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procyon's avatar

You know, I don't think Yann is even capable of considering Eliezer's argument. His mind is fixed on a position and anything that goes against that position gets instantly filtered out.

The argument for AI risk is actually quite simple, so I wonder why so many people have problems with it. Like, if you ever programmed anything you know that the computer simply follows your orders the way you wrote them and not necessarily in the way you intended. Scale that up to extremely capable adaptable autonomous programs and it's pretty clear what failure looks like.

People for some reason seem to think AI is just a normal person, maybe more intelligent, so it's all fine since smart people are nice. That view is, quite frankly, ridiculous. Delusional even.

Honestly, if they had called it "adaptable autonomous system" or "complex information processing" instead of AI, things would be much better...

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Steve Newman's avatar

The sad thing here for me is that Eliezer is not a good communicator, at least in this format. He comes across as strident and contemptuous. He takes his points as obvious, and can't always be bothered to explain them in a way that might actually help convey understanding to someone who doesn't already agree with him.

All of this is understandable, given the weight of the burden Eliezer has been carrying and the length of time he's been carrying it for. But it's not productive. If the goal is to save humanity, then at this stage, a critical subgoal is to be convincing: comprehensible, appealing, sympathetic. We need to meet people where they are (if not Yann in this instance, then the many other folks who will be reading this public conversation), explain things in terms that they can understand, and always come across as rational, patient, constructive. To the extent that it is ever possible to change someone's mind, that is the path. No one has ever had their mind changed by being browbeaten.

If Eliezer doesn't have the skills for this – which are a specific set of skills – or if he simply no longer has the patience, then again that's quite understandable, but I hope someone can help him understand that he is not serving the cause by engaging in public in this fashion.

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