As AI becomes more powerful and ubiquitous (on the way to catastrophic risks), I think there is a good chance we will regret not having acted faster (and look sluggish in hindsight).
I think there is a strong bias that when a topic is highly salient to you, you assume it is salient to everyone else (think EA during FTX scandal). In reality, most people barely think about AI.
1. I think this is plausible (though I’m unclear on whether you mean ‘we as AI risk research community’ or ‘we as humanity’ here)
2. This bias definitely exists, but AI in the last year has cut through to broader society in a huge way (I keep overhearing conversations on chatgpt and other things in cafes, on trains, etc, admittedly in the cambridge/london area; suddenly random family members have takes etc. It’s showing up in my wife’s social media, and being written about by the political journalists she follows, where it never had before, etc). Ditto (although to a smaller extent) AI xrisk. EA/FTX didn’t cut through to anything at all like the same extent.
Appreciate the post! A couple of thoughts:
As AI becomes more powerful and ubiquitous (on the way to catastrophic risks), I think there is a good chance we will regret not having acted faster (and look sluggish in hindsight).
I think there is a strong bias that when a topic is highly salient to you, you assume it is salient to everyone else (think EA during FTX scandal). In reality, most people barely think about AI.
Thanks! Re:
1. I think this is plausible (though I’m unclear on whether you mean ‘we as AI risk research community’ or ‘we as humanity’ here)
2. This bias definitely exists, but AI in the last year has cut through to broader society in a huge way (I keep overhearing conversations on chatgpt and other things in cafes, on trains, etc, admittedly in the cambridge/london area; suddenly random family members have takes etc. It’s showing up in my wife’s social media, and being written about by the political journalists she follows, where it never had before, etc). Ditto (although to a smaller extent) AI xrisk. EA/FTX didn’t cut through to anything at all like the same extent.