AI Doomerism has been in the news lately, especially with the loud, viral resignation of Jacob Coxon from Anthropic.
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@jordan @emilymbender I first saw the comment about boosters vs doomers and a moderate stance about the harms and was really confused because the harms will plausibly do the job the doomers are afraid of, so I wondered what was the difference between moderate and doomer.
Reading the other comments made it make more sense. The theft, the energy use, poisoning water supplies, destroying homes with eminent domain, income inequality... These are the problems.
@fullywoolly @jordan @emilymbender
Which hits on another purpose behind the doomerism narrative. It muddies the water.
When folk who aren't read into this hear "LLMs are an existential threat", the person saying it generally gets dumped in with "those crackpots who think it's going to become superhuman and enslave us all".
When what is actually meant by that is, "these same billionaires pulling the strings are using it as an excuse for concentrating power and wealth by destroying jobs, careers, livelihoods, communities, governments, economies, oceans, the atmosphere, and society itself."
Which in turn forces opponents to become overly specific in their discussion of it in order to be understood, which wastes time, effort, energy, and increases the likelihood of being ignored or burning out.
Also see: their deliberate conflation of both ML and LLMs as "AI".
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@ligaturerecords not exactly
@emilymbender @ligaturerecords wasn't Elon one of the original doomers re AI so he founded the nonprofit OpenAI to have irresponsible profit hunting out of the picture?
How come he's now pro AI? It's profits, isn't it?
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I want everyone, especially journalists, to notice the silence of the tech execs about this. This includes people like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg whose recent blog posts talk about balancing the benefits and harms of "AI", and don't include Doomer scenarios among the harms.
They are complicit in the misinforming of the public. They are complicit in stoking everyone's fear. They reap the benefits of the Doomer narrative because it is their narrative.
/fin
@emilymbender "oh nooo the chatbot we're making is soooo smart it's gonna take over the world if we're not caaaareful, you'd better give us more money so we can figure this out!"
imagine having control over that much wealth and power and choosing to spread fear over a fake scenario that isn't happening just so you can hoard a bit more wealth and power, instead of, I dunno, focusing on actual problems like the ongoing collapse of our entire biosphere
the sad part is some of them are so far gone and full of their own opinion that they might honestly actually believe in roko's basilisk
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AI Doomerism has been in the news lately, especially with the loud, viral resignation of Jacob Coxon from Anthropic.
Maybe I've missed it, but I haven't seen any statements from CEOs and other execs who are more on the AI Booster side of the ledger.
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@emilymbender
If humanity were exterminated by something it created itself, It will be a well-deserved ending. -
@miss_rodent @emilymbender one advantage we have when it comes to the climate crisis is that the green transition makes pure economic sense not only in the long term (as has always been the case), but also in the short term (as has only been the case these past few years).
for AI it definitely makes sense in the long term (betting all of the world's economy on this vaporware doesn't make much sense), but in the short term? stocks are riding high. -
@emilymbender
If humanity were exterminated by something it created itself, It will be a well-deserved ending.I’ve always said aliens don’t need to invade this planet to conquer it — humans will kill ourselves and they’ll be able to get it for free, along with a hell of a show to watch from orbit.
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I’ve always said aliens don’t need to invade this planet to conquer it — humans will kill ourselves and they’ll be able to get it for free, along with a hell of a show to watch from orbit.
@rickf @emilymbender
It is very likely that the main cause of our extinction will be stupidity. -
The Boosters say: AI is a thing, it's inevitable, it's imminent and it's going to solve all of our problems.
The Doomers say: AI is a thing, it's inevitable, it's imminent and it's going to kill us all.
These are obviously the same story, with just different twists at the end. And both are nonsense. There is "moderate" position between them, but there is space outside of that fantasy world where we can see the actual harms happening in the name of "AI".
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@rickf @emilymbender
It is very likely that the main cause of our extinction will be stupidity.Yup. Which includes greed, ego, and lusts for power.
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AI Doomerism has been in the news lately, especially with the loud, viral resignation of Jacob Coxon from Anthropic.
Maybe I've missed it, but I haven't seen any statements from CEOs and other execs who are more on the AI Booster side of the ledger.
🧵>>
@emilymbender When the count of criminal levels of AI rogue behaviour reaches 4 as it has done now, there is surely a mandate for a CEO statement.
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AI Doomerism has been in the news lately, especially with the loud, viral resignation of Jacob Coxon from Anthropic.
Maybe I've missed it, but I haven't seen any statements from CEOs and other execs who are more on the AI Booster side of the ledger.
🧵>>
@emilymbender so you didn't notice the MO. But fear is how the pyramid scheme keeps afloat. "AI is dangerous so we need to be first." I bet that the resignation was scripted by the ceo as it is on par with the message of fear.
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The Boosters say: AI is a thing, it's inevitable, it's imminent and it's going to solve all of our problems.
The Doomers say: AI is a thing, it's inevitable, it's imminent and it's going to kill us all.
These are obviously the same story, with just different twists at the end. And both are nonsense. There is "moderate" position between them, but there is space outside of that fantasy world where we can see the actual harms happening in the name of "AI".
>>@emilymbender @jepyang if AI kills us all, it's probably because a human told it to... which does seem pretty likely tbh, given that theyre already using automated weapons to kill people, and some/many of them just seem to have a general disdain for humanity
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@emilymbender All the while, human culture erodes and oceans boil.
@jordan @emilymbender This is the *real* reason AI will kill us all that this thread doesn’t address in the least.
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@James @emilymbender with a lens that AI is useful and going to stay relevant for some time despite the myriad harms, to me this becomes obvious: they are trying for regulatory capture through fear mongering.
Nobody gets to own sovereign AI or have their own ‘intelligence’ they can run and use at their leisure how they see fit; it’s simply too dangerous.
Therefore, you must rent it from us, at recurring cost, indefinitely, because we are the only ones who can ensure it is used ‘responsibly’.
That the AI pro/con discussion ends up in the same place as it is being currently framed suggests people should look for different solutions, quickly.
Why don’t we start with civil and criminal liability for AI firms.
Does a homeowner have responsibility if a loaded gun is left unsecured?
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@abartlet @dotsie @emilymbender
….also a marketing decesion to sell risk to consumers.
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