Why aren’t we protesting AI acceleration in the street?
I’m not super up to date with the latest EA thinking on current AI capabilities. The takes I read on social media from Yudkowsky and the like are something along the lines of ‘We’re at a really dangerous time, various companies are engaged in arms race to make more and more powerful AIs with little regard to safety, and this will directly lead to humanity being wiped out by AGI in the near future’. For people really believe this to be true (especially if you live in San Fransico) - why aren’t you protesting on the street?
Some reasons this might work:
There’s lots of precedents of public pressure leading to laws being passed or procedures changed, that have increased safety standards across many industries
The companies working on AI alignment are based in San Francisco. There’s a big EA and rationalist community in SF. Protests could happen outside the HQ of AI companies.
Stories about silicon valley tech companies get lots of press coverage in mainstream media
There’s a prevailing anti—big tech companies feeling in parts of society that could be tapped into it
Specifically, there’s criticisms of the newest AIs for things like ‘training AI models on artists’ work, then putting artists out of a job’ (Dalle) or ‘making it much easier to cheat at university’ (ChatGPT). Whilst this isn’t directly related to AGI safety, it’s the kind of feeling that could be tapped into for the purpose of this protest
If an AI safety researcher could be interviewed on camera at the march it adds credibility to the march, that experts are concerned
It adds credibility to the voices of experts warning about AI risk, if they’re so worried they’re willing to get out on the street to protest about it
Hi Matt, this is a great idea and the closest thing I am aware of is the street-level protests which have been held by the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots. Maybe you and other EAs would consider getting involved in some of their marches? I haven’t been able to join any as they weren’t local to me, but I’ve donated to them and maybe you can too or you could march with them? https://www.stopkillerrobots.org/
Why aren’t we protesting AI acceleration in the street?
I’m not super up to date with the latest EA thinking on current AI capabilities. The takes I read on social media from Yudkowsky and the like are something along the lines of ‘We’re at a really dangerous time, various companies are engaged in arms race to make more and more powerful AIs with little regard to safety, and this will directly lead to humanity being wiped out by AGI in the near future’. For people really believe this to be true (especially if you live in San Fransico) - why aren’t you protesting on the street?
Some reasons this might work:
There’s lots of precedents of public pressure leading to laws being passed or procedures changed, that have increased safety standards across many industries
The companies working on AI alignment are based in San Francisco. There’s a big EA and rationalist community in SF. Protests could happen outside the HQ of AI companies.
Stories about silicon valley tech companies get lots of press coverage in mainstream media
There’s a prevailing anti—big tech companies feeling in parts of society that could be tapped into it
Specifically, there’s criticisms of the newest AIs for things like ‘training AI models on artists’ work, then putting artists out of a job’ (Dalle) or ‘making it much easier to cheat at university’ (ChatGPT). Whilst this isn’t directly related to AGI safety, it’s the kind of feeling that could be tapped into for the purpose of this protest
If an AI safety researcher could be interviewed on camera at the march it adds credibility to the march, that experts are concerned
It adds credibility to the voices of experts warning about AI risk, if they’re so worried they’re willing to get out on the street to protest about it
Hi Matt, this is a great idea and the closest thing I am aware of is the street-level protests which have been held by the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots. Maybe you and other EAs would consider getting involved in some of their marches? I haven’t been able to join any as they weren’t local to me, but I’ve donated to them and maybe you can too or you could march with them? https://www.stopkillerrobots.org/