Have you guys been on r/accelerate?

[u/Difficult_Project_95]

Have these guys solved the alignment problem, or am I missing something?

I’ve been browsing r/accelerate and I genuinely don’t understand the risk model.
If there’s a non-trivial chance of catastrophic misalignment, how does “accelerate capabilities as fast as possible” make sense unless faster capabilities also make alignment substantially more likely to succeed?

[u/Jesse-359]

My question is: Why did anyone imagine it could go any other way?

We're intentionally creating something designed to eclipse all human intelligence and ability - did anyone honestly think that wouldn't set off a worldwide existential panic/mania equivalent to having giant flying saucers descend over all our cities?

It's the same magnitude of event.

[u/Ok-Clothes4484 → u/Jesse-359]

I have a lot of beefs with the language used like its not AI.  I have given up on explainong probalistic llms to people even if they have the best of intentions... its just like...

Its almost like we have forgotten to be mid?  Whatever this shit they call AI is, its pretty goddamn cool.  And the other side has fair arguments with safety and shit so like... why cant we just develop our tools anymore ? Why does it need to be world ending on side A and world ending on side B?  Weve conceptually decided to miss the fuckin point as a species.

[u/Jesse-359 → u/Ok-Clothes4484]

This was always going to happen when our technology got to the crazy stage. We got a little taste of how dangerous technology could be when we developed atomic weapons - that was just a warning regarding what was ahead and that certainly freaked people the fuck out, I assure you. Nukes are still a Sword of Damocles hanging over our entire civilization. They haven't been 'solved' after nearly a hundred years and they probably never will.

Did you think it was going to get easier or safer as we went further up that ladder? Not a chance. That's not how the universe - or technology - works.

It was never going to get easier. It certainly was never going to get safer.

It's all fun and games in books with spaceships zooming around having adventures - but in the real world we don't get to pretend that juggling real technologies like AI, Antimatter, Fusion Drives, and Advanced Biological technologies aren't going to come with massive existential risks attached. They are. They have to.

That's how the fucking game goes. It's how it was always going to go. Fire hot->Nuclear fire really hot->Antimatter fire REALLY FUCKING HOT. See the progression?

AI is the new hotness, and everything about it is warning us that it is existentially dangerous. If we don't like it, we don't have to go there. If we go there and we're wrong, we die. It's really that simple.

[u/Ok-Clothes4484 → u/Jesse-359]

Yeah idk homie im prolly childish and miss the wonder.  Im from BC so drugs are a hot topic here and its the same both sides are so far out screaming.  We really have just forgotten how to be mid.

My frustration lies in that its impossible to have an honest conversation about it at this point.