My comment won't be an exhaustive investigation into AI doomerism and why it's wrong and harmful, but I do want to just highlight one particular thread in all this, which is fear.
Human beings are addicted to it. And, unfortunately, it sells. It sells not just in politics, where in my country there is a surge of blaming the "other" (Russian disinfo ops, immigrants) for the slow decay of our lifestyles, it also sells in tech to otherwise smart people.
We'd all benefit from a little less fear, which shuts off our ability to reason. I'd so value more rational discourse that doesn't immediately veer into this extreme or that extreme. How can it be that we across the globe are so polarized, so incapable of having reasonable discourse that doesn't immediately result in wild-eyed proclamations of the total extinction of the human race or turning the "other side" into slavering devils who may as well be non-humans?
Humans are addicted to it. It’s just that last 30 years the mode was climate change and Thunbergesque rhetoric. Now it is AI xrisk. We humans love a crisis story.
There are lots of juicy parallels between climate risk and AI x risk. Both claim non trivial chance of human extinction and pause economic activity for it.
There are indeed quite a few parallels. But to make sure I understand your position - are you claiming that the risks to global society posed by climate change are insignificant?
Extinction is much less interesting to discuss because it's so binary. Global catastrophe is much more interesting to discuss because the topic then becomes about failure modes, cascading failures, and the impact of those failures.
Sure the climate change space is as diverse as the x risk space. Both have a continuum of complete extinction and tail risks and complete collapse vs significant collapse.
For example significant climate change activists argue that collapse is imminent if we don’t do something about emissions.
Yes I do think tail risks are mostly not true for climate change. And I think it’s the same for AI risks.
I knew this wouldn’t have any substance, but I’m kind of appalled nonetheless.
They had the time to find and interview Gebru and Bender to say that AI will never be smart enough to matter (which, in 2026: cmon), but not to engage with a single actual paper on the subject. Instead they just tossed some faces on a gradient, said that their reasoning is “not clear”, and moved on. Maybe, idk… maybe the books and papers and stuff might help? Or you could interview them?
Sources for the claim that AI scientists are “bad scientists”? Well, let’s run em down:
- some people speculated they are, without specifically citing an argument, figure, or even vague group.
- there’s a plausible motive for them to lie, as they want their field to exist and be important.
At least the climate change doubters had some data! These folks only remembered to bring the spurious allegations part. Kids these days…
What’s very scary is that the type of people to downplay x risks are the exact people who have the absolute WORST track record like Timnit and Bender and Gary Marcus and Yann LeCun.
At least Yanns only mistake was to not be bullish on language models. Timnit and Bender are not just wrong, they are fundamentally bad faith people.
The people who got predictions right on the other hand are people like Yud and Nate Soares who think x risks are real.
So here you have people with a good track record, who know how things work and they seem to suggest x risks are real. What do we take from this?
My comment won't be an exhaustive investigation into AI doomerism and why it's wrong and harmful, but I do want to just highlight one particular thread in all this, which is fear.
Human beings are addicted to it. And, unfortunately, it sells. It sells not just in politics, where in my country there is a surge of blaming the "other" (Russian disinfo ops, immigrants) for the slow decay of our lifestyles, it also sells in tech to otherwise smart people.
We'd all benefit from a little less fear, which shuts off our ability to reason. I'd so value more rational discourse that doesn't immediately veer into this extreme or that extreme. How can it be that we across the globe are so polarized, so incapable of having reasonable discourse that doesn't immediately result in wild-eyed proclamations of the total extinction of the human race or turning the "other side" into slavering devils who may as well be non-humans?
Humans are addicted to it. It’s just that last 30 years the mode was climate change and Thunbergesque rhetoric. Now it is AI xrisk. We humans love a crisis story.
There are lots of juicy parallels between climate risk and AI x risk. Both claim non trivial chance of human extinction and pause economic activity for it.
There are indeed quite a few parallels. But to make sure I understand your position - are you claiming that the risks to global society posed by climate change are insignificant?
Extinction is much less interesting to discuss because it's so binary. Global catastrophe is much more interesting to discuss because the topic then becomes about failure modes, cascading failures, and the impact of those failures.
Sure the climate change space is as diverse as the x risk space. Both have a continuum of complete extinction and tail risks and complete collapse vs significant collapse.
For example significant climate change activists argue that collapse is imminent if we don’t do something about emissions.
Yes I do think tail risks are mostly not true for climate change. And I think it’s the same for AI risks.
I knew this wouldn’t have any substance, but I’m kind of appalled nonetheless.
They had the time to find and interview Gebru and Bender to say that AI will never be smart enough to matter (which, in 2026: cmon), but not to engage with a single actual paper on the subject. Instead they just tossed some faces on a gradient, said that their reasoning is “not clear”, and moved on. Maybe, idk… maybe the books and papers and stuff might help? Or you could interview them?
Sources for the claim that AI scientists are “bad scientists”? Well, let’s run em down:
- some people speculated they are, without specifically citing an argument, figure, or even vague group.
- there’s a plausible motive for them to lie, as they want their field to exist and be important.
At least the climate change doubters had some data! These folks only remembered to bring the spurious allegations part. Kids these days…
What’s very scary is that the type of people to downplay x risks are the exact people who have the absolute WORST track record like Timnit and Bender and Gary Marcus and Yann LeCun. At least Yanns only mistake was to not be bullish on language models. Timnit and Bender are not just wrong, they are fundamentally bad faith people.
The people who got predictions right on the other hand are people like Yud and Nate Soares who think x risks are real.
So here you have people with a good track record, who know how things work and they seem to suggest x risks are real. What do we take from this?