The only issue I’d take is I believe most people here are genuinely frightened of AI. The seductive part I think isn’t the excitement of AI, but the excitement of understanding something important that most other people don’t seem to grasp.
I felt this during COVID when I realized what was coming before my co-workers etc did. There is something seductive about having secret knowledge, even if you realize it’s kind of gross to feel good about it.
Interesting point. Combined with the other poster saying he really would feel dread if a sage told him AGI was coming in 2040, I think I can acknowledge that my wishful thinking frame doesn’t capture the full phenomenon. But I would still say it’s a major contributing factor. Like I said in the post, I feel a strong pressure to engage in wishful thinking myself, and in my experience any pressure on myself is usually replicated in the people around me.
Regardless of the exact mix of motivations, I think this--
My main hope in terms of AGI being far off is that there’s some sort of circle-jerk going on on this website where everyone is basing their opinion on everyone else, but everyone is basing it on everyone else etc etc
is exactly what’s going on here.
I’m genuinely frightened of AGI and believe there is a ~10% chance my daughter will be killed by it before the end of her natural life, but honestly all of my reasons for worry boil down to “other smart people seem to think this.
I have a lot of thoughts about when it’s valid to trust authorities/experts, and I’m not convinced this is one of those cases. That being said, if you are committed to taking your view on this from experts, then you should consider whether you’re really following the bulk of the experts. I remember a thread on here a while back that surveyed a bunch of leaders in ML (engineers at Deepmind maybe?), and they were much more conservative with their AI predictions than most people here. Those survey results track with the vibe I get from the top people in the space.
Interesting point. Combined with the other poster saying he really would feel dread if a sage told him AGI was coming in 2040, I think I can acknowledge that my wishful thinking frame doesn’t capture the full phenomenon. But I would still say it’s a major contributing factor. Like I said in the post, I feel a strong pressure to engage in wishful thinking myself, and in my experience any pressure on myself is usually replicated in the people around me.
Regardless of the exact mix of motivations, I think this--
is exactly what’s going on here.
I have a lot of thoughts about when it’s valid to trust authorities/experts, and I’m not convinced this is one of those cases. That being said, if you are committed to taking your view on this from experts, then you should consider whether you’re really following the bulk of the experts. I remember a thread on here a while back that surveyed a bunch of leaders in ML (engineers at Deepmind maybe?), and they were much more conservative with their AI predictions than most people here. Those survey results track with the vibe I get from the top people in the space.