> According to critics, it benefits AI companies to keep you fixated on apocalypse because it distracts from the very real damage they're already doing to the world.

Am I not allowed to be concerned about _both_?

I do not believe that Sam Altman and other AI company execs believe that the singularity is imminent. If they did, they wouldn't behave so recklessly. Even if they don't care about the rest of humanity, there's too much risk to themselves if they actually believe what they're saying.

But I think it's correct to be worried about a potential future AI apocalypse. Personally I doubt that LLMs will scale to full sentience, but I believe we'll get there eventually. And whether it's in 2 years or 200 years I'm worried about it. Plenty of smart people who aren't working for AI companies (and thus have no motive to use it as hype or distraction) hold this belief and it really doesn't seem that crazy.

But yeah, obviously let's focus primarily on the real harms AI is causing in our society right now.

> I do not believe that Sam Altman and other AI company execs believe that the singularity is imminent. If they did, they wouldn't behave so recklessly. Even if they don't care about the rest of humanity, there's too much risk to themselves if they actually believe what they're saying.

I don't believe Zuckerberg believes in either the promise or the danger, his presentations are far too mundane. The leaked memos suggest he may simply not care about dangers, which is worse.

Altman at least seems to think an LLM can be used as an effective tool for harm and is doing more than the bare minimum to avoid AI analogies of all the accidents and disasters from the industrial age which led to us having health and safety laws, building codes, and consumer product safety laws.

Musk clearly thinks laws only exist for him to wield against others. Tries to keep active tools which cause widespread revulsion as if a freedom of speech argument is enough.

Amodei seems to actually care even when it hurts Anthropic, as evidenced by saying "no" to the US government. It could be kayfabe, Trump is famous for it after all, but as yet I have no active reason to dismiss Amodei as merely that.