It turned out that at least around me, the most common answer was something like: “I always knew it was important and interesting, which is why I started to read about it.”
I found out about alignment/AGI from some videos of Rob Miles on Computerphile. It’s possible you’re around/talking to very smart people who were around when the field was founded (hence they came up with it themselves), but that’s selection bias—most people aren’t like that.
To clarify, my friends (even if they are very smart) did not come up with all AI safety arguments by themselves, but started to engage with AI safety material because they had already been looking at the world and thinking “hmm, looks like AI is a big thing and could influence a lot of stuff in the future, hope it changes things for the good”. So they got quickly on board after hearing that there are people seriously working on the topic, and it made them want to read more.
I found out about alignment/AGI from some videos of Rob Miles on Computerphile. It’s possible you’re around/talking to very smart people who were around when the field was founded (hence they came up with it themselves), but that’s selection bias—most people aren’t like that.
To clarify, my friends (even if they are very smart) did not come up with all AI safety arguments by themselves, but started to engage with AI safety material because they had already been looking at the world and thinking “hmm, looks like AI is a big thing and could influence a lot of stuff in the future, hope it changes things for the good”. So they got quickly on board after hearing that there are people seriously working on the topic, and it made them want to read more.