I get this. I've felt this way at times. I was extremely early on AI safety and existential risks as a concern, starting back around 1999, and really getting going in 2001. My largest impact on AI is likely in some combination of being early and building the movement by my mere presence enabling it to grow, talking to people years ago, getting them more engaged, and deliberately steering my career away from anything that smelled of capabilities research.
There's no acclaim for being this type of guy, though. It's quiet. And it kinda has to be, because how would anyone measure the impact I had? Maybe my marginal impact was actually zero, or negative, and if I had never heard of AI maybe everything would have gone approximately the same. It's quite hard to tell.
My only real rewards are all of you—that maybe everyone gets to live and that, even if we don't, at least I got to spend my adult life with friends who cared about the same things I did.
I know it's unseemly, but I would like to bitch a little bit about all this AI attention. Now everyone is realising that AI risk is higher. And I suspect I and you will not get much thanks for our positions over the last 5 years.
Now perhaps I'm an imperfect messenger since I have tended to be less worried about AI than most of you (and still am), but this feels like a think I want to vent about and you might too.
I don't endorse this feeling. It is good that people are realising that AI comes with significant tradeoffs they may not agree with. Perhaps they would want it to go more slowly. It is good the public is starting to get that.
But I guess when I feel an ugly emotion, I think it's good to share so others, perhaps can feel it too and get it out of their system. So here are some:
So there we go. Maybe worth venting some bile and then we can get on with our work. But yeah, I wish someone would give me a pat on the back.
And thank you to those who took more risks or bet bigger here that we would come to this point.