Moral stigmatization of AI research would render AI researchers undateable as mates, repulsive as friends, and shameful to family members. Parents would disown adult kids involved in AI. Siblings wouldn’t return their calls. Spouses would divorce them. Landlords wouldn’t rent to them.
I think such a broad and intense backlash against AI research broadly is extremely unlikely to happen, even if we put all our resources on it.
AI is way too broad of a category and the examples of potential downsides of some of its applications (like offputting AI porn or killerbots) will not be assigned to AI broadly but to their developers.
The AI landscape will have way too many actors who will seem reasonable, not do AI porn or killerbots and even publicly condemn morally problematic applications.
There will be way too many AI applications that are clearly outweighing the IIRC small-scale harms you envision to cause these extreme shifts.
I find your example from the comments about blank slate leftists stigmatizing behavioral geneticists very unconvincing as an analogue, that’s a pretty niche topic with few economic incentives or cultural support at its back, it’s easy to target, and the campaign against it has not caused anything near the stigma that you envision for AI (apart in some very ideological people)?
I think such a broad and intense backlash against AI research broadly is extremely unlikely to happen, even if we put all our resources on it.
AI is way too broad of a category and the examples of potential downsides of some of its applications (like offputting AI porn or killerbots) will not be assigned to AI broadly but to their developers.
The AI landscape will have way too many actors who will seem reasonable, not do AI porn or killerbots and even publicly condemn morally problematic applications.
There will be way too many AI applications that are clearly outweighing the IIRC small-scale harms you envision to cause these extreme shifts.
I find your example from the comments about blank slate leftists stigmatizing behavioral geneticists very unconvincing as an analogue, that’s a pretty niche topic with few economic incentives or cultural support at its back, it’s easy to target, and the campaign against it has not caused anything near the stigma that you envision for AI (apart in some very ideological people)?