Can’t speak for the “mainstream AI safety community”, but I personally think it’s bad to work on general purpose robots.
“Risk of totalitarianism” is even underselling the danger somewhat. General purpose robots will 1) help oppress and defeat people directly 2) substitute for soldiers, thus removing one of the pillars of human irreplaceability and political power 3) substitute for workers, thus removing the other pillar of human irreplaceability and political power.
And I wouldn’t focus on “a small group of bad actors” either. The discourse has been so poisoned by this “rogues rogues rogues” fearmongering, with a side order of “China”. In reality, the most likely group to use robots this way is simply today’s rich and powerful elites, who would love to have no need for (and no fear of) the rest of us.
Can’t speak for the “mainstream AI safety community”, but I personally think it’s bad to work on general purpose robots.
“Risk of totalitarianism” is even underselling the danger somewhat. General purpose robots will 1) help oppress and defeat people directly 2) substitute for soldiers, thus removing one of the pillars of human irreplaceability and political power 3) substitute for workers, thus removing the other pillar of human irreplaceability and political power.
And I wouldn’t focus on “a small group of bad actors” either. The discourse has been so poisoned by this “rogues rogues rogues” fearmongering, with a side order of “China”. In reality, the most likely group to use robots this way is simply today’s rich and powerful elites, who would love to have no need for (and no fear of) the rest of us.