More generally, ratfic is basically the foundation of a lot of AI doom content, and how people believe in AI is going to kill us all, and while I’ll give it credit for being more coherent and generally exploring things that the original fic doesn’t, there is no reason for the amount of credence given to a lot of the assumptions in AI doom, especially once we realize that a lot of them probably come from fanfiction stories, not reality.
Noting for the record that this seems pretty clearly false to me.
I may weaken this, but my point is that a lot of people in LW probably came here through HPMOR and FiO, and with the ability for anyone to write a post and it getting karma, I think it’s likely that people who came through that route and had basically no structure akin to science to guide them away from unpromising paths likely allowed for low standards of discussion to be created.
I do buy that your social circle isn’t relying on fanfiction for your research. I am worried that a lot of the people on LW, especially the non-experts are implicitly relying on ratfic or science-fiction models as reasons to be worried on AI.
Noting for the record that this seems pretty clearly false to me.
I may weaken this, but my point is that a lot of people in LW probably came here through HPMOR and FiO, and with the ability for anyone to write a post and it getting karma, I think it’s likely that people who came through that route and had basically no structure akin to science to guide them away from unpromising paths likely allowed for low standards of discussion to be created.
I do buy that your social circle isn’t relying on fanfiction for your research. I am worried that a lot of the people on LW, especially the non-experts are implicitly relying on ratfic or science-fiction models as reasons to be worried on AI.
I have specifically committed not to read HPMOR for this reason, and do not read much fiction in general, as a datapoint from a “doomer”.
I’m okay with that, but I wasn’t wanting to have that drastic of an effect on people. I more wanted to point out something that is overlooked.