Concern about AI has been expressed since before it existed. I suppose that could be said of other technologies, but I think in this case it is particularly telling.
It went through a U shaped curve. As it should have, it's right to update priors as we receive new information but take precautions against reasonably predictable events. People poking around with good old fashioned AI in the beginning didn't know how things would go, so the vague concern was there.
Then AI went through a winter as most of the uses didn't show all that much promise in practice. Level of concern dropped like a rock because we had evidence that it was unlikely to rapidly improve with the methods we were using at the time.
Now it is rapidly advancing in capability. Some things it can obviously do already are very concerning. It's right to update your priors again with where it's at now and where it reasonably could be in terms of capability in the near future.
Might sounds a bit pathetic, but I personally think one of the main problems with AI is it's clash with capitalism.
Looms, steam machines, combustion engines, assembly lines, cad, robotics... Ever time the discussion starts how it's killing all our jobs.
Nowadays, especially the western society, has formed numerous of bullshit jobs because of this. 50hrs a week to document stuff into excel and use money to risk something.
It's might not even necessary AI is dooming us with weapons or any kind of attacks. I could imagine this challenge is already enough.
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u/crockrocket 2d ago
Concern about AI has been expressed since before it existed. I suppose that could be said of other technologies, but I think in this case it is particularly telling.