Discussion
AI Doomerism has been in the news lately, especially with the loud, viral resignation of Jacob Coxon from Anthropic.
Maybe I've missed it, but I haven't seen any statements from CEOs and other execs who are more on the AI Booster side of the ledger.
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Part of me thinks that guy is still on the payroll, anything to hype the awesome power of a failing stats model.
I'd just appreciate it if these dorks would be more specific. Exactly how is a bot in a computer network going to destroy me? Please elucidate, otherwise I assume this is just another round of cash-inducing bullshit.
Where are Satya Nadella, Sundar Pichai, Mark Zuckerberg, Jensen Huang, 😁 Huang, Jeff Dean on this? Why aren't they out there calling out the Doomer narrative for the nonsense that it is?
I have an hypothesis:
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@emilymbender My suspicion is that they'd have to admit that a large number of their block-and-tackle AI engineering corps are cultists, which means either having to flush them out and face a brain drain, or supporting them and dealing with a PR nightmare. Pretending to ignore it and making noises that capital markets like is the line of least resistance.
They can't, because the Doomer narrative *is* the Booster narrative. To debunk the Doomer stuff (and it *is* bunk), you have to point out that it's based on pure fantasy that the mathy maths are going to combust into consciousness ...
... or if not consciousness, then some thinking, reasoning, self-improving entity.
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It's like P. T. Barnum but without the flair. "Step right up. Come see the AI that will DESTROY THE WORLD! Look at its horrible consequences, gasp in fear as it shakes its chains. Will _you_ be its next victim? Only 50 pence to find out. Step right up!"
As @alex and I write in The AI Con (see cp 6): even though the Boosters and the Doomers like to portray themselves as holding down opposite extremes of opinions on "AI", they are two sides of the same coin.
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The Boosters say: AI is a thing, it's inevitable, it's imminent and it's going to solve all of our problems.
The Doomers say: AI is a thing, it's inevitable, it's imminent and it's going to kill us all.
These are obviously the same story, with just different twists at the end. And both are nonsense. There is "moderate" position between them, but there is space outside of that fantasy world where we can see the actual harms happening in the name of "AI".
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@emilymbender yeah no this basically nails it. they're perfectly happy to let everyone believe that AI is some inevitable doom product, just like how they want to keep the conversation around easily obscurable water-usage statistics and not irreplaceable resources and energy grid failure.