Many believe that one hope for our future is that the AI labs will makes some
mistake that will kill many people, but not all of us, resulting in the
survivors finally realizing how dangerous AI is. I wish people would refer to that as a “near miss”, not a
“warning shot”. A warning shot is when the danger (originally a warship)
actually cares about you but cares about its mission more, with the result that it
complicates its plans and policies to try to keep you alive.
While not similar to bounded AI disasters, warning shots don’t require caring about the other side. True warning shots still make sense as signaling, a standard rung on the ladder of escalation, cheaper than the full cost of violence.
Good point. Change my final sentence to, “A warning shot is made by the entity capable of imposing damaging consequences on you—to alert you and to give you a way to avoid the most damaging of the consequences at its disposal.”
Many believe that one hope for our future is that the AI labs will makes some mistake that will kill many people, but not all of us, resulting in the survivors finally realizing how dangerous AI is. I wish people would refer to that as a “near miss”, not a “warning shot”. A warning shot is when the danger (originally a warship) actually cares about you but cares about its mission more, with the result that it complicates its plans and policies to try to keep you alive.
While not similar to bounded AI disasters, warning shots don’t require caring about the other side. True warning shots still make sense as signaling, a standard rung on the ladder of escalation, cheaper than the full cost of violence.
Good point. Change my final sentence to, “A warning shot is made by the entity capable of imposing damaging consequences on you—to alert you and to give you a way to avoid the most damaging of the consequences at its disposal.”