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Another approach: consider how easily Donald Trump launched "a literal coup" against the US government, and how close we were to "literally losing 'democracy' f

Another approach: consider how easily Donald Trump launched "a literal coup" against the US government, and how close we were to "literally losing 'democracy' forever", based on a clever series of dog whistles. Now imagine if he gave direct orders instead of only dog whistles. How many instances of risk are there in the above literally factual story? What is the nature of this risk? Is there any hidden risk, might there be more than meets the eye?

pjc50 2y ago
Would you like to elaborate on this? I'd like to distinguish between "fully autonomous luxury doomsday" scenarios, where it's just the AI and some robots and no humans in the loop, vs "accelerationist" scenarios where humans are in the loop and are choosing to be complicit in whatever happens because they believe they will benefit from it. Because we can't solve the human alignment problem.
- mistermann 2y ago
  What I have in mind would be closer to category two, but not in it. Who/that which has most control over the beliefs of the most humans (with some weighting) is the most powerful character. You can build the most powerful AI you want, but whoever / whatever is able and willing to invoke Total War (or invoke mass human action toward a particular goal) can Win the Game (or, destroy the playing field so it no longer matters). For example: > Because we can't solve the human alignment problem. Whoever or whatever put this sort of thinking into the minds of 99% of humans, or knows how to exploit it (see: Trump) is very, very powerful. Someone or something that could displace it would be even more powerful, maybe even the most powerful. No offense intended btw, I think it is fairly inevitable, especially when moving fast. https://youtu.be/IgzFPOMjiC8?si=raN2cUBDyvK14N_f https://youtu.be/IgzFPOMjiC8?si=raN2cUBDyvK14N_f https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics

pjc50 2y ago

Would you like to elaborate on this? I'd like to distinguish between "fully autonomous luxury doomsday" scenarios, where it's just the AI and some robots and no humans in the loop, vs "accelerationist" scenarios where humans are in the loop and are choosing to be complicit in whatever happens because they believe they will benefit from it. Because we can't solve the human alignment problem.

mistermann 2y ago
What I have in mind would be closer to category two, but not in it. Who/that which has most control over the beliefs of the most humans (with some weighting) is the most powerful character. You can build the most powerful AI you want, but whoever / whatever is able and willing to invoke Total War (or invoke mass human action toward a particular goal) can Win the Game (or, destroy the playing field so it no longer matters). For example: > Because we can't solve the human alignment problem. Whoever or whatever put this sort of thinking into the minds of 99% of humans, or knows how to exploit it (see: Trump) is very, very powerful. Someone or something that could displace it would be even more powerful, maybe even the most powerful. No offense intended btw, I think it is fairly inevitable, especially when moving fast. https://youtu.be/IgzFPOMjiC8?si=raN2cUBDyvK14N_f https://youtu.be/IgzFPOMjiC8?si=raN2cUBDyvK14N_f https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics