They sound silly at first but many things have nowadays would sound ridiculous to people in the past; something sounding strange isn’t valid evidence against it

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_the_stone

> Appeal to the stone, also known as argumentum ad lapidem, is a logical fallacy that dismisses an argument as untrue or absurd. The dismissal is made by stating or reiterating that the argument is absurd, without providing further argumentation.

The arguments for it are a it abstract sometimes (which is maybe why science fiction is a good way to give a concrete, if unrealistic, introduction to the concept) but I think they seem pretty solid

In my experience the ex risk people understand that using science fiction examples makes a weak argument, and avoid them entirely.

It is the other people who use the age-old argument of "something like what you are describing happened in a piece of fiction, therefore it could never happen in real life".

> In my experience the ex risk people understand that using science fiction examples makes a weak argument, and avoid them entirely.

Roko's Basilisk is a weaker argument than most analogy-to-scifi arguments, because the assumptions underpinning most scifi used in such arguments are less implausiable than those underlying the Basilisk.

True but I haven't heard anyone unironically talk about Roku's Basilisk in years.

AI and ML are vast, sophisticated fields of study. Increasingly people are realising that innovations in these areas will have an outsized influence in their daily lives. But they lack the mental capacity or time to invest in these subjects to be able to speak about them coherently. In their perception only the "nerds" can talk about these subjects and demand to be taken "seriously".

Thankfully the bar to be recognised as a "nerd" is very low indeed. You only need to have seen some TV like Battle Star Galactica, or movies like Terminator, Ex Machina, or Transcendence (starring Johnny Depp) to be considered a Nerd. You also might have to read a "hard" sci-fi novel, but most people haven't so you just have to say that you have, to claim a higher level of the uh.. operating thetan.

Now all you need to be really taken seriously is a "sympathiser" who has a PhD or maybe just hangs around in a college campus to lend credence to your fears. And for the academic, there is a lot of money to be made, and influence to be gained if you are the one that this crowd approaches for credibility. Its even better if you actually believe in this drivel.

Thats what I think of Eliezer Yudkowsky.