Could exciting biotech progress lessen the societal pressure to make AGI?
Suppose we reach a temporary AI development pause. We don’t know how long the pause will last; we don’t have a certain end date nor is it guaranteed to continue. Is it politically easier for that pause to continue if other domains are having transformative impacts?
I’ve mostly thought this is wishful thinking. Most people don’t care about transformative tech; the absence of an alternative path to a good singularity isn’t the main driver of societal AI progress.
But I’ve updated some here. I think that another powerful technology might make a sustained pause an easier sell. My impression (not super-substantiated) is that advocacy for nuclear has kind of collapsed as solar has more resoundingly outstripped fossil fuels. (There was a recent ACX post that mentioned something like this).
There’s a world where the people who care the most to push on AI say something like “well, yeah, it would be overall better if we pushed on AI, but given that we have biotech, we might as well double down on our strengths”.
Ofc, there are also a lot of disanalogies between nuclear/solar and AI/bio, but the argument smells a little less like cope to me now.
Could exciting biotech progress lessen the societal pressure to make AGI?
Suppose we reach a temporary AI development pause. We don’t know how long the pause will last; we don’t have a certain end date nor is it guaranteed to continue. Is it politically easier for that pause to continue if other domains are having transformative impacts?
I’ve mostly thought this is wishful thinking. Most people don’t care about transformative tech; the absence of an alternative path to a good singularity isn’t the main driver of societal AI progress.
But I’ve updated some here. I think that another powerful technology might make a sustained pause an easier sell. My impression (not super-substantiated) is that advocacy for nuclear has kind of collapsed as solar has more resoundingly outstripped fossil fuels. (There was a recent ACX post that mentioned something like this).
There’s a world where the people who care the most to push on AI say something like “well, yeah, it would be overall better if we pushed on AI, but given that we have biotech, we might as well double down on our strengths”.
Ofc, there are also a lot of disanalogies between nuclear/solar and AI/bio, but the argument smells a little less like cope to me now.