There was an AI protest day
today, with parallel protests around the world, and our family went to
the Boston one:
I'm not really a protest person:
normally I share my views in writing.
But while there's
beenalotofwritingontheinternetaboutthe
risk
that
AIgetsusallkilled
(some of it from me),
this can't be an internet-only thing. Way too few people are taking
seriously the risk that OpenAI, Anthropic, and others are rapidly
building something that could actually cause human extinction. A
protest is a literal demonstration that people care, and it
expands visibility to the general public.
We talked with the kids about whether they wanted to come, or whether
I should take them somewhere while Julia went to the protest. All
three did want to come, which makes sense: they've been hearing us
talk about this at the dinner table and with friends for months, and
the risk impacts them at least as much as it does us.
We painted some signs:
Clementine was not helpful:
Mine was a bit on the long side:
The crowd was mostly students, but there were also a lot of people I
recognized from Boston EA
meetups. Favorite sign: an "If You Can't Steer Don't Race",
painted by someone I'd run into atLessOnline.
It was nominally a protest demanding a US–China treaty that bans more
powerful AI until it can be done safely, but in practice it was a much
more high level protest around the "slow down AI", "regulate AI",
"AI bad", "RSI will get us killed", "AI companies irresponsible"
cluster. If you hadn't seen the website, I don't think you'd have
known about the treaty; no one mentioned it.
We alternated between a series of chants (quickly taught over the
megaphone) and short speeches. The speeches included points I
strongly supported (this is urgent, risks include extinction, safety
regulation is a normal part of industry) and others I didn't
(datacenter water use, it's wrong to make a technology that takes
jobs, general scope insensitivity) but building a coalition of people
who want to push the AI lever towards "slower" is fundamentally how a
political movement has to work. I did stay quiet during a few chants,
though, and if there's a way to avoid prudence in the face of
superintelligence becoming partisan that seems very important.
Overall it was uncomfortable,
and not really my thing, but I think it's important, liked being in
a group of people pushing policy in a good direction, and would go again.
There was an AI protest day today, with parallel protests around the world, and our family went to the Boston one:
I'm not really a protest person: normally I share my views in writing. But while there's been a lot of writing on the internet about the risk that AI gets us all killed (some of it from me), this can't be an internet-only thing. Way too few people are taking seriously the risk that OpenAI, Anthropic, and others are rapidly building something that could actually cause human extinction. A protest is a literal demonstration that people care, and it expands visibility to the general public.
We talked with the kids about whether they wanted to come, or whether I should take them somewhere while Julia went to the protest. All three did want to come, which makes sense: they've been hearing us talk about this at the dinner table and with friends for months, and the risk impacts them at least as much as it does us.
We painted some signs:
Clementine was not helpful:
Mine was a bit on the long side:
The crowd was mostly students, but there were also a lot of people I recognized from Boston EA meetups. Favorite sign: an "If You Can't Steer Don't Race", painted by someone I'd run into at LessOnline.
It was nominally a protest demanding a US–China treaty that bans more powerful AI until it can be done safely, but in practice it was a much more high level protest around the "slow down AI", "regulate AI", "AI bad", "RSI will get us killed", "AI companies irresponsible" cluster. If you hadn't seen the website, I don't think you'd have known about the treaty; no one mentioned it.
We alternated between a series of chants (quickly taught over the megaphone) and short speeches. The speeches included points I strongly supported (this is urgent, risks include extinction, safety regulation is a normal part of industry) and others I didn't (datacenter water use, it's wrong to make a technology that takes jobs, general scope insensitivity) but building a coalition of people who want to push the AI lever towards "slower" is fundamentally how a political movement has to work. I did stay quiet during a few chants, though, and if there's a way to avoid prudence in the face of superintelligence becoming partisan that seems very important.
Overall it was uncomfortable, and not really my thing, but I think it's important, liked being in a group of people pushing policy in a good direction, and would go again.
(More in this "online LW-ish person goes to an AI protest" genre: philh, Quadratic Reciprocity.)
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