One could just as easily argue that an era of slow growth will take technological pessimism seriously, while an era of fast growth is likely to want to go gung-ho full-speed-ahead on everything.
Assuming some link between tech and growth, low-growth pessimism seems more likely to be “technology has mattered less and moved slower than we expected”, which is a different flavor.
A culture in which they go gung-ho full-speed-ahead on everything might build autonomous AI into a robot, and it turns out to be unfriendly in some notable way while not also being self-improving.
Seems to me like that would be one of the most reliable paths to getting people to take FAI seriously. A big lossy messy factory recall, lots of media attention, irate customers.
One could just as easily argue that an era of slow growth will take technological pessimism seriously, while an era of fast growth is likely to want to go gung-ho full-speed-ahead on everything.
Assuming some link between tech and growth, low-growth pessimism seems more likely to be “technology has mattered less and moved slower than we expected”, which is a different flavor.
A culture in which they go gung-ho full-speed-ahead on everything might build autonomous AI into a robot, and it turns out to be unfriendly in some notable way while not also being self-improving.
Seems to me like that would be one of the most reliable paths to getting people to take FAI seriously. A big lossy messy factory recall, lots of media attention, irate customers.