Matthew McRedmond🔹

• Matthew McRedmond🔹 28 Mar 2026 13:54 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  on: AGI & An­i­mals: Dis­cus­sion Thread

  See my post:
  
  We are AGI to animals now, and we may be net negative as a species. See my short post for intuition pump
  
  https://​​forum.effectivealtruism.org/​​posts/​​et6tWRzgXHBHRciuN/​​quick-pig-based-intuition-pump-on-superintelligence-and?utm_campaign=post_share&utm_source=link

Quick Pig-Based In­tu­ition Pump on Su­per­in­tel­li­gence and Orthogonality

• Matthew McRedmond🔹 26 Jul 2024 11:25 UTC

  4 points

  1 ∶ 0

  in reply to: jackva’s comment on: Cli­mate Ad­vo­cacy and AI Safety: Su­per­charg­ing AI Slow­down Advocacy

  Thanks for the details of your disagreement : )
  
  1. Yeah I think this is a fair point. However, my understanding is that climate action is reasonably popular with the public—even in the US (https://​​ourworldindata.org/​​climate-change-support). It’s only really when it comes to taking action that the parties differ. So if you advocated for restrictions on large training runs for climate reasons I’m not sure it is obvious that it would necessarily have a downside risk, only that you might get more upside benefits with a democratic administration.
  
  2. Yes, I think the argument doesn’t make sense if you believe large training runs will be beneficial. Higher emissions seem like a reasonable price to pay for an aligned superintelligence. However, if you think large training runs will result in huge existential risks or otherwise not have upside benefits then that makes them worth avoiding—as the AI slowdown advocacy community argues—and the costs of emissions are clearly not worth paying.
  
  I think in general most people (and policymakers) are not bought into the idea that advanced AI will cause a technological singularity or be otherwise transformative. The point of this strategy would be to get those people (and policymakers) to take a stance on this issue that aligns with AI safety goals without having to be bought into the transformative effects of AI.
  
  So while a “Pro-AI” advocate might have to convince people of the transformative power of AI to make a counter-argument, we as “Anti-AI” advocates would only have to point non-AI affiliated people towards the climate effects of AI without having to “AI pill” the public and policymakers. (PauseAI apparently has looked into this already and has a page which gives a sense of what the strategy in this post might look like in practice (https://​​pauseai.info/​​environmental))
  
  3. Yes but the question—as @Stephen McAleese noted—“is whether this indirect approach would be more effective than or at least complementary to a more direct approach that advocates explicit compute limits and communicates risks from misaligned AI.” So yes national security /​ competitiveness considerations may regularly trump climate considerations, but if they are trumped less than by safety considerations then they’re the better bet. I don’t know what the answer to this is but I don’t think it’s obvious.

• Matthew McRedmond🔹 26 Jul 2024 7:29 UTC

  3 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: jackva’s comment on: Cli­mate Ad­vo­cacy and AI Safety: Su­per­charg­ing AI Slow­down Advocacy

  I would be curious to hear what the nature of your disagreement is : )

Cli­mate Ad­vo­cacy and AI Safety: Su­per­charg­ing AI Slow­down Advocacy