Politicization. The COVID-19 response worries me much more than you, and it’s positives only outweighed it’s negatives only because of the fact that there wasn’t any X-risk. In particular, the fact that there was a strong response actually decayed pretty fast, and in our world virtually everything is politicized into a culture war as soon as it actually impacts people’s lives.
Note that I’m simply pointing out that people will probably try to regulate AI, and that this could delay AI timelines. I’m not proposing that we should be optimistic about regulation. Indeed, I’m quite pessimistic about heavy-handed government regulation of AI, but for reasons I’m not going to go into here.
Separately, the reason why the Covid-19 response decayed quickly likely had little to do with politicization, given that the pandemic response decayed in every nation in the world, with the exception of China. My guess is that, historically, regulations on manufacturing particular technologies have not decayed quite so quickly.
Note that I’m simply pointing out that people will probably try to regulate AI, and that this could delay AI timelines. I’m not proposing that we should be optimistic about regulation. Indeed, I’m quite pessimistic about heavy-handed government regulation of AI, but for reasons I’m not going to go into here.
Separately, the reason why the Covid-19 response decayed quickly likely had little to do with politicization, given that the pandemic response decayed in every nation in the world, with the exception of China. My guess is that, historically, regulations on manufacturing particular technologies have not decayed quite so quickly.