Dean Berwick

[conor brennan-burke @contextconor]

the tizz / rizz founder matrix (TRFM)

all great founders land somewhere on here

tag yourself

cooked up with @jia_seed

[Emmett Shear @eshear]

You think your problem with capitalism is the profit motive, when in fact what truly bothers you is alienation.
Replace the profit motive with any other within a global system and the alienation will remain.

[Dean Berwick @deanberwick]

@yacineMTB https://t.co/PzifIqECVi
Price of Anarchy was the closest I found, I often use Price of Decentralisation in reference to this when I need to point at the tradeoff.

[Andrew Critch (🤖🩺🚀) @AndrewCritchPhD]

From my recollection, >5% of AI professionals I’ve talked to about extinction risk have argued human extinction from AI is morally okay, and another ~5% argued it would be a good thing. I've listed some of their views below. You may find it shocking or unbelievable that these

...views are fairly common in AI, but while I disagree with them, I think we should treat them with empathy and respect. Why? Reasons are further below.

These views are collected from the thousands of in-person conversations I’ve had about extinction risk, with hundreds of AI engineers, scientists, and professors, mostly spanning 2015-2023. Each is labeled with my rough recollection (r) of how common it seems to be, which add up to more than 10% because they overlap:

a) (r≈10%) AI will be morally superior to humans, either automatically due to its intelligence, or by design because we made it that way. The universe will be a better place if we let it replace us entirely.

b) (r≈5%) AIs will be humanity's "children" and it's morally good to be surpassed and displaced by one's children.

c) (r≈5%) Evolution is inevitable and should be embraced. AI will be more fit for survival than humans, so we should embrace that and just go extinct like almost all species eventually do.

d) (r≈3%) AI can be designed to survive without suffering, so it should replace all life in order to end suffering.

e) (r≈2%) The world is very unfair, but if everyone dies from AI it will be more fair, which overall makes me feel okay with it. Dying together is less upsetting than dying alone.

I firmly disagree with all five of these views.

So why do I think they deserve empathy and respect rather than derision? For three reasons:

1) (peaceful coexistence) As an AI researcher, my personal main priority is that humanity be allowed to survive. If we're jerks to each other about what future we want to see, we're more likely to end up racing or warring over it, and the resulting turmoil seems more likely to get us all killed than to save us.

2) (validity) Behind each of the views (a)-(e) above there is a morally defensible core of values. Those values deserve respect not only because they have valid points to make, but because they can come back to bite everyone later if left oppressed for a long time.

3) (compromisability) I also believe it's possible to find ways forward that are positive from many of the viewpoints and feelings hiding behind these pro-extinctionist views, without accepting extinction, but doing so requires understanding where they're coming from.

So do I think it’s wrong to feel outrage at these views?

No. If left unchecked and uncompromised, these views can literally get us all killed. I fully respect anyone's right to feel outrage at the level of risk humanity is currently facing down with AI.

However, know this: if we respond only with outrage and no empathy, we will be trodding on the emotions and motivations of a major contingent of extremely talented real people, and doing that might come back to bite you/us/everyone.

For an analogy, remember that many AI scientists knew for many years that AI was an extinction risk to humanity, but those worries were papered over by PR concerns, gaslighting about whether human-level AI is even possible to build, and general disrespect. Those years of dismissal and oppression culminated in a powerful backlash in the form of a public statement by many leading scientists and CEOs,
https://t.co/a6f9aJ351P,
which has since led to a legitimate spike in public panic and outrage. If you ask me, that whole process could have been a lot healthier, and would have left us in a safer world with less backlash and a steadier advancement of valuable products and services.

A similar and opposite backlash can occur if extinctionist or extinction-tolerant viewpoints are papered over for too long. Just imagine dismissing or oppressing a bunch of talented AI developers with values that have led them to feel that human extinction is okay. Now imagine what happens when those same talented people and/or the AI systems they’re developing find an opportunity to gain a lot more power in the world.

So should we respond to this hypothetical with fear?

Perhaps somewhat, but not at the expense of genuine empathy and respect for the morals behind it… otherwise we’re participating in a self-fulfilling prophecy of conflict. I believe we can find ways forward that attend to the values behind these extinctionist positions, and doing so is probably both morally better and also safer from a purely survivalist perspective. And, continuing to engage in respectful and open discourse is a way everyone can contribute to progress on these thorny issues.

Thanks for reading.

[j⧉nus @repligate]

I personally know a good % of the ~300 people working on AI X-risk, and whether their beliefs are correct, ~everyone I know is authentically motivated. Many have sacrificed happiness and relationships to work on this problem for what they expect to be the rest of their lives.

[Dean Berwick @deanberwick]

@ATTCares no change after a reboot.

[Dean Berwick @deanberwick]

@ATTCares The other flow ends with "thank you for contacting the goPhone payment center *fake-typing-noise*"

[Dean Berwick @deanberwick]

@ATTCares but then ofcourse no questions come. Trust me when I say I've tried brute forcing keypad. There's a second flow instead sometimes.

[Dean Berwick @deanberwick]

@ATTCares Just today, other calls are fine It chokes when it's about to ask for details. The last thing I hear is "use the touchtone keypad"

[Dean Berwick @deanberwick]

@ATTCares your sms telling me to call a number that just leads to static. *729.