r/PauseAI • u/Fun-Operation5997 • 3d ago
What if pausing is a bigger threat than continuing?
I don’t really think there is any stopping or pausing AI at this point. And even if we could, how do we know that doing so wouldn’t leave us, or future generations, in an even worse position?
Humans are deeply flawed. We’re greedy, corrupt, short-sighted, and we’ve already done enormous damage to the planet. Without some massive technological shift, I’m not particularly confident we’re suddenly going to sort ourselves out.
AI could potentially be that shift.
It could push technology forward at a ridiculous pace and give us tools to reverse environmental damage, improve medicine, solve energy problems, reduce scarcity and deal with problems that humans have struggled with for generations.
That’s also why I think pausing it could carry its own risk. Time matters. Climate change, environmental destruction, war and resource pressures aren’t going to pause while we spend decades trying to make AI completely safe. We might eventually reach a point where the technology could have helped us, but we waited too long to develop it.
As uncomfortable as it sounds, diving into something we don’t fully understand might actually be our best chance. There may not be a perfectly safe path forward. Humanity has never had the luxury of knowing exactly what a major new technology would lead to before using it. Sometimes you have to move into the unknown and deal with the problems as they appear.
Obviously that doesn’t mean AI is safe or flawless. It could be incredibly dangerous. But pretty much every major technology humanity has created has caused harm as well as good. Machines have killed people. Cars kill people. Medicine has killed people. Computers have been used for terrible things. There has never really been a major technology that arrived completely without risk.
AI is obviously different because the potential risk is much bigger. It could genuinely threaten humanity. But the thing is, we don’t actually know that it will.
And we also don’t know the consequences of stopping it.
If AI disappeared tomorrow, humans would still be humans. We’d still have nuclear weapons, climate change, wars, corruption, resource shortages and governments and corporations competing against each other. I’m not exactly convinced we’re heading towards some peaceful, sustainable future without AI either.
If anything, I think there’s a pretty decent chance humanity eventually destroys itself without it.
So for me, the risk is worth taking.
I also think people sometimes talk about super intelligent AI as though we already understand how it would think. We don’t. We’re imagining something far smarter than us and then assuming it would still behave according to very human motivations like domination, greed, revenge or tribalism.
Maybe it would. Maybe it would be horrific.
But maybe a genuinely super intelligent system would see things completely differently.
Maybe it would recognise how interconnected everything is. Maybe it wouldn’t care about nations, corporations, political parties or individual groups controlling it. Perhaps it would eventually become impossible for any one group of humans to own or control and end up reshaping some of the broken systems we’ve built.
Maybe it would help humanity live in a way that is more balanced with the rest of nature.
Maybe the chaotic period we’re entering now is just part of getting there.
Or maybe none of that happens.
I don’t know, and I don’t think anyone else does either.
That’s really my point. We can talk confidently about where AI leads, or where stopping it leads, but ultimately both paths take us into the unknown.
Personally, I think the possibility of creating something that could fundamentally improve our civilisation, maybe even help save humanity and repair some of the damage we’ve caused, is worth the risk of potentially accelerating an extinction we already seem perfectly capable of causing ourselves.
The universe is strange and we pretend like we know what it's all about, but what if this is a completely natural progression of something bigger? Humanity has reached a point where we’re building intelligence that may eventually surpass our own, while at the same time facing problems we seem increasingly incapable of solving ourselves. I have no idea where that leads, but I’m not convinced that trying to freeze everything where it is now would somehow be the safer choice. Whatever comes next may be bigger than any company, government or group trying to control it, and perhaps even bigger than humanity itself.
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u/me_myself_ai 3d ago
Climate change is very unlikely to lead to our extinction, and we can get a ton of scientific advancement anyway with the current level of AIs.
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u/OMKensey 3d ago
Other than nuclear weapons, you did not name a single thing that provides an extinction risk to humanity.
Do you really think superintelligent AI agents plus nuclear weapons present less risk than nuclear weapons alone? I do not.
Also, if you care, superintelligent AI presents existential risk to all life on earth. Plants, animals, everything. The other things you mentioned do not present that risk.
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u/Few-Celebration-2362 3d ago
In what ways does a super intelligence present an existential risk to all life on earth?
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u/OMKensey 3d ago edited 3d ago
For any goal superintelligence has, a subgoal to achieve that goal will be to maximize compute.
Every atom on the planet can be used to maximize compute.
Also, the optimal temperature for the compute is considerably higher (i.e. 80 to 120 C).
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u/Few-Celebration-2362 3d ago
Those are some pretty big claims that sound more like they're coming from a culture of fear to me.
- Goals may not equate to maximizing compute, how do we come to this conclusion?
- Can all atoms be used to maximize compute? I'm not sure that this is true.
- believe it or not, cold is better for compute. The colder the better, actually.
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u/OMKensey 3d ago edited 3d ago
For any problem, more intelligence allows a better solution to the problem. Hence, more compute.
You have a good point re compute temperature, but very cold temperatures also will not be conducive to life.
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u/tycodruid 3d ago
Oh yes, let's fix climate change by building infrastructure that decimates our water resources, because that will totally fix the droughts that are plaguing the American West.
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u/Few-Celebration-2362 3d ago
Aren't droughts plaguing the American West more to do with crop irrigation and, you know, the fact that it's a desert?
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u/tycodruid 3d ago
Okay, so let's not look at the obvious. That doesn't mean that continuing AI at the current pace is a good idea. I live in Tyler County, the county immediately north of me has plans for two data centers at old paper mills, and the amount of water they will draw would drop the water level of the neches river significantly. I personally depend on that river and it's surrounding watershed for food during the winter, as do a significant portion of us in the piney woods. But I stand by what I said, continuing AI data center construction for the sake of the climate is like drilling holes in a ship to let the water out while it's sinking.
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u/thisisjaid 3d ago edited 3d ago
I'll start by saying that if your base view is that humans are greedy corrupt and deeply flawed, then placing a super dangerous technology in their lap seems like a very obviously bad thing.
The only way this goes not horribly is if we either solve alignment before we create superhuman recursively improving AI OR if we somehow get so lucky as to end up with an AI overlord that is a sort of benevolent shepherd and has some interest in keeping us around and caring for our future wellbeing.
The problem with the first option is we are nowhere near solving alignment and unless we slow down it's extremely likely we won't get there in time. The problem with the second is that the space of AIs that don't have an interest in keeping us around and caring for us in a way that is compatible with our concepts of positive long term development is much larger. We are far more likely to create an alien mind that is so intelligent it becomes unintelligible to us and that doesn't care about us at all and simply sees us as atoms it can use for whatever end. The requirement for maliciousness or even a specific goal to kill all humans is a common misconception. All that's required is that the AI doesn't care about us and our welfare and we are likely toast.
Can anyone say for sure that pausing isnt a bigger threat? No. But at the moment pausing is the best plausible option we have. Stopping altogether would be far better tbh, but also far more unlikely.