THERE ARE NO FIRE ALARMS. A FIRE ALARM IS SOMETHING THAT CAUSES COMMON KNOWLEDGE AND CHANGES SOCIAL REALITY. ON THE MAINLINE THERE WILL BE NO CONSENSUS THAT AN AI IS MORALLY VALUABLE, OR THAT THERE IS AN EXISTENTIAL THREAT, OR THAT AGI IS COMING.
THIS HAS BEEN A PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT, WITH THE HOPE OF CHANGING SOCIAL REALITY A LITTLE BIT AROUND HERE. THANK YOU FOR READING.
All social reality is relative to a particular society. It’s perfectly possible to have an event which acts as a fire alarm for subgroup X while not being particularly important for wider society. Thus, my question to LW users (a very small subgroup) about what sorts of things would count as their fire alarm.
I know, but I can’t see the difference between “What would cause you to believe X?” and “What’s your fire alarm for X?” Except that the latter one seems like a pretty non-central use case of the term that confuses its core meaning, where the core meaning is about something that creates common knowledge in a large group of people.
THERE ARE NO FIRE ALARMS. A FIRE ALARM IS SOMETHING THAT CAUSES COMMON KNOWLEDGE AND CHANGES SOCIAL REALITY. ON THE MAINLINE THERE WILL BE NO CONSENSUS THAT AN AI IS MORALLY VALUABLE, OR THAT THERE IS AN EXISTENTIAL THREAT, OR THAT AGI IS COMING.
THIS HAS BEEN A PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT, WITH THE HOPE OF CHANGING SOCIAL REALITY A LITTLE BIT AROUND HERE. THANK YOU FOR READING.
All social reality is relative to a particular society. It’s perfectly possible to have an event which acts as a fire alarm for subgroup X while not being particularly important for wider society. Thus, my question to LW users (a very small subgroup) about what sorts of things would count as their fire alarm.
I know, but I can’t see the difference between “What would cause you to believe X?” and “What’s your fire alarm for X?” Except that the latter one seems like a pretty non-central use case of the term that confuses its core meaning, where the core meaning is about something that creates common knowledge in a large group of people.
I think it’s a good question.
Sadly, I’m not sure we’ll find a ‘fire alarm’ even among ourselves either.