If you just go around healing traumas willy-nilly, then you might not ever see through any particular illusion like this one if it’s running in you.
Kind of like, generically working on trauma processing in general might or might not help an alcoholic quit drinking. There’s some reason for hope, but it’s possible to get lost in loops of navel-gazing, especially if they never ever even admit to themselves that they have a problem.
But if it’s targeted, the addiction basically doesn’t stand a chance.
I’m not trying to say “Just work on traumas and be Fully Healed™ before working on AI risk.”
I’m saying something much, much more precise.
I do in fact think there’s basically no point in someone working on AI risk if they don’t dissolve this specific trauma structure.
Well, or at least make it fully conscious and build their nervous system holding capacity enough that it (a) they can watch it trying to run in real time and (b) they can also reliably stop it from grabbing their inner steering wheel so to speak.
But frankly, for most people it’d be easier just to fully integrate the pain than it would be to develop that level of general nervous system capacity without integrating said pain.
Of course that’s possible. I didn’t mean to dismiss that part.
But… well, as I just wrote to Richard_Ngo:
I do in fact think there’s basically no point in someone working on AI risk if they don’t dissolve this specific trauma structure.
Well, or at least make it fully conscious and build their nervous system holding capacity enough that it (a) they can watch it trying to run in real time and (b) they can also reliably stop it from grabbing their inner steering wheel so to speak.
But frankly, for most people it’d be easier just to fully integrate the pain than it would be to develop that level of general nervous system capacity without integrating said pain.