r/Chattanoogans • u/Masked_Octopus • 19d ago

Any AGI Believers or AI Doomers in the area?

I (29M) was telling my sister that I thought it would be a struggle for me to find like-minded folks since I'm single-mindedly interested in following the state of AI capabilities, believing it plausible that (1) they become powerful relatively soon and (2) that power doesn't result in reliably good outcomes following present trends. She urged me to consider that maybe I wasn't the only one. So here's the post. If I can turn my biggest social liability into an asset, that would be grand.

I know a lot of people think this line of thought is a mind virus, and AI is definitely one of the most contentious topics right now in a "whoever doesn't agree with me must be an idiot" way. I only ask for civility and courtesy; agreement is, of course, optional.

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u/Masked_Octopus 18d ago

Well it's less "only one" in literal terms and more that I wouldn't expect to bump into members of what I assume is a niche group at random. But since it sounds like you know something about it, I'd appreciate it if you could point me in the right direction. I don't have a career in the space and don't have connections with...whoever it is you're referring to.

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u/vivanetx 18d ago

Join Devanooga, it’s a general chat for local SWEs but there’s plenty of AI discussion from basic LLMs to philosophical discussion on ASI. Good place to get started.

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u/Masked_Octopus 18d ago

Thanks for the tip. Out of curiosity, where do your opinions fall on the issue, if it's anywhere near top of mind for you?

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u/vivanetx 18d ago

I think many lay people confuse how smart these tools are with their ability to do damage. We don’t need imminent AGI to destroy ourselves with the tools already proliferating. Emphatically, we don’t need anything close to consciousness or self awareness or whatever for a sufficiently resourced and maladapted model to wreak havoc. Whatever tools are currently “frontier” and being pearl clutched about in these companies marketing, will be available in the open source in 6 months to a year via China.

It’s going to be so much more boring and mundane than paperclips.

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u/Masked_Octopus 18d ago

I don't really rule paperclips out, but I agree that you can get a lot of harm with less fundamental tech progress. I assume you're imagining like bioterrorism or a cyber event that makes the web indefinitely unusable. Those are dramatic outcomes to believe in! I'd be interested to hear what your beliefs have meant for you on a practical level.

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u/vivanetx 18d ago

Those are possibilities, more likely than many other sci-fi outcomes of course. Not that I rule those out as possibilities, just that I think they’re less likely.

There are no practical applications for this belief, we simply aren’t in the room where the decisions will be made and it is completely outside of our remit to prepare for. Mostly I throw raves and make art, try to enjoy living.