I think this is a replay of the contrast I mentioned here of “static” vs “dynamic” conceptions about AI. To the author of the original post, AI is an existing technology that has taken a particular shape, so its important to ask what harms that shape might cause in society. To AI safety folk, the shape is an intermediate stage and rapidly changing into a world ending superbeing, so asking about present harms (or, indeed, being overly worried about chatbot misalignment) is a distraction from the “core issue”.
author is well respected, isn’t just saying this for no reason, so working through the confusion could be useful. I share it because it seems to make mistakes. author is https://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Faculty/Homepages/brecht.html
I think this is a replay of the contrast I mentioned here of “static” vs “dynamic” conceptions about AI. To the author of the original post, AI is an existing technology that has taken a particular shape, so its important to ask what harms that shape might cause in society. To AI safety folk, the shape is an intermediate stage and rapidly changing into a world ending superbeing, so asking about present harms (or, indeed, being overly worried about chatbot misalignment) is a distraction from the “core issue”.