Glenn Beck is the only popular mainstream news host who takes AI safety seriously. I am being entirely serious. For those of you who don't know, Glenn Beck is one of the most trusted and well-known news sources by American conservatives.
Over the past month, he has produced two hour-long segments, one of which was an interview with AI ethicist Tristan Harris. At no point in any of this does he express incredulity at the ideas of AGI, ASI, takeover, extinction risk, or transhumanism. He says things that are far out of the normie Overton Window, with no attempt to equivocate or hedge his bets. "We're going to cure cancer, and we're to do it right before we kill all humans on planet Earth". He just says things like this, with complete sincerity. I don't think anyone else even comes close. I think he is taking these ideas seriously, which isn't something I expected to see from anyone in mainstream media.
According to Glenn, he has been trying to get interviews with people like Geoffery Hinton, but they have declined for political reasons. An obvious low-hanging fruit, if MIRI is willing to send him an email.
He seems on board with a unilateral AI pause from the US for national security reasons.
He's also personally cited statements from Eliezer to convey the dangers of ASI. I think an interview between the two could be a way for AI alignment to be taken more seriously by retirees who will vote and write their congressman. I dislike Eliezer on a personal level, but I think he is the only person who will actually go on the show and express how truly dire the situation is, with full sincerity.
Is political polarization the thing which risks it being negative EV? Is the topic of AI x-risk easily polarized? If we could make biological weapons today (instead of way back where the world was different e.g. slower information transfer, lower polarization), and we instead wanted to prevent this, would it be polarized if we put our bio expert on this show? What about nuclear non-proliferation? -- Where the underlying dynamic is somewhat similar: 1. short timelines, 2. risk of extinction.
Surely we can imagine the less conservative wanting AI for the short term piles of gold, so there is the risk of polarization from some parties being more risk accepting and wanting innovation.
Glenn Beck is the only popular mainstream news host who takes AI safety seriously. I am being entirely serious. For those of you who don't know, Glenn Beck is one of the most trusted and well-known news sources by American conservatives.
Over the past month, he has produced two hour-long segments, one of which was an interview with AI ethicist Tristan Harris. At no point in any of this does he express incredulity at the ideas of AGI, ASI, takeover, extinction risk, or transhumanism. He says things that are far out of the normie Overton Window, with no attempt to equivocate or hedge his bets. "We're going to cure cancer, and we're to do it right before we kill all humans on planet Earth". He just says things like this, with complete sincerity. I don't think anyone else even comes close. I think he is taking these ideas seriously, which isn't something I expected to see from anyone in mainstream media.
According to Glenn, he has been trying to get interviews with people like Geoffery Hinton, but they have declined for political reasons. An obvious low-hanging fruit, if MIRI is willing to send him an email.
He seems on board with a unilateral AI pause from the US for national security reasons.
He's also personally cited statements from Eliezer to convey the dangers of ASI. I think an interview between the two could be a way for AI alignment to be taken more seriously by retirees who will vote and write their congressman. I dislike Eliezer on a personal level, but I think he is the only person who will actually go on the show and express how truly dire the situation is, with full sincerity.