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Re:OpenAI Insider Estimates 70% Chance AI Will Destroy or Tr... by hollerith on Monday June 10, 2024 @11:34AM (#40634679)
>>70 percent chance that AI will destroy or catastrophically harm humanity

>Is there any technology you can't say that about?

Yes: all the technologies humanity has invented except for AI and maybe possibly nuclear bombs.

Or am I misinterpreting your question?

Re:OpenAI Insider Estimates 70% Chance AI Will Destroy or Tr... by cm2187 on Monday June 10, 2024 @12:12PM (#40635137)
Nuclear bombs aren't the only technology that made ww2 so bad. Pretty much every technology has been used for harm one way in another. The question is on balance whether we are better off with or without.
Re:OpenAI Insider Estimates 70% Chance AI Will Destroy or Tr... by hollerith on Monday June 10, 2024 @12:17PM (#40635191)
Since you are bringing up WW2, I'm guessing you do not realize that by "destroy humanity", the OpenAI insider (Kokotajlo) means "reduce the human population to exactly zero". He does not mean, "kill people" or even "kill many people".
Re:OpenAI Insider Estimates 70% Chance AI Will Destroy or Tr... by textninja on Monday June 10, 2024 @01:34PM (#40635955)
He added a lesser option, catastrophically harming humanity, so whatever he meant by the first is immaterial (“there’s a 70% chance of a hurricane or strong winds”). Furthermore, if it wasn’t a high number chosen for dramatic effect the estimated percentage would be completely arbitrary.
Re:OpenAI Insider Estimates 70% Chance AI Will Destroy or Tr... by hollerith on Monday June 10, 2024 @01:40PM (#40636011)
I disagree that 70% was chosen for dramatic effect.
Re:OpenAI Insider Estimates 70% Chance AI Will Destroy or Tr... by textninja on Monday June 10, 2024 @02:27PM (#40636541)
No, you’re right, it was chosen because “trust me bro”.

Look, it may well be something he believes, and he’s free to prognosticate (or market) however he likes, but I see absolutely nothing to support the number outside of his own opinion.

Besides, there’s no time limit on p(doom), so it’s completely unfalsifiable (“on a long enough timescale…”), and it’s about the destruction of humanity which means it’s unprovable as well. That, in my view, makes his 70% guess a sensational statement lacking scientific merit.

Re:OpenAI Insider Estimates 70% Chance AI Will Destroy or Tr... by textninja on Monday June 10, 2024 @01:21PM (#40635818)
No, the number is made up and the facts don’t matter so the statement can easily be reimagined as an ad lib.

> There’s a [arbitrary number] percent chance that [technology] will destroy or catastrophically harm humanity

Try these: social media, the Internet, the large hadron collider, Starlink, Neuralink, iPhones, iDrones, quantum computers, regular computers, the 2038 bug, the Y2K bug, electric cars, gasoline cars, the great firewall of China, the not so great firewalls of asbestos, mRNA technology, gain of function research, nuclear bombs, nuclear energy, paper clip manufacturers, scissors.

I’m not saying it’s true that these have a 70 percent chance of destroying or catastrophically harming humanity, but couldn’t you make the argument?