Just because the truth is inconvenient doesn't make it false.

gavinflud 13 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It's not the truth until it's proven to be true though. It's a possibility, however likely or unlikely.

The alternative is sitting around and doing nothing and waiting for this God-like AI to come into existence, but you'd look pretty silly if you threw away years of your life only for that not to actually happen.

▲

Valakas_ 12 hours ago | parent [-]

Putting the fear of looking silly ahead of fear of human extinction or other nefarious consequences that could happen with that God-AI is way sillier.

	▲	suddenlybananas 11 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Look, if we were worried about human extinction, the frontier-labs should simply stop. They won't though.

▲

klhs 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If this scenario plays out in full it will be a bit worse than 'inconvenient' and I hope we will be able to prevent it.

▲

suddenlybananas 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I didn't say it was impossible, I said if it were true there would be nothing to do and thus no point in writing about that potentiality. It's sort of like writing about what mathematics should do if there was a thermonuclear war that wiped out all of civilisation.

▲

saurik 10 hours ago | parent [-]

Going about your job/life despite a looming threat is a different level of resignation than telling others not to worry and giving them a false sense of hope not because you truly understand the danger to be fake but because "what else am I to tell them? the truth is too horrible to bear" isn't actually doing anyone a kindness: it is going out of your way to make the jobs of those who would tell you the raw truth harder.

If you go to the doctor and they understand there there is a chance you are going to die but, when you come to them for advice on your pain, they look you straight in the eye and insist that you will be fine if you just eat some more fiber, they rob you and your family of a not only a chance to prepare and grieve but the motivation to fight the inevitable.

To your analogy, if you think we might be on the brink of a war that might massively effect your life and so you go to the wise guru who assures you you will be fine if you just duck and cover in the basement, they are, frankly, part of the problem, as they are making the war sound "not that bad", when if you understood the threat of thermonuclear war you might be protesting in the streets.

	▲	suddenlybananas 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I don't think you understand the conversation that these mathematicians are having. They are debating what to do as mathematicians with regards to math; not how society should handle a hypothetical AI god. I also don't think they necessarily believe in the AI god the way that you do.