In the 90′s and 2000′s, many people such as Eric Drexler were extremely worried about nanotechnology and viewed it as an existential threat through the “gray goo” scenario. Yudkowsky predicted drexler style nanotech would occur by 2010, using very similar language to what he is currently saying about AGI.
It turned out they were all being absurdly overoptimistic about how soon the technology would arrive, and the whole drexlerite nanotech project flamed out by the end of the 2000′s and has pretty much not progressed since. I think a similar dynamic playing out with AGI is less likely, but still very plausible.
Do you have links to people being very worried about gray goo stuff?
(Also, the post you link to makes this clear, but this was a prediction from when Eliezer was a teenager, or just turned 20, which does not make for a particularly good comparison, IMO)
In the 90′s and 2000′s, many people such as Eric Drexler were extremely worried about nanotechnology and viewed it as an existential threat through the “gray goo” scenario. Yudkowsky predicted drexler style nanotech would occur by 2010, using very similar language to what he is currently saying about AGI.
It turned out they were all being absurdly overoptimistic about how soon the technology would arrive, and the whole drexlerite nanotech project flamed out by the end of the 2000′s and has pretty much not progressed since. I think a similar dynamic playing out with AGI is less likely, but still very plausible.
Do you have links to people being very worried about gray goo stuff?
(Also, the post you link to makes this clear, but this was a prediction from when Eliezer was a teenager, or just turned 20, which does not make for a particularly good comparison, IMO)
I hope you’re right. Thanks for the example, it seems like a good one.