I wonder what can even be done about the far future over billions of years. I don’t think that even if AI progress is fully shut down forever, mankind would have anything to do after the next 10 thousand years. Therefore, mankind’s task is to ensure that nobody screws up the current 10 thousand or far less years. In the case of AI this is reduced to ensuring that no one creates an ASI not aligned to the broadest coalition of humans, and to solving current problems.
I agree that going into the details of the far future and trying to find specific solutions to specific problems might be ineffective, e.g. a caveman living 100,000 years ago can’t do much help us solve global warming.
But I think imagining the far future over billions of years once in a while, and treating it as a serious topic (e.g. listening to people talk about it without cringing), helps us remember that it actually exists and is something at stake.
I wonder what can even be done about the far future over billions of years. I don’t think that even if AI progress is fully shut down forever, mankind would have anything to do after the next 10 thousand years. Therefore, mankind’s task is to ensure that nobody screws up the current 10 thousand or far less years. In the case of AI this is reduced to ensuring that no one creates an ASI not aligned to the broadest coalition of humans, and to solving current problems.
I agree that going into the details of the far future and trying to find specific solutions to specific problems might be ineffective, e.g. a caveman living 100,000 years ago can’t do much help us solve global warming.
But I think imagining the far future over billions of years once in a while, and treating it as a serious topic (e.g. listening to people talk about it without cringing), helps us remember that it actually exists and is something at stake.