I might have overdone it on the sass, sorry. This is much sassier than my default (“scrupulously nuanced and unobjectionable and boring”)…
…partly because I’m usually writing for lesswrong and cross-posting on X/Twitter, whereas this one was vice-versa, and X is a medium that seems to call for more sass;
…partly in an amateur ham-fisted attempt to do clickbait (note also: listicle format!) because this is a message that I really want to put out there;
…and yes, partly because I do sometimes feel really frustrated talking to economists (#NotAllEconomists), and I think they can and should do better, and the sass is reflecting a real feeling that I feel.
But I think next time I would dial it back slightly, e.g. by replacing “DUMBER” with “WORSE” in the first sentence. I’m open to feedback, I don’t know what I’m doing. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Yeah, I agree that lots of CS professors are deeply mistaken about the consequences of AGI, and ditto with the neuroscientists, and ditto with many other fields, including even many of the people trying to build AGI right now. I don’t think that economists are more blameworthy than other groups, it just so happens that this one particular post is aimed at them.
I think the crux more or less comes down to skepticism about the plausibility of superintelligence in the next decade or so.
I think you’re being overly generous. “Decade or so” is not the crux. In climate change, people routinely talk about bad things that might happen in 2050, and even in 2100, or farther! People also routinely talk 30 years out or more in the context of science, government, infrastructure, institution-building, life-planning, etc. People talk about their grandkids and great-grandkids growing up, etc.
If someone expected superintelligence in the next 50 years but not the next 20—like if they really expected that, viscerally, with a full understanding of its implications—then that belief would be a massive, central influence on their life and worldview. That’s not what’s going on in the heads of the many (most?) people in academia who don’t take superintelligence seriously. Right?
I might have overdone it on the sass, sorry. This is much sassier than my default (“scrupulously nuanced and unobjectionable and boring”)…
…partly because I’m usually writing for lesswrong and cross-posting on X/Twitter, whereas this one was vice-versa, and X is a medium that seems to call for more sass;
…partly in an amateur ham-fisted attempt to do clickbait (note also: listicle format!) because this is a message that I really want to put out there;
…and yes, partly because I do sometimes feel really frustrated talking to economists (#NotAllEconomists), and I think they can and should do better, and the sass is reflecting a real feeling that I feel.
But I think next time I would dial it back slightly, e.g. by replacing “DUMBER” with “WORSE” in the first sentence. I’m open to feedback, I don’t know what I’m doing. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Yeah, I agree that lots of CS professors are deeply mistaken about the consequences of AGI, and ditto with the neuroscientists, and ditto with many other fields, including even many of the people trying to build AGI right now. I don’t think that economists are more blameworthy than other groups, it just so happens that this one particular post is aimed at them.
I think you’re being overly generous. “Decade or so” is not the crux. In climate change, people routinely talk about bad things that might happen in 2050, and even in 2100, or farther! People also routinely talk 30 years out or more in the context of science, government, infrastructure, institution-building, life-planning, etc. People talk about their grandkids and great-grandkids growing up, etc.
If someone expected superintelligence in the next 50 years but not the next 20—like if they really expected that, viscerally, with a full understanding of its implications—then that belief would be a massive, central influence on their life and worldview. That’s not what’s going on in the heads of the many (most?) people in academia who don’t take superintelligence seriously. Right?
Ok yeah that’s fair.