What makes you confident that “Transformative AI is several decades away”? Holden estimates “more than a 10% chance we’ll see transformative AI within 15 years (by 2036)”, based on a variety of reports taking different approaches (that are IMO conservative). Given the magnitude of what is meant by “transformative”, governments (and people in general) should really be quite a bit more concerned. As the analogy goes—if you were told that there was a >10% chance of aliens landing on Earth in the next 15 years, then you should really be doing all you can to prepare, as soon as possible!
Governments have trouble responding to things more than a few years away, and even then, only when it’s effectively certain. If they had reliable data that there are aliens showing up in 10 years, I’d expect them to respond by fighting about it and commissioning studies.
Median is ~3-4 decades away. I’d call that “a few”, rather than “several” (sorry to nitpick, but I think this is important: several implies “no need to worry about it, probably not going to happen in my lifetime”, whereas a few implies (for the majority of people) “this is within my lifetime; I should sit up and pay attention.”)
The way I sometimes phrase it to people is that I now think it’s more urgent than Climate Change (and people understand that Climate Change is getting quite urgent, and is something that will have a big impact within their lifetimes).
What makes you confident that “Transformative AI is several decades away”? Holden estimates “more than a 10% chance we’ll see transformative AI within 15 years (by 2036)”, based on a variety of reports taking different approaches (that are IMO conservative). Given the magnitude of what is meant by “transformative”, governments (and people in general) should really be quite a bit more concerned. As the analogy goes—if you were told that there was a >10% chance of aliens landing on Earth in the next 15 years, then you should really be doing all you can to prepare, as soon as possible!
Governments have trouble responding to things more than a few years away, and even then, only when it’s effectively certain. If they had reliable data that there are aliens showing up in 10 years, I’d expect them to respond by fighting about it and commissioning studies.
Yep. Watched Don’t Look Up last night; can imagine that.
Fictional evidence! And I haven’t seen the movie, but expect it to be far too under-nuanced about how government works.
Median estimate is still decades away. I personally completely agree people should be more concerned.
Median is ~3-4 decades away. I’d call that “a few”, rather than “several” (sorry to nitpick, but I think this is important: several implies “no need to worry about it, probably not going to happen in my lifetime”, whereas a few implies (for the majority of people) “this is within my lifetime; I should sit up and pay attention.”)
The way I sometimes phrase it to people is that I now think it’s more urgent than Climate Change (and people understand that Climate Change is getting quite urgent, and is something that will have a big impact within their lifetimes).