I am trying to think of something that’s banned purely for having existential risk and coming up blank.
Weren’t CFC’s banned for existential reasons (although only after an alternative was found, because it would be better to die than not have refrigerators..)?
OP discusses CFCs in the main post. But yes, that’s the most hopeful precedent. The problem being that CFCs could be replaced by alternatives that were reasonably profitable for the manufacturers, whereas AI can’t be.
Even before the invention of sufficiently viable refrigerants, physical chemists had already calculated the guaranteed existence of viable alternatives because the possibility space is quite finite. The only roadblock was manufacturing them at scale.
Weren’t CFC’s banned for existential reasons (although only after an alternative was found, because it would be better to die than not have refrigerators..)?
OP discusses CFCs in the main post. But yes, that’s the most hopeful precedent. The problem being that CFCs could be replaced by alternatives that were reasonably profitable for the manufacturers, whereas AI can’t be.
The dynamics are not comparable at all.
Even before the invention of sufficiently viable refrigerants, physical chemists had already calculated the guaranteed existence of viable alternatives because the possibility space is quite finite. The only roadblock was manufacturing them at scale.