Primarily talking about it in rat-adjacent communities that are both open to such discussion, but also contain a large number of people who aren’t immersed in AI X-risk. A pertinent example would be either the SSC subreddit or its spinoff, The Motte.
The ideal target is someone with the intellectual curiosity to want to know more about such matters, while also not having encountered them beyond glancing summaries. Below that threshold, people are hard to sway because they’re going off the usual pop culture tropes about AI, and significantly above that, you have the LW crowd, and me trying to teach them anything novel would be trying to teach my grandma to suck eggs.
If I can find people who are mildly aware of such possibilities, then it’s easier to dispel any particular misconceptions they have, such as the tendency to anthromorphize AI, the question of “why not shut it off” etc. Showing them the blistering pace of progress in ML is a reliable eye-opener in my experience.
Engaging with naysayers is also effective, there’s a certain stentorian type who not only has said misunderstandings, but loudly shares them to dismiss X-risk altogether. Dismantling such arguments is always good, even if the odds of convincing them are minimal. There’s always a crowd of undecided but curious people who are somewhat swayed.
There’s also the topic of automation-induced unemployment, which is what I usually bring up in medical circles that would otherwise be baffled by AI X-risk. That’s the most concrete and imminent danger any skilled professional faces, even if the current timelines indicate that the period between the widespread adoption of near-human AI and actual Superhuman AGI is going to be tiny.
That’s about as much as I can do, I don’t have the money to donate anything but pocket change, and my access to high-flying ML engineers is mostly restricted to this very forum. I’m acutely aware that I’m not good enough at math to produce original work in the field, so given those constraints, I consider it a victory if I can sway people wealthier and better positioned by virtue of living in the First World on the matter!
Primarily talking about it in rat-adjacent communities that are both open to such discussion, but also contain a large number of people who aren’t immersed in AI X-risk. A pertinent example would be either the SSC subreddit or its spinoff, The Motte.
The ideal target is someone with the intellectual curiosity to want to know more about such matters, while also not having encountered them beyond glancing summaries. Below that threshold, people are hard to sway because they’re going off the usual pop culture tropes about AI, and significantly above that, you have the LW crowd, and me trying to teach them anything novel would be trying to teach my grandma to suck eggs.
If I can find people who are mildly aware of such possibilities, then it’s easier to dispel any particular misconceptions they have, such as the tendency to anthromorphize AI, the question of “why not shut it off” etc. Showing them the blistering pace of progress in ML is a reliable eye-opener in my experience.
Engaging with naysayers is also effective, there’s a certain stentorian type who not only has said misunderstandings, but loudly shares them to dismiss X-risk altogether. Dismantling such arguments is always good, even if the odds of convincing them are minimal. There’s always a crowd of undecided but curious people who are somewhat swayed.
There’s also the topic of automation-induced unemployment, which is what I usually bring up in medical circles that would otherwise be baffled by AI X-risk. That’s the most concrete and imminent danger any skilled professional faces, even if the current timelines indicate that the period between the widespread adoption of near-human AI and actual Superhuman AGI is going to be tiny.
That’s about as much as I can do, I don’t have the money to donate anything but pocket change, and my access to high-flying ML engineers is mostly restricted to this very forum. I’m acutely aware that I’m not good enough at math to produce original work in the field, so given those constraints, I consider it a victory if I can sway people wealthier and better positioned by virtue of living in the First World on the matter!
That seems like an excellent strategy and I’m glad someone is focusing on that. Would you be interested in chatting about this sometime?
Absolutely! I haven’t used the messaging features here much, but I’m open to a conversation in any medium of your choice.