You make it sound as if you merely want to fund vaccine research, or...
· Comment — Kat Woods's post · View on Facebook · Markdown source
You make it sound as if you merely want to fund vaccine research, or create pandemic training programs for medical professionals, or stockpile medical supplies. But that's not the strategy doomers are proposing for AI risks. Doomers want the government to try to pre-emptively stifle the promising AI industry indefinitely based on risks for which there is as yet no objective evidence. Doomers want to create a new globe-spanning bureaucracy, with extensive police and surveillance powers, including the power to launch nukes at data centers that are insufficiently obedient to the bureaucracy's dictates. Doomers want chips designed and sold under close government scrutiny, with mandatory built-in surveillance / remote kill switches which government can activate at any time. Bureaucracies created for our "safety" in the past have had many pernicious effects. For example, global warming is also supposed to destroy civilization. Nuclear plants create inexpensive, abundant, reliable power with no greenhouse gas emissions. If they replaced coal plants, the risk of global warming would be much reduced. Yet the US nuclear regulations were made so strict that not a single new nuclear plant was approved for 30 years. Massive numbers of deaths will be caused by slowing the growth of the AI industry. For example, aging alone kills 115,000 people every day. Advanced AI could rapidly accelerate aging research. For every day doomers delay effective aging treatment, they're responsible for 115,000 deaths. Suppose some scientists began screaming that a KillEveryone virus might be developed in biotech labs, and demand a complete global shutdown of the biotech industry until the development of such a virus can be proven impossible. Don't you think it would be reasonable to ask: Has a KillEveryone virus like that ever existed in the past? No. Has a KillEveryone virus been created now? No. Can a powerful new biotechnology ever be proven "safe"? No. Would it be practical to enforce a global ban on biotech in every country? No. Would trying to stifle the biotech industry entirely have tremendous downsides? Yes. Would a powerful biotech bureaucracy be captured by big industry players, and used to stifle their competiton? Yes. Have humans believed claims of imminent apocalypse that were later proven false. Yes, many times. IMO, it's no more reasonable to try to stifle the AI industry than it would be to try to stifle the biotech industry.