This post received a lot of objections of the flavor that many of the ideas and technologies I am a fan of either wont’t work or wouldn’t make a difference if they did.
I don’t even really disagree with most of these objections, which I tried to make clear up front with apparently-insufficient disclaimers in the intro that include words like “unrealistic”, “extremely unlikely”, and “speculative”.
Following the intro, I deliberately set aside my natural inclination towards pessimism and focused on the positive aspects and possibilities of non-AGI technology.
However, the “doomer” sentiment in some of the comments reminded me of an old Dawkins quote:
We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.
I feel the same way about most alignment plans and uses for AGI that a lot of commenters seem to feel about many of the technologies listed here.
Am I a doomer, simply because I (usually) extend my pessimism and disbelief one technology further? Or are we all doomers?
I don’t really mind the negative comments, but it wasn’t the reaction I was expecting from a list that was intended mainly as a feel-good / warm-fuzzy piece of techno-optimism. I think there’s a lesson in empathy and perspective-taking here for everyone (including me) which doesn’t depend that much on who is actually right about the relative difficulties of building and aligning AGI vs. developing other technologies.
This post received a lot of objections of the flavor that many of the ideas and technologies I am a fan of either wont’t work or wouldn’t make a difference if they did.
I don’t even really disagree with most of these objections, which I tried to make clear up front with apparently-insufficient disclaimers in the intro that include words like “unrealistic”, “extremely unlikely”, and “speculative”.
Following the intro, I deliberately set aside my natural inclination towards pessimism and focused on the positive aspects and possibilities of non-AGI technology.
However, the “doomer” sentiment in some of the comments reminded me of an old Dawkins quote:
I feel the same way about most alignment plans and uses for AGI that a lot of commenters seem to feel about many of the technologies listed here.
Am I a doomer, simply because I (usually) extend my pessimism and disbelief one technology further? Or are we all doomers?
I don’t really mind the negative comments, but it wasn’t the reaction I was expecting from a list that was intended mainly as a feel-good / warm-fuzzy piece of techno-optimism. I think there’s a lesson in empathy and perspective-taking here for everyone (including me) which doesn’t depend that much on who is actually right about the relative difficulties of building and aligning AGI vs. developing other technologies.