Nuanced thinking doesn’t fit in a short memetic sound bite or 140 characters.
Given that we are awful at moderation and if I am forced to choose, I say go. As it stands our technological society will not survive without major advancements in areas like energy, and AI could help us do that.
Contrast that with the risks which are far more hypothetical than nuclear power. As it stands zero people have been harmed by an AI without a human instructing the AI to do harm. There have been no “meltdowns” that were unintended and we are not even sure it’s likely or even plausible.
Our civilization is like a transatlantic flight that has passed the half way mark and no longer has the fuel to turn around. The mechanism here is that our population is vastly higher than what can be supported without technology. The evolutionary ratchet has clicked. We are committed.
I’m not arguing that safety is nonsense. I’m arguing that humanity doesn’t know how to both move and be safe, at least at scale. We can do it as individuals when we exercise caution in an endeavor, but in groups we either move or we do not move. When we admit the cautionary forces it becomes a vetocracy of fear and everything stops.
This is why it usually takes an unhinged maniac to make progress at anything, like the psycho behind the company launching the rocket today.
We are not good at this.