Thanks for that comment! I didn’t know Bill McKibben, but I read up on his 2019 book ‘Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?’ I’ll post a review as a post later. I appreciate your description of what the scene was like back in the 90s or so, that’s really insightful. Also interesting to read about nanotech, I never knew these concerns were historically so coupled.
But having read McKibben’s book, I still can’t find others on my side of the debate. McKibben is indeed the first one I know who both recognizes AGI danger, and does not believe in a tech fix, or at least does not consider this a good outcome. However, I would expect that he would cite others on his side of the debate. Instead, in the sections on AGI, he cites people like Bostrom and Omohundro, which are not postponists in any way. Therefore I’m still guessing at this moment that a ‘postponement side’ of this debate is now absent, and it’s just that McKibben happened to know Kurzweil who got him personally concerned about AGI risk. If that’s not true and there are more voices out there exploring AGI postponement options, I’d still be happy to hear about it. Also if you could find links to old discussions, I’m interested!
Thanks for that comment! I didn’t know Bill McKibben, but I read up on his 2019 book ‘Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?’ I’ll post a review as a post later. I appreciate your description of what the scene was like back in the 90s or so, that’s really insightful. Also interesting to read about nanotech, I never knew these concerns were historically so coupled.
But having read McKibben’s book, I still can’t find others on my side of the debate. McKibben is indeed the first one I know who both recognizes AGI danger, and does not believe in a tech fix, or at least does not consider this a good outcome. However, I would expect that he would cite others on his side of the debate. Instead, in the sections on AGI, he cites people like Bostrom and Omohundro, which are not postponists in any way. Therefore I’m still guessing at this moment that a ‘postponement side’ of this debate is now absent, and it’s just that McKibben happened to know Kurzweil who got him personally concerned about AGI risk. If that’s not true and there are more voices out there exploring AGI postponement options, I’d still be happy to hear about it. Also if you could find links to old discussions, I’m interested!