The idea of total extinction might seem wild for non-nerds. Maybe it is good to start with small things: -the job you are doing will be done by AI -whatever education you or your kids get in college, it won’t give you a job -even if you are working on AI with AI you still can be replaced completely by AI
This may at least make them to think more about impact on society and importance of the problem on the gut level, and from there we could go to more serious issues
I would say the nuclear war would be the least sci-fi scenario. Arm race leads to using AI everywhere to beat the opponent, including systems responsible for observing and responding to opponent’s missile strikes, and then it goes rogue.
I think bioweapons can be persuasive. We know that there are viruses like smallpox with very high lethality and very big virulence. Actually COVID and smallpox would be a good starting point for explanation. I would say something like: “Remember COVID spread everywhere despite all restrictions? Its incubation period was roughly 2 weeks. For smallpox, it can be like 40 days. It is incredibly viral. In a modern world, in 40 days it will be everywhere, and then it is too late. Lethality rate 50-80%. And for smallpox we have a vaccine, that is why we are safe against a smallpox. AI already designs viruses and can easily be used to design something like smallpox, but for which this vaccine does not work”.
I don’t think most people think smallpox-level pandemics are believable. Sure, they happened in the past, but they couldn’t happen now with modern medicine, could they? Logic comparing incubation periods, whether true or false, is also the same kind of finicky reasoning that fails the mom test.
The idea of total extinction might seem wild for non-nerds. Maybe it is good to start with small things:
-the job you are doing will be done by AI
-whatever education you or your kids get in college, it won’t give you a job
-even if you are working on AI with AI you still can be replaced completely by AI
This may at least make them to think more about impact on society and importance of the problem on the gut level, and from there we could go to more serious issues
I would say the nuclear war would be the least sci-fi scenario. Arm race leads to using AI everywhere to beat the opponent, including systems responsible for observing and responding to opponent’s missile strikes, and then it goes rogue.
I think bioweapons can be persuasive. We know that there are viruses like smallpox with very high lethality and very big virulence. Actually COVID and smallpox would be a good starting point for explanation. I would say something like: “Remember COVID spread everywhere despite all restrictions? Its incubation period was roughly 2 weeks. For smallpox, it can be like 40 days. It is incredibly viral. In a modern world, in 40 days it will be everywhere, and then it is too late. Lethality rate 50-80%. And for smallpox we have a vaccine, that is why we are safe against a smallpox. AI already designs viruses and can easily be used to design something like smallpox, but for which this vaccine does not work”.
I don’t think most people think smallpox-level pandemics are believable. Sure, they happened in the past, but they couldn’t happen now with modern medicine, could they? Logic comparing incubation periods, whether true or false, is also the same kind of finicky reasoning that fails the mom test.