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I have deep emotions seeing you go from an AI-skeptic a few years back to well, this. I'm not quite sure what those emotions are, but they're there.
I’m very flawed, in that I’m often arrogant, prone to making things up, dismissive. But I like to think that when the evidence is there, I can adapt, change my view. The evidence is here - even a simpleton can extrapolate. It’s easy to be scared but, when I am, I think of all the scientists and philosophers and inventors who one day imagined a moment like this, but who never got to see it. That is also a privilege, even if the outcome is a poor one.
I'm certainly not critiquing you for changing your mind! Imagine you had an interlocutor who you respected, yet who had always strongly pushed back against your claims. To have them suddenly adopt them, potentially even more strongly than yourself? That's a bemusing experience to say the least. It's as if the Pope recanted and became a Protestant, if not as drastic.
I am moderately depressed, and often feel shite about how life has been going recently (objectively not bad enough to warrant it). Yet I find strong comfort in knowing that in likely in one of the most interesting periods of human history. Leaving aside the 97 billion deceased anatomically modern humans, I feel a pang of sadness for every visionary, every proto-rationalist, singularitarian who dreamt of a transhumanist future, and yet died before they could see it.
In their honor, I intend to live to see wonders/horrors, and if the former, a lasting solution to every problem I've ever had. If the latter? Barring starving to death, it'll probably be quick and mostly painless. The future could be amazing, and I want to see it unfold. I'm sick of nothing ever happening.
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