I’d be interested to know more about the make-up of the audience e.g. whether they were AI researchers or interested general public. Having followed recent mainstream coverage of the existential risk from AI, my sense is that the pro-X-risk arguments have been spelled out more clearly and in more detail (within the constraints of mainstream media) than the anti-X-risk ones (which makes sense for an audience who may not have previously been aware of detailed pro- arguments, and also makes sense as doomscroll clickbait). I’ve seen lot of mainstream articles where the anti-X-risk case is basically ‘this distracts from near-term risks from AI’ and that’s it.
So if the audience is mainly people who have been following mainstream coverage it might make sense for them to update very slightly towards the anti- case on hearing many more detailed anti- arguments (not saying they are good arguments, just that they would be new to such an audience) even if the pro-X-risk arguments presented by Tegmark and Bengio were strong.
I’d be interested to know more about the make-up of the audience e.g. whether they were AI researchers or interested general public. Having followed recent mainstream coverage of the existential risk from AI, my sense is that the pro-X-risk arguments have been spelled out more clearly and in more detail (within the constraints of mainstream media) than the anti-X-risk ones (which makes sense for an audience who may not have previously been aware of detailed pro- arguments, and also makes sense as doomscroll clickbait). I’ve seen lot of mainstream articles where the anti-X-risk case is basically ‘this distracts from near-term risks from AI’ and that’s it.
So if the audience is mainly people who have been following mainstream coverage it might make sense for them to update very slightly towards the anti- case on hearing many more detailed anti- arguments (not saying they are good arguments, just that they would be new to such an audience) even if the pro-X-risk arguments presented by Tegmark and Bengio were strong.