even a chance that we one day fix things. But, emotionally, I can't shake that feeling of inevitable apocalypse. Weirdly enough, I feel completely neutral on AI. No doomerism on that subject. Maybe that comes from being old enough to not worry how it's going to shake out.
- staunton 3y agoIt's obvious to me that humans will eventually go extinct. So what? That doesn't mean we should stop caring about humanity. People know they themselves are going to die and that doesn't stop them from caring about things or make them call themselves nihilists...
- wishfish 3y agoAll I was doing in my comment was describing how an overdose of eschatology as a child can warp how one views the future. I never said I didn't care.