“X-Risk” Movement-Building Considered Probably Harmful
My instinct has generally been for a while now that it’s probably really really bad for the majority of the population to be aware of the meme of x-risk, or at least more harm than good. See climate doomerism. See (attempted) gain of function research at Wuhan. See asteroid deflection techniques that are dual-use with respect to asteroid weaponization which is orders of magnitude worse of a still far-off risk than natural asteroid impact. See gain of function research at Anthropic which, idk, maybe it’s good but that’s kinda concerning, as well as all the other resources provided to questionably benevolent AGI companies under the assumption it will do good. “X-risk” seems like something that will make people go crazy in ways that will cause destruction, e.g. people use the term “pivotal act” even when I’d claim it’s been superceded by Critch’s “pivotal process”. I’m also worried about dark triad elites or bureaucrats co-opting these memes for unnecessary power and control, a take from the e/acc vein of thought that I find their most sympathetic position, because it’s probably correct when you think in the limit of social memetic momentum. Sorta relatedly, I’m worried about EA becoming a collection of high modernist midwittery as it mainstreams, watered down and unable to course correct from co-options and simplifications. Please message me if you want to riff on these topics.
“X-Risk” Movement-Building Considered Probably Harmful
My instinct has generally been for a while now that it’s probably really really bad for the majority of the population to be aware of the meme of x-risk, or at least more harm than good. See climate doomerism. See (attempted) gain of function research at Wuhan. See asteroid deflection techniques that are dual-use with respect to asteroid weaponization which is orders of magnitude worse of a still far-off risk than natural asteroid impact. See gain of function research at Anthropic which, idk, maybe it’s good but that’s kinda concerning, as well as all the other resources provided to questionably benevolent AGI companies under the assumption it will do good. “X-risk” seems like something that will make people go crazy in ways that will cause destruction, e.g. people use the term “pivotal act” even when I’d claim it’s been superceded by Critch’s “pivotal process”. I’m also worried about dark triad elites or bureaucrats co-opting these memes for unnecessary power and control, a take from the e/acc vein of thought that I find their most sympathetic position, because it’s probably correct when you think in the limit of social memetic momentum. Sorta relatedly, I’m worried about EA becoming a collection of high modernist midwittery as it mainstreams, watered down and unable to course correct from co-options and simplifications. Please message me if you want to riff on these topics.