There’s an expert consensus that tobacco is harmful, and there is a well-documented history of tobacco companies engaging in shady tactics. There is also a well-documented history of government propaganda being misleading and deceptive, and if you asked anyone with relevant expertise — historians, political scientists, media experts, whoever — they would certainly tell you that government propaganda is not reliable.
But just lumping in “AI accelerationist companies” with that is not justified. “AI accelerationist” just means anyone who works on making AI systems more capable who doesn’t agree with the AI alignment/AI safety community’s peculiar worldview. In practice, that means you’re saying most people with expertise AI are compromised and not worth listening to, but you are willing to listen to this weird random group of people, some of whom like Yudkowsky who have no technical expertise in contemporary AI paradigms (i.e. deep learning and deep reinforcement learning). This seems like a recipe for disaster, like deciding that capitalist economists are all corrupt and that only Marxist philosophers are worth trusting.
A problem with motivated reasoning arguments, when stretched to this extent, is that anyone can accuse anyone over the thinnest pretext. And rather than engaging with people’s views and arguments in any serious, substantive way, it just turns into a lot of finger pointing.
Yudkowsky’s gotten paid millions of dollars to prophesize AI doom. Many people have argued that AI safety/AI alignment narratives benefit the AI companies and their investors. The argument goes like this: Exaggerating the risks of AI exaggerates AI’s capabilities. Exaggerating AI’s capabilities makes the prospective financial value of AI much higher than it really is. Therefore, talking about AI risk or even AI doom is good business.
I would add that exaggerating risk may be a particularly effective way to exaggerate AI’s capabilities. People tend to be skeptical of anything that sounds like pie-in-the-sky hope or optimism. On the other hand, talking about risk sounds serious and intelligent. Notice what goes unsaid: many near-term AGI believers think there’s a high chance of some unbelievably amazing utopia just on the horizon. How many times have you heard someone imagine that utopia? One? Zero? And how many times have you heard various AI doom or disempowerment stories? Why would no one ever bring up this amazing utopia they think might happen very soon?
Even if you’re very pessimistic and think there’s a 90% chance of AI doom, a 10% chance of utopia is still pretty damn interesting. And many people are much more optimistic, thinking there’s around a 1-30% chance of doom, which implies a 70%+ chance of utopia. So, what gives? Where’s the utopia talk? Even when people talk about the utopian elements of AGI futures, they emphasize the worrying parts: what if intelligent machines produce effectively unlimited wealth, how will we organize the economy? What policies will we need to implement? How will people cope? We need to start worrying about this now! When I think about what would happen if I won the lottery, my mind does not go to worrying about the downsides.
I think the overwhelming majority of people who express views on this topic are true believers. I think they are sincere. I would only be willing to accuse someone of possibly doing something underhanded if, independently, they had a track record of deceptive behaviour. (Sam Altman has such a track record, and generally I don’t believe anything he says anymore. I have no way of knowing what’s sincere, what’s a lie, and what’s something he’s convinced himself of because it suits him to believe it.) I think the specific accusation that AI safety/AI alignment is a deliberate, conscious lie cooked up to juice AI investment is silly. It’s probably true, though, that people at AI companies have some counterintuitive incentive or bias toward talking up AI doom fears.
However, my general point is that just as it’s silly to accuse AI safety/alignment people of being shills for AI companies, it also seems silly to me to say that AI companies (or “AI accelerationist” companies, which is effectively all major AI companies and almost all startups) are the equivalent of tobacco companies, and you shouldn’t pay attention to what people at AI companies say about AI. Motivated reasoning accusations made on thin grounds can put you into a deluded bubble (e.g. becoming a Marxist) and I don’t think AI is some clear-cut, exceptional case like tobacco or state propaganda where obviously you should ignore the message.
There’s an expert consensus that tobacco is harmful, and there is a well-documented history of tobacco companies engaging in shady tactics. There is also a well-documented history of government propaganda being misleading and deceptive, and if you asked anyone with relevant expertise — historians, political scientists, media experts, whoever — they would certainly tell you that government propaganda is not reliable.
But just lumping in “AI accelerationist companies” with that is not justified. “AI accelerationist” just means anyone who works on making AI systems more capable who doesn’t agree with the AI alignment/AI safety community’s peculiar worldview. In practice, that means you’re saying most people with expertise AI are compromised and not worth listening to, but you are willing to listen to this weird random group of people, some of whom like Yudkowsky who have no technical expertise in contemporary AI paradigms (i.e. deep learning and deep reinforcement learning). This seems like a recipe for disaster, like deciding that capitalist economists are all corrupt and that only Marxist philosophers are worth trusting.
A problem with motivated reasoning arguments, when stretched to this extent, is that anyone can accuse anyone over the thinnest pretext. And rather than engaging with people’s views and arguments in any serious, substantive way, it just turns into a lot of finger pointing.
Yudkowsky’s gotten paid millions of dollars to prophesize AI doom. Many people have argued that AI safety/AI alignment narratives benefit the AI companies and their investors. The argument goes like this: Exaggerating the risks of AI exaggerates AI’s capabilities. Exaggerating AI’s capabilities makes the prospective financial value of AI much higher than it really is. Therefore, talking about AI risk or even AI doom is good business.
I would add that exaggerating risk may be a particularly effective way to exaggerate AI’s capabilities. People tend to be skeptical of anything that sounds like pie-in-the-sky hope or optimism. On the other hand, talking about risk sounds serious and intelligent. Notice what goes unsaid: many near-term AGI believers think there’s a high chance of some unbelievably amazing utopia just on the horizon. How many times have you heard someone imagine that utopia? One? Zero? And how many times have you heard various AI doom or disempowerment stories? Why would no one ever bring up this amazing utopia they think might happen very soon?
Even if you’re very pessimistic and think there’s a 90% chance of AI doom, a 10% chance of utopia is still pretty damn interesting. And many people are much more optimistic, thinking there’s around a 1-30% chance of doom, which implies a 70%+ chance of utopia. So, what gives? Where’s the utopia talk? Even when people talk about the utopian elements of AGI futures, they emphasize the worrying parts: what if intelligent machines produce effectively unlimited wealth, how will we organize the economy? What policies will we need to implement? How will people cope? We need to start worrying about this now! When I think about what would happen if I won the lottery, my mind does not go to worrying about the downsides.
I think the overwhelming majority of people who express views on this topic are true believers. I think they are sincere. I would only be willing to accuse someone of possibly doing something underhanded if, independently, they had a track record of deceptive behaviour. (Sam Altman has such a track record, and generally I don’t believe anything he says anymore. I have no way of knowing what’s sincere, what’s a lie, and what’s something he’s convinced himself of because it suits him to believe it.) I think the specific accusation that AI safety/AI alignment is a deliberate, conscious lie cooked up to juice AI investment is silly. It’s probably true, though, that people at AI companies have some counterintuitive incentive or bias toward talking up AI doom fears.
However, my general point is that just as it’s silly to accuse AI safety/alignment people of being shills for AI companies, it also seems silly to me to say that AI companies (or “AI accelerationist” companies, which is effectively all major AI companies and almost all startups) are the equivalent of tobacco companies, and you shouldn’t pay attention to what people at AI companies say about AI. Motivated reasoning accusations made on thin grounds can put you into a deluded bubble (e.g. becoming a Marxist) and I don’t think AI is some clear-cut, exceptional case like tobacco or state propaganda where obviously you should ignore the message.