One thing that might help change the opinion of people about friendly AI is to make some progress on it. For example, if Eliezer has had any interesting ideas about how to do it in the last five years of thinking about it, it could be helpful to communicate them.
I disagree strongly. World atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is still increasing, indeed the rate at which it is increasing is increasing (i.e CO2 output per annum is increasing), so antiprogress is being made upon the global warming problem—yet people still think it’s worth putting more effort into, rather than simply giving up.
A case that is credible to a large number of people needs to be made that this is a high-probability near-term problem. Without that it’s just a scary sci-fi movie, and frankly there are scarier sci-fi movie concepts out there (e.g. bioterror).
Anthropogenic global warming is a low probability, long term problem. At least the most SERIOUS consequences of anthropogenic global warming are long term (e.g. 2050 plus) and low probability (though no scientist would put a number on the probability of human extinction through global warming)
Personally I think that governmental support for reduction in consumption in fossil fuels is at least partly due to energy supply concerns, both in terms of abundance (oil discovery is not increasing) and political concerns (we don’t want to be reliant on russia gas),
From this view we should still try to transition away from most fossil fuel consumption, apart from perhaps coal… and it makes sense to ally with the people concerned with global warming to get the support of the populace.
reduction in consumption in fossil fuels is at least partly due to energy supply concerns
the global warming threat is an essential reason for not using fossil fuels. There is a lot of coal and a lot of tar-sand available. If we didn’t care about long term problems, we’d just use those.
I disagree strongly. World atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is still increasing, indeed the rate at which it is increasing is increasing (i.e CO2 output per annum is increasing), so antiprogress is being made upon the global warming problem—yet people still think it’s worth putting more effort into, rather than simply giving up.
Anthropogenic global warming is a low probability, long term problem. At least the most SERIOUS consequences of anthropogenic global warming are long term (e.g. 2050 plus) and low probability (though no scientist would put a number on the probability of human extinction through global warming)
Personally I think that governmental support for reduction in consumption in fossil fuels is at least partly due to energy supply concerns, both in terms of abundance (oil discovery is not increasing) and political concerns (we don’t want to be reliant on russia gas),
From this view we should still try to transition away from most fossil fuel consumption, apart from perhaps coal… and it makes sense to ally with the people concerned with global warming to get the support of the populace.
the global warming threat is an essential reason for not using fossil fuels. There is a lot of coal and a lot of tar-sand available. If we didn’t care about long term problems, we’d just use those.
Coal can be nasty for other reasons apart from greenhouse gases. How much of the coal is low sulphur?
I don’t see tar-sand as a total option, part of the energy mix sure. But we still need to pursue alternatives.