I’d like to propose a test to objectively quantify the average observer’s reaction with regards to skepticism of doomsday prophesizing present in a given text. My suggestion is this: take a text, swap the subject of doom (in this case AGI) with another similar text spelling out humanity’s impending doom—for example, a lecture on Scientology and Thetans or the Jonestown massacre—and present these two texts to independent observers, in the same vein as a Turing test.
If an outside independent observer cannot reliably identify which subject of doom corresponds to which text, then that could serve as an effective way of benchmarking when a specific text has transitioned away from effectively conveying information and towards fearmongering.
I’d like to propose a test to objectively quantify the average observer’s reaction with regards to skepticism of doomsday prophesizing present in a given text. My suggestion is this: take a text, swap the subject of doom (in this case AGI) with another similar text spelling out humanity’s impending doom—for example, a lecture on Scientology and Thetans or the Jonestown massacre—and present these two texts to independent observers, in the same vein as a Turing test.
If an outside independent observer cannot reliably identify which subject of doom corresponds to which text, then that could serve as an effective way of benchmarking when a specific text has transitioned away from effectively conveying information and towards fearmongering.