Yeah. I have something very similar in my drafts folder, might as well describe it here instead of making a post.
Basically the idea is to take nuclear vs. renewables as a model. Build a public movement that says one kind of tech (AI) is bad, and another kind of tech (what I’d call “human-potential technologies”—economically complementing humans rather than substituting for them—so stuff like genetic engineering, thought interfaces, pharmaceuticals, prosthetics etc) is good. So that researchers and investors get pushed away from the former and into the latter.
It would probably require a “full-court press” similar to the anti-nuclear movement. Influence the press, academia, industry, laws, politicians all at once. Make AI a political dead weight, and make human-potential technologies the preferred alternative.
The main question is whether human-potential technologies are promising enough. It’s possible that getting the same amount of economic growth out of them requires much more time and money than going for AI. But then again, renewables were also in pretty bad shape when the anti-nuclear movement started. It’s only now, after decades of investment, that they’ve become competitive.
I think some historical review of nuclear vs. renewables from this lens could be pretty valuable to write up & read.
It’s possible that getting the same amount of economic growth out of them requires much more time and money than going for AI.
Reprogenetics would take time, yeah. It definitely doesn’t take nearly as much money though. A gippity tells me that some $100Bs have been invested in AI. I think that $5B would be more than enough to make it pretty likely that we can have strong reprogenetics in less than 10 years. (Then there has to be uptake, and the kids have to grow up; but the hopeworthiness of the future would be legible earlier than that.)
Yeah. I have something very similar in my drafts folder, might as well describe it here instead of making a post.
Basically the idea is to take nuclear vs. renewables as a model. Build a public movement that says one kind of tech (AI) is bad, and another kind of tech (what I’d call “human-potential technologies”—economically complementing humans rather than substituting for them—so stuff like genetic engineering, thought interfaces, pharmaceuticals, prosthetics etc) is good. So that researchers and investors get pushed away from the former and into the latter.
It would probably require a “full-court press” similar to the anti-nuclear movement. Influence the press, academia, industry, laws, politicians all at once. Make AI a political dead weight, and make human-potential technologies the preferred alternative.
The main question is whether human-potential technologies are promising enough. It’s possible that getting the same amount of economic growth out of them requires much more time and money than going for AI. But then again, renewables were also in pretty bad shape when the anti-nuclear movement started. It’s only now, after decades of investment, that they’ve become competitive.
I think some historical review of nuclear vs. renewables from this lens could be pretty valuable to write up & read.
Reprogenetics would take time, yeah. It definitely doesn’t take nearly as much money though. A gippity tells me that some $100Bs have been invested in AI. I think that $5B would be more than enough to make it pretty likely that we can have strong reprogenetics in less than 10 years. (Then there has to be uptake, and the kids have to grow up; but the hopeworthiness of the future would be legible earlier than that.)
transhumanism vs posthumanism basically