From your analysis, it seems that FHI would be very well aligned with your goals: it’s a high-profile, academic rather than corporate, entity which can publicize existential risks (and takes corporate creation of such seriously, IIRC).
Would this not be desirable, or is there any organization within the broader anticorporate movement you speak of that would even think to do the same with comparable competency?
I believe that explicitly political movements, not academic ones, are the only ones which are other-optimizing enough to fight the mal-optimization of corporations. And I think that at our current level of corporate power versus AI-relevant technological understanding, my energy is best spent fighting the former rather than advancing the latter (and I majored in cognitive science and work as a programmer, so I hold that same conclusion for most people.)
I realize that these beliefs are partly tribal (something which allows me to get along with my wife and friends) and partly hope-seeking (something which allows me to get up in the morning). I think that these are valid reasons to give a belief the benefit of the doubt. I would not, however, use these excuses to justify a belief with no rational basis, or to avoid considering an argument for the lack of rational basis. Anyway, even if one tried to rid oneself of tribal and hope-seeking biases, beyond the caveats in the previous sentence, I don’t think it would help one be appreciably more rational.
From your analysis, it seems that FHI would be very well aligned with your goals: it’s a high-profile, academic rather than corporate, entity which can publicize existential risks (and takes corporate creation of such seriously, IIRC).
Would this not be desirable, or is there any organization within the broader anticorporate movement you speak of that would even think to do the same with comparable competency?
I believe that explicitly political movements, not academic ones, are the only ones which are other-optimizing enough to fight the mal-optimization of corporations. And I think that at our current level of corporate power versus AI-relevant technological understanding, my energy is best spent fighting the former rather than advancing the latter (and I majored in cognitive science and work as a programmer, so I hold that same conclusion for most people.)
I realize that these beliefs are partly tribal (something which allows me to get along with my wife and friends) and partly hope-seeking (something which allows me to get up in the morning). I think that these are valid reasons to give a belief the benefit of the doubt. I would not, however, use these excuses to justify a belief with no rational basis, or to avoid considering an argument for the lack of rational basis. Anyway, even if one tried to rid oneself of tribal and hope-seeking biases, beyond the caveats in the previous sentence, I don’t think it would help one be appreciably more rational.