Sources: tech-anxiety

ACX’s 2023 book review contest offers another winner. A nicely balanced, only partly skeptical review of Why Machines Will Never Rule the World by Jobst Landgrebe and Barry Smith. The book argues against AGI on the grounds that math-based, deterministic computing systems can’t replicate fundamentally non-linear, complex systems that produce biological intelligence.

Captain of Team Human realizes the clamour from the tech-bros about AI risk and for AI regulation is just another play for legislative aid in capturing another market…

Scott works at Open-AI and he isn’t terrified. He is one of the best, open-minded, common-sense defenders of not freaking out I have come across. The article isn’t full of deep or abstract or complex arguments, as are commonly found in articles on this subject; he describes his position both rationally and on the basis of intuition, and he comes down on the side of thinking we don’t know what’s going to happen but it probably won’t be as bad as those most infected by tech-anxiety think — and AI may even pull our asses out of the climate-change fire if we are very lucky.

A broad overview of arguments arising from a group of mostly technologists, with some scientists, psychologists, and Genius-Rich-Guys. It is useful as a reference to people speaking within a certain channel on both sides of the AI-alignment/end-of-the-world anxiety spectrum. The author is passionate and worried, like many in his camp, and wants us to worry too.

Of most use, this article highlights many of the strange unspoken assumptions that lie beneath AI discussions — about the nature of intelligence, consciousness, super-intelligence, and about the natural objectives, priorities, and optimizations of intelligent things (mostly including humans, possible aliens, and soon computers). One senses a deep anxiety that requires metaphysical therapy, stat.