Greg—thanks for this helpful overview of the UN meeting on AI.
Interesting that Mozambique seems savvier about AI X-risk than many bigger countries.
I suspect that there’s a potential narrative that could be developed (e.g. by the AI Pause community, or AGI moratorium community) that runaway AGI research involves big rich countries—especially the US—imposing extinction risk on smaller poorer countries. Yet another example of rich-country hubris, or a kind of ‘X-risk colonialism’, where the key AI countries are charging ahead, doing their thing, imposing huge ‘risk externalities’ on other countries, civilizations, and cultures without their consent.
It’s also striking that when AI industry advocates talk about the benefits of AI, it generally concerns US-centric issues such as promoting longevity, advanced-country prosperity, automation, space colonization, etc., rather than addressing the kinds of issues that poorer countries might care more about—e.g. promoting the rule of law, property rights, stable currencies, public health, basic education, government integrity, etc. So, if I was a bright young person living in Brazil, Nigeria, India, or Morocco, the AI industry would seem like it’s trying to solve first-world problems, while imposing huge and scary risks on my people and my country.
I suspect that this ‘AI X risk neo-colonialism’ narrative would be difficult for the AI industry to deal with, since so many of the AI leaders and researchers seem to be living in a Bay Area culture bubble that gives little thought to the risks (and benefits) they’re imposing on the 96% of humans who don’t live in the U.S.
Greg—thanks for this helpful overview of the UN meeting on AI.
Interesting that Mozambique seems savvier about AI X-risk than many bigger countries.
I suspect that there’s a potential narrative that could be developed (e.g. by the AI Pause community, or AGI moratorium community) that runaway AGI research involves big rich countries—especially the US—imposing extinction risk on smaller poorer countries. Yet another example of rich-country hubris, or a kind of ‘X-risk colonialism’, where the key AI countries are charging ahead, doing their thing, imposing huge ‘risk externalities’ on other countries, civilizations, and cultures without their consent.
It’s also striking that when AI industry advocates talk about the benefits of AI, it generally concerns US-centric issues such as promoting longevity, advanced-country prosperity, automation, space colonization, etc., rather than addressing the kinds of issues that poorer countries might care more about—e.g. promoting the rule of law, property rights, stable currencies, public health, basic education, government integrity, etc. So, if I was a bright young person living in Brazil, Nigeria, India, or Morocco, the AI industry would seem like it’s trying to solve first-world problems, while imposing huge and scary risks on my people and my country.
I suspect that this ‘AI X risk neo-colonialism’ narrative would be difficult for the AI industry to deal with, since so many of the AI leaders and researchers seem to be living in a Bay Area culture bubble that gives little thought to the risks (and benefits) they’re imposing on the 96% of humans who don’t live in the U.S.