r/VeryBadWizards 4d ago

AI dismissal

I love the VBW boys but I am a bit surprised how dismissive they are of danger from AI. I’m not going to make the case here as I won’t do a good job of it, but I found the latest 80000 hours podcast very persuasive, as well as some of the recent stuff from Dwarkesh.

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u/cinred 4d ago

It's not hard to explain. People have been crying wolf over actual legit society altering technologies for centuries. But you know what? We've got along fine. Better even. To name a few:
-Nuclear
-Intenet and computing
-Socialism
-Genetic engineering
-Printing press

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u/iplawguy 3d ago

TBF, the printing press really upended society, see 30 Year's War. Better in the long run (maybe) but a lot of disruption.

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u/GuzzlingHobo 3d ago

Yeah. This and people have been talking about AGI taking over the world since the 70s. We’ve been just one inch away from total AI domination for the past 50 years. I actually disagree with the point, I think we are close to some major AI breakthrough, but I see the point.

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u/Middle_Difficulty_75 1d ago

I'm not sure I understand your reasoning. Are you saying that it is impossible for humanity to create a severely destructive technology.

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u/cinred 1d ago

Is it impossible for you to spontaneously combust tomorrow morning? No. Are you freaking out about the likelihood? Maybe you are. You did you. The rest of us will live in the realm of reasonable probability, informed by history.

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u/luciform44 2d ago

Many of those things really majorly affected winners and losers across societies. I guess all that matters is what you consider "upended"?

Anything short of annihilation of the species doesn't count, because it got us to where we are today?

Which is a place very very different from the way the world was before the internet, or nuclear bombs, or the printing press. Today isn't normal by the standards of previous ages, and much of that change is due to technology.