One problem is that arguments against AI development do look a lot like known-bad arguments against prior innovations. It is true that people have had complaints and luddite arguments against all manner of social and technological change in the past, and yet the clear trend of at least 600 years is that things trend substantially towards getting better in pretty obvious ways.
For example, Maxwell Tabbarok had a thread recently comparing fears of humans becoming economically redundant to the “Lump of Labor” fallacy that was been invoked when past automation put people out of work. “Aha,” he thinks. “Here is an easy misconception to refute. To say otherwise would be to say that the future will look nothing like the past. It is practically to deny inductive reasoning itself.” And he pats himself on the back.
So we are hamstrung from the jump by needing to convey “yes, similar arguments were wrong repeatedly… but here’s why this is different.” It’s a hard sell, and many smart people will be unwilling to trust us on that first step.
One problem is that arguments against AI development do look a lot like known-bad arguments against prior innovations. It is true that people have had complaints and luddite arguments against all manner of social and technological change in the past, and yet the clear trend of at least 600 years is that things trend substantially towards getting better in pretty obvious ways.
For example, Maxwell Tabbarok had a thread recently comparing fears of humans becoming economically redundant to the “Lump of Labor” fallacy that was been invoked when past automation put people out of work. “Aha,” he thinks. “Here is an easy misconception to refute. To say otherwise would be to say that the future will look nothing like the past. It is practically to deny inductive reasoning itself.” And he pats himself on the back.
So we are hamstrung from the jump by needing to convey “yes, similar arguments were wrong repeatedly… but here’s why this is different.” It’s a hard sell, and many smart people will be unwilling to trust us on that first step.