Once a fringe obsession of Bay Area rationalists, existential risk is suddenly all anyone is talking about
AI Safety Is a Narrative Problem · Special Issue 5: Grappling With the Generative AI Revolution
This op-ed explores power and narrative dynamics around AI. Drawing on pop-culture references, the professional experiences of the author and examples from 2023’s “Great AI Safety Hype Roadshow,” this piece draws on the literary criticism technique of practical criticism to consider how speeches and announcements from both Silicon Valley executives and research scientists to interrogate the media-friendly nature of p(doom) discourse—which focuses on the existential risks of AI (PauseAI, 2023)—and its likely consequences. The complexities of AI and its numerous social impacts can be difficult for even the most expert analyst to unpack. In spite of this, the potential of “existential threats” has successfully cut through to become a mainstay of mainstream media coverage over the last year. This piece will make the case that this is an effective narrative conceit that has achieved a number of ends that traditional science communication tends to find difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. Firstly, it is easy to understand. Simplification of this nature—that removes jargon and complexity and focuses on a single outcome—is much easier to fit on a TV rolling news ticker or on the cover of a tabloid newspaper than more well-balanced, representative opinions. Secondly, it inherits prior assumptions from well-known dramatic forms. P(doom) plays to stories familiar from Greek tragedy through to Marvel movies, in which lone male heroes battle ineluctable forces. Thirdly, it is imbued with urgency and so becomes difficult to ignore.
AI Safety Is a Narrative Problem · Special Issue 5: Grappling With the Generative AI Revolution
This op-ed explores power and narrative dynamics around AI. Drawing on pop-culture references, the professional experiences of the author and examples from 2023’s “Great AI Safety Hype Roadshow,” this piece draws on the literary criticism technique of practical criticism to consider how speeches and announcements from both Silicon Valley executives and research scientists to interrogate the media-friendly nature of p(doom) discourse—which focuses on the existential risks of AI (PauseAI, 2023)—and its likely consequences. The complexities of AI and its numerous social impacts can be difficult for even the most expert analyst to unpack. In spite of this, the potential of “existential threats” has successfully cut through to become a mainstay of mainstream media coverage over the last year. This piece will make the case that this is an effective narrative conceit that has achieved a number of ends that traditional science communication tends to find difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. Firstly, it is easy to understand. Simplification of this nature—that removes jargon and complexity and focuses on a single outcome—is much easier to fit on a TV rolling news ticker or on the cover of a tabloid newspaper than more well-balanced, representative opinions. Secondly, it inherits prior assumptions from well-known dramatic forms. P(doom) plays to stories familiar from Greek tragedy through to Marvel movies, in which lone male heroes battle ineluctable forces. Thirdly, it is imbued with urgency and so becomes difficult to ignore.
Why We Fear AI: On the Interpretation of Nightmares — Common Notions Press
Industry insiders Hagen Blix and Ingeborg Glimmer dive into the dark, twisted world of AI to demystify the many nightmares we have about it. They combine expertise in cognitive science and machine learning with political and economic analyses to cut through the hype and technobabble to show how fear
Effective Altruism Is Pushing a Dangerous Brand of ‘AI Safety’
This philosophy—supported by tech figures like Sam Bankman-Fried—fuels the AI research agenda, creating a harmful system in the name of saving humanity
Misleading Metaphors, Real Risks
What To Fear from AI Agents and How to Reclaim Our Human Agency
Amanda Askell on AI Consciousness, Claude & Silicon Valley’s Biggest Fear
People know AI is risky. They just don’t know what to do about it. | TrendLife Blog
New international research from TrendLife reveals a wide gap between AI adoption and awareness of AI-powered threats.
AI Safety Is Mostly A Sex Cult In Berkeley, California
We might some day have “AI Safety”, as a science or policy area, that is not primarily a sex cult in Berkeley, California, but it does not currently exist.
AI Researchers On AI Risk
I first became interested in AI risk back around 2007. At the time, most people’s response to the topic was “Haha, come back when anyone believes this besides random Internet crackpots.…
AI existential risk probabilities are too unreliable to inform policy
How speculation gets laundered through pseudo-quantification
AI existential risk probabilities are (still) too unreliable to inform policy
How speculation gets laundered through pseudo-quantification
AI enthusiasts are in a race against time, AI skeptics are in a race against entropy (xpost)
Both sides are grappling with a real existential threat, and both sides feel like they are screaming into the void. There is a way to close the gap and get everyone pulling in the same direction.. …
For years, they warned AI could kill all humans. Now people are listening.
A doomsaying community once on the periphery of the tech industry has gained influence, as AI “agents” perform amazing and alarming feats.
AI Is a Mass-Delusion Event
Three years in, one of AI’s enduring impacts is to make people feel like they’re losing it.
