Thread

1. davesque · 1791076659 · focus · HN ↗

   Yeah I wish we would focus on concrete risks like job displacement and disinformation. The apocalyptic stuff feels either misguided or like some kind of weird, toxic, reverse psychology marketing by OpenAI and Anthropic. I wish we would just move on from it.

   And the folks from podcastistan are never clear on the details of how human extinction would happen exactly. It's always something like, "Well, how do humans regard chickens? AI is way smarter therefore it wants to conquer and control us." An ASML lithography machine is also way better at making chips, but we don't consider it a threat.

   1. stratos123 · 1791107700 · focus · HN ↗

      > The apocalyptic stuff feels either misguided or like some kind of weird, toxic, reverse psychology marketing by OpenAI and Anthropic. I wish we would just move on from it.

      If you for a second put yourself into the shoes of a person who thinks "the apocalyptic stuff" has even a 5% chance of literally happening in the real world, you might see how you wouldn't agree to move on from it.

      1. davesque · 1791148499 · focus · HN ↗

         Yes, it would be correct not to pursue a technology that has that chance of wiping out the world. But where are the people who are suggesting these probabilities getting their numbers? I personally can't imagine where, and I'm an engineer with a specific technical interest in LLMs. And I haven't heard one clear description of the methodologies used to calculate these chances.

         The much more likely explanation to me is that people are just spitballing, either because they've watched too much sci-fi, or they have some weird counterintuitive agenda (e.g. Anthropic and OpenAI trying to position themselves as the amazing, trustworthy keepers of this dangerous technology before their IPOs).

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