Is this post conflating EAs or AI-safety researchers/advocates with longtermists? My impression is that actually rather few EAs are strong longtermists, and AI safety researchers/advocates maybe even less—they’re just united by their wish to avoid catastrophe, but differ in their understandings of the kind of catastrophe we should expect.
I think when AI safety was young and, er, weird, a lot of those talking about it were longtermists. That makes sense. But now it’s become a mainstream EA concern, and even a not-weird concern in society generally, so it’s unsurprising that it’s become less longtermist, from a sociological perspective.
Is this post conflating EAs or AI-safety researchers/advocates with longtermists? My impression is that actually rather few EAs are strong longtermists, and AI safety researchers/advocates maybe even less—they’re just united by their wish to avoid catastrophe, but differ in their understandings of the kind of catastrophe we should expect.
I think when AI safety was young and, er, weird, a lot of those talking about it were longtermists. That makes sense. But now it’s become a mainstream EA concern, and even a not-weird concern in society generally, so it’s unsurprising that it’s become less longtermist, from a sociological perspective.