If anything, this is a claim that people have been bringing up on Twitter recently, the parallels between EA and religion. It’s certainly something we should be aware of since, having ”blind faith” in religion is something that be good, we don’t seem to actually want to do this within EA. I could explain why I think AI risk is different from messiah thing, but Rob Miles explains it well here:
Given limited information (but information nonetheless), I think AI risk could potentially lead to serious harm or not at all, and it’s worth hedging our bets on this cause area (among others). This feels different then choosing to have blind faith in a religion, but I can see why outsiders think this. Though we can be victims of post-rationalization, I think religious folks have reasons to believe in a religion. I think some people might gravitate towards AI risk as a way to feel more meaning in their lives (or something like that), but my impression is that this is not the norm.
At least in my case, it’s like, “damn we have so many serious problems in the world and I want to help with them all, but I can’t. So, I’ll focus on areas of personal fit and hedge my bets even though I’m not so sure about this AI thing and donate what I can to these other serious issues.”
If anything, this is a claim that people have been bringing up on Twitter recently, the parallels between EA and religion. It’s certainly something we should be aware of since, having ”blind faith” in religion is something that be good, we don’t seem to actually want to do this within EA. I could explain why I think AI risk is different from messiah thing, but Rob Miles explains it well here:
Given limited information (but information nonetheless), I think AI risk could potentially lead to serious harm or not at all, and it’s worth hedging our bets on this cause area (among others). This feels different then choosing to have blind faith in a religion, but I can see why outsiders think this. Though we can be victims of post-rationalization, I think religious folks have reasons to believe in a religion. I think some people might gravitate towards AI risk as a way to feel more meaning in their lives (or something like that), but my impression is that this is not the norm.
At least in my case, it’s like, “damn we have so many serious problems in the world and I want to help with them all, but I can’t. So, I’ll focus on areas of personal fit and hedge my bets even though I’m not so sure about this AI thing and donate what I can to these other serious issues.”