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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   2936 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 16, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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First AI got reasonably useful. Then people started asking how bad actors could exploit it. Then they asked how much damage it could do in general.

LessWrong went through a similar trajectory ten years ago. Once the idea that AI could be dangerous percolated, conversations started to ask if it had to be dangerous. Alignment made it into the Overton window, to the point where people could ask for donations to MIRI without being treated as panhandlers. Sometimes.

How can I bet on this cursed future knowledge? Is there any advantage to knowing what thinkpieces will be featured in TIME in two years? How about startups?

Aren’t those thinkpieces about “alignment” already out there? It’s just that the average journalist misunderstood it as “alignment with progressive worldview” instead of “alignment with the continuity of human race”

I think the current state, realizing that AI might not be aligned, is step 2. Step 3 would be more awareness and investment in potential fixes.

Basically, I want to bet on elites using “caring about alignment” as a differentiator. More funding and attention will go to groups that at least pretend to have a solution for the problem.

“alignment with the continuity of human race”

There are thinkpieces on this as well, there is just no hysteria yet.

Whether these thinkpieces exist or not doesn't really say much. Regular people are barely if at all aware of ai being a thing at all yet, despite it being in the news regularly.

Sure but does it really matter what the average person thinks? Elite attention is 99% on the news and 1% what the non-elite people think so ideally the politicians and journos panicking is all you need if you think alignment efforts are useful or important

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