I remember watching a documentary made during the satanic panic by some activist Christian group. I found it very funny at the time, and then became intrigued when an expert came on to say something like:
“Look, you may not believe in any of this occult stuff; but there are people out there that do, and they’re willing to do bad things because of their beliefs.”
I was impressed with that line’s simplicity and effectiveness. A lot of it’s effectiveness stems silently from the fact that, inadvertently, it helps suspend disbelief about the negative impact of “satanic rituals” by starting the conversation with a reminder that there are people who take them very seriously.
It’s invoking some very Dark Arts, but depending on the person you’re talking to, I think the most effective rhetorical technique is to start by tapping into resentment toward Big Tech and the wealthy by saying:
“Look, you might not think AGI is going to hurt anybody, or that it will ever be developed. But DeepMind and OpenAI engineers are being paid millions of dollars a year to help develop it. And a worrying proportion of those engineers do that in spite of publicized expectations that AGI has a large chance of hurting you and me.”
I have used this variation on the above theme several times in conversations with real humans. It’s a biased sample, but it plus a followup conversation on the more concrete and factual risks has always worked to move them towards concern.
I remember watching a documentary made during the satanic panic by some activist Christian group. I found it very funny at the time, and then became intrigued when an expert came on to say something like:
I was impressed with that line’s simplicity and effectiveness. A lot of it’s effectiveness stems silently from the fact that, inadvertently, it helps suspend disbelief about the negative impact of “satanic rituals” by starting the conversation with a reminder that there are people who take them very seriously.
It’s invoking some very Dark Arts, but depending on the person you’re talking to, I think the most effective rhetorical technique is to start by tapping into resentment toward Big Tech and the wealthy by saying:
I have used this variation on the above theme several times in conversations with real humans. It’s a biased sample, but it plus a followup conversation on the more concrete and factual risks has always worked to move them towards concern.