In AI catastrophe, KatjaGrace writes about how difficult it can be for some people to take X-risk seriously:
My guess is that an important thing going on here is that the ‘everyone dying at once’ image seems kind of like a thought experiment—abstract, hypothetical, neat, not very sinister. Also, you literally can never see it, so it feels pretty surreal.
X-risk can seem too absurd. Too arrogant. Too much like bad sci-fi. It’s not what you would call anti-memetic, but it strains credulity.
Other risks are memetic and highly credulous, no matter how plausible (like the fear that conservatives would dismantle Roe v Wade in the USA) or implausible (the Great Replacement theory). These are the risks stoked by political tribalism, the incendiary memes that become incredibly viral. And there's one such meme I’d like to highlight because I think it might prove useful:
If {{Biden/Trump}} wins the next election, {{Republicans/Democrats}} will never win another election! My {{political opponents}} will forever rig the system in their favor! Just look at what they did in the last election!
Almost two-thirds of Republicans believe that the 2020 election was stolen despite Trump having been in power at the time (and having already made a voter fraud commission that came up with nothing, and despite already having cried wolf that 2016 would be stolen).
I think it should be even easier to believe that AI might steal elections. To stoke fear of AI-stolen elections, we may only need to say that AI will hack into voting machines (even if that doesn't really make sense). Or that AI will hack every computer in every newsroom in the world during election night and force wrong results to get reported. It doesn’t have to make any sense at all. If it’s political, people will believe it.
Furthermore, I think it’s only a matter of time before AI gets politicized. Already we’re starting to see a divergence between Republican versus Democrat attitudes on it.
I propose: Let’s get ahead of the game.
Someone convince Amodei to come out as radically Blue and Altman to come out as fanatically Red. Plant rumors that each will want to steal the next election. Boom: Now everyone in America will want an immediate Pause.
In AI catastrophe, KatjaGrace writes about how difficult it can be for some people to take X-risk seriously:
X-risk can seem too absurd. Too arrogant. Too much like bad sci-fi. It’s not what you would call anti-memetic, but it strains credulity.
Other risks are memetic and highly credulous, no matter how plausible (like the fear that conservatives would dismantle Roe v Wade in the USA) or implausible (the Great Replacement theory). These are the risks stoked by political tribalism, the incendiary memes that become incredibly viral. And there's one such meme I’d like to highlight because I think it might prove useful:
Almost two-thirds of Republicans believe that the 2020 election was stolen despite Trump having been in power at the time (and having already made a voter fraud commission that came up with nothing, and despite already having cried wolf that 2016 would be stolen).
I think it should be even easier to believe that AI might steal elections. To stoke fear of AI-stolen elections, we may only need to say that AI will hack into voting machines (even if that doesn't really make sense). Or that AI will hack every computer in every newsroom in the world during election night and force wrong results to get reported. It doesn’t have to make any sense at all. If it’s political, people will believe it.
Furthermore, I think it’s only a matter of time before AI gets politicized. Already we’re starting to see a divergence between Republican versus Democrat attitudes on it.
I propose: Let’s get ahead of the game.
Someone convince Amodei to come out as radically Blue and Altman to come out as fanatically Red. Plant rumors that each will want to steal the next election. Boom: Now everyone in America will want an immediate Pause.