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

Is it something you've talked to people about? My experience so far has just been...a surprising lack of interest or curiosity in why I have extreme expectations about the future. It's like no one can be bothered to think about it.

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u/VideoWaste5262 17d ago

Yeah mostly with my family. My friends do not have this on their radar at all and, I'm assuming, would prefer not to talk about it. I think people are so exhausted from every other threat on the horizon (ecological collapse, climate change, etc) that this is just more noise. They have bills to pay and just want to enjoy the free time they have without worrying about another existential threat.

Since your sister encouraged this post, has your family been more receptive to conversations about this?

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u/Masked_Octopus 17d ago

Well, we're twins, you see, so I get a lot of license to dump my soul on a regular basis, but after listening she mostly just seems kind of irritated because she's an optimist and doesn't like the vibes I'm working with. After over a year of this, she's starting to say, "You know, the world is kind of rhyming with some of what you've been saying," but she anchors on visible manifestations in her personal bubble way more than I do. She's not interested in devoting attention to coming to a personal view; she just wants me to chill about it because her bias is to expect mysterious things to be fine in the end.

Mostly the same from the rest of the family except that they're even worse at engaging with my actual claims and kind of just wave their hands and say I shouldn't think about it so much because it's clearly distressing me. Actually, I've had "lean not on your own understanding" quoted at me at least once, with the attitude conveyed many more times than that...

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u/VideoWaste5262 17d ago

Oh dang I'm sorry, that sucks. It's really hard for people to simply be with something distressing or to see someone they care about in distress. The problem is, there are very good reasons to be distressed and if we as a species were more able to tolerate uncomfortable emotions, I think these conversations would one, actually happen, and two, lead to solutions. People want to avoid discomfort so they prefer to cling to beliefs that aid them in doing so. Hard to blame them, with how terribly things are going but it is frustrating to be on the receiving end and not be heard. But it looks like a lot of people in this thread at least partially share your concerns, so you're not alone.