I have certainly changed my views on AI since that time, mostly around capabilities. Holy shit things have been moving fast. In an indirect way, this boost the credibility of safety people who have also been arguing for rapid progress and thus marginally increases my belief in some of their conclusions. I continue to have no framework available to me for thinking about these things can push me around on a spectrum more precise than “plausible”
Are you asking whether I said something like, “Do you think you’re avoiding the confusion that AI might kill you because that would be an uncomfortable one to reach?” I didn’t say anything like that, and no student raised it.
As to your general question on teaching such things, this made me think a bit. Thank you. In general, those of us who study this stuff are pretty analytical and detached; mass death is just a phenomenon that may be of interest. I more or less automatically assimilated that as an undergrad, and I certainly model analytical detachment to my students, which I had assumed they were probably just automatically absorbing as well. I’m sure at least some of them are, but maybe the others aren’t. There are some areas where it’s useful to induce discomfort as a teaching tool (e.g., I will make you look at a couple of kids who have been brutally massacred with “conventional” weapons and then make you try to explain to me why this is “better” than killing them with chemical weapons) but it’s almost alien to me to think that “If there’s a nuclear war I and all those I love might well die” is emotionally activating to anyone, which of course it is.
I have certainly changed my views on AI since that time, mostly around capabilities. Holy shit things have been moving fast. In an indirect way, this boost the credibility of safety people who have also been arguing for rapid progress and thus marginally increases my belief in some of their conclusions. I continue to have no framework available to me for thinking about these things can push me around on a spectrum more precise than “plausible”
Are you asking whether I said something like, “Do you think you’re avoiding the confusion that AI might kill you because that would be an uncomfortable one to reach?” I didn’t say anything like that, and no student raised it.
As to your general question on teaching such things, this made me think a bit. Thank you. In general, those of us who study this stuff are pretty analytical and detached; mass death is just a phenomenon that may be of interest. I more or less automatically assimilated that as an undergrad, and I certainly model analytical detachment to my students, which I had assumed they were probably just automatically absorbing as well. I’m sure at least some of them are, but maybe the others aren’t. There are some areas where it’s useful to induce discomfort as a teaching tool (e.g., I will make you look at a couple of kids who have been brutally massacred with “conventional” weapons and then make you try to explain to me why this is “better” than killing them with chemical weapons) but it’s almost alien to me to think that “If there’s a nuclear war I and all those I love might well die” is emotionally activating to anyone, which of course it is.