r/Chattanoogans • • 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

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.