To be honest, I wouldn’t personally recommend this Epoch article to people.
It has some strong analysis at points, but unfortunately, it’s undermined by some poor choices of framing/focus that mean most readers will probably leave more confused than when they came.
• For a start, this article focuses almost purely on the economic impacts. However, if an AI cures cancer, the value to humanity will likely significantly exceed the economic value. Similarly, reducing emissions isn’t going to directly lead to productivity growth in the short-term, but in the longer term, excessive emissions could damage the economy. Their criticism that Dario, Demis and Sam haven’t engaged with their (purely economic) reframing is absurd. • Similarly, the CEO’s mostly aren’t even attempting to address the question of how to apportion impacts between R&D or automation. They were trying to convince folks that the impact of AI could be massive (wherever it is coming from). So whilst there is a significant difference in worldviews with the CEO’s being more bullish on automated R&D than the authors, the CEO’s have been awkwardly shoehorned into the role of opposition in a subtly different debate. • Their criticism of R&D focuses quite strong on a binary automated/non-automated frame. The potential of human and AI to work together on tasks is mostly neglected. They observe that R&D coding assistants haven’t led to explosive R&D. However, automated coding only became really good recently. Many folks still aren’t aware of how good these tools are or haven’t adopted them because their organisation hasn’t prioritised spending money on AI coding agents. The training pipeline or hiring practices haven’t really adapted to the new reality yet. Organisations that better adopt these practices haven’t had sufficient time to outcompete those that are slower. Unfortunately, their argument requires them to defend this point in order to go through. In other words, their entire argument is hanging by a thread.
So it was an interesting article. I learned things by reading it and reflecting on it, but I can’t honestly recommend it to others as I had to waste a bit too much time trying to disentangle some of the poorly chosen frames.
To be honest, I wouldn’t personally recommend this Epoch article to people.
It has some strong analysis at points, but unfortunately, it’s undermined by some poor choices of framing/focus that mean most readers will probably leave more confused than when they came.
• For a start, this article focuses almost purely on the economic impacts. However, if an AI cures cancer, the value to humanity will likely significantly exceed the economic value. Similarly, reducing emissions isn’t going to directly lead to productivity growth in the short-term, but in the longer term, excessive emissions could damage the economy. Their criticism that Dario, Demis and Sam haven’t engaged with their (purely economic) reframing is absurd.
• Similarly, the CEO’s mostly aren’t even attempting to address the question of how to apportion impacts between R&D or automation. They were trying to convince folks that the impact of AI could be massive (wherever it is coming from). So whilst there is a significant difference in worldviews with the CEO’s being more bullish on automated R&D than the authors, the CEO’s have been awkwardly shoehorned into the role of opposition in a subtly different debate.
• Their criticism of R&D focuses quite strong on a binary automated/non-automated frame. The potential of human and AI to work together on tasks is mostly neglected. They observe that R&D coding assistants haven’t led to explosive R&D. However, automated coding only became really good recently. Many folks still aren’t aware of how good these tools are or haven’t adopted them because their organisation hasn’t prioritised spending money on AI coding agents. The training pipeline or hiring practices haven’t really adapted to the new reality yet. Organisations that better adopt these practices haven’t had sufficient time to outcompete those that are slower. Unfortunately, their argument requires them to defend this point in order to go through. In other words, their entire argument is hanging by a thread.
So it was an interesting article. I learned things by reading it and reflecting on it, but I can’t honestly recommend it to others as I had to waste a bit too much time trying to disentangle some of the poorly chosen frames.