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Re:OpenAI: Introducing SuperAlignment by ben_w on Thursday July 06, 2023 @03:25AM (#36612464)
Did you ever play the old "Pandemic" flash game? https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Pandemic

Doing that would be self-destructive, but that doesn't mean it won't happen (reference classes: insanity, cancer).

If the AI can invent and order a von Neumann probe — the first part is the hard part, custom parts orders over the internet is already a thing — that it can upload itself to, then it can block out (and start disassembling) the sun in a matter of decades with reasonable-looking reproduction rates (though obviously we're guessing what reasonable looks like).

AI taking over brain implants and turning against everyone without them like a zombie war (also a plot device in web serial The Deathworlders, futuristic Sci-fi so this isn't on Earth, but the same AI genocides multiple species over millions of years).

Re:OpenAI: Introducing SuperAlignment by antifa on Thursday July 06, 2023 @07:25AM (#36614226)
To be realistic, I'm more worried about McDonald's or Musk doing all of that.
Re:OpenAI: Introducing SuperAlignment by ben_w on Thursday July 06, 2023 @10:54AM (#36616943)
They're an easy reference class, to be sure, though not the only one.

If I'm framing the problem for an anti-capitalist audience, I'd ask something like:

Imagine the billionaire you hate the most. The worst of them. Now give them a highly competent sycophant that doesn't need to sleep, and will do even their most insane requests without question or remorse…

what can go wrong in this scenario?