Probably this opinion of LWers is shaped by their experience communicating with outsiders. Almost all my attempts to communicate AI x-risk to outsiders, from family members to friends to random acquaintances, have not been understood for sure. Your experience (talking to random people at social events, walking away from you with the thought “AI x-risk is indeed a thing!”, and starting to worry about it in the slightest afterwards) is highly surprising to me. Maybe there is a huge bias in this regard in the Bay Area, where even normal people generally understand and appreciate the power of technology more than in other places, or have had some similar encounters before, or it’s just in the zeitgeist of the place. (My experience is outside the US, primarily with Russians and some Europeans.)
All that being said, ChatGPT (if people have experienced it first-hand) and especially GPT-4 could potentially make communication of the AI x-risk case much easier.
I’ve had >50% hit rate for “this person now takes AI x-risk seriously after one conversation” from people at totally non-EA parties (subculturally alternative/hippeish, in not particularly tech-y parts of the UK). I think it’s mostly about having a good pitch (but not throwing it at them until there is some rapport, ask them about their stuff first), being open to their world, modeling their psychology, and being able to respond to their first few objections clearly and concisely in a way they can frame within their existing world-model.
Edit: Since I’ve been asked in DM:
My usual pitch been something like this. I expect Critch’s version is very useful for the “but why would it be a threat” thing but have not tested it as much myself.
I think being open and curious about them + being very obviously knowledgeable and clear thinking on AI x-risk is basically all of it, with the bonus being having a few core concepts to convey. Truth-seek with them, people can detect when you’re pushing something in epistemically unsound ways, but tend to love it if you’re going into the conversation totally willing to update but very knowledgeable.
Probably this opinion of LWers is shaped by their experience communicating with outsiders. Almost all my attempts to communicate AI x-risk to outsiders, from family members to friends to random acquaintances, have not been understood for sure. Your experience (talking to random people at social events, walking away from you with the thought “AI x-risk is indeed a thing!”, and starting to worry about it in the slightest afterwards) is highly surprising to me. Maybe there is a huge bias in this regard in the Bay Area, where even normal people generally understand and appreciate the power of technology more than in other places, or have had some similar encounters before, or it’s just in the zeitgeist of the place. (My experience is outside the US, primarily with Russians and some Europeans.)
All that being said, ChatGPT (if people have experienced it first-hand) and especially GPT-4 could potentially make communication of the AI x-risk case much easier.
I’ve had >50% hit rate for “this person now takes AI x-risk seriously after one conversation” from people at totally non-EA parties (subculturally alternative/hippeish, in not particularly tech-y parts of the UK). I think it’s mostly about having a good pitch (but not throwing it at them until there is some rapport, ask them about their stuff first), being open to their world, modeling their psychology, and being able to respond to their first few objections clearly and concisely in a way they can frame within their existing world-model.
Edit: Since I’ve been asked in DM:
My usual pitch been something like this. I expect Critch’s version is very useful for the “but why would it be a threat” thing but have not tested it as much myself.
I think being open and curious about them + being very obviously knowledgeable and clear thinking on AI x-risk is basically all of it, with the bonus being having a few core concepts to convey. Truth-seek with them, people can detect when you’re pushing something in epistemically unsound ways, but tend to love it if you’re going into the conversation totally willing to update but very knowledgeable.