"And there’s a world not so far from this one where I, too, get behind a pause. For example, one actual major human tragedy caused by a generative AI model might suffice to push me over the edge." - Scott Aaronson in https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=7174
My take: I think there's a big chunk of the world, a lot of smart powerful people, who are in this camp right now. People waiting to see a real-world catastrophe before they update their worldviews. In the meantime, they are waiting and watching, feeling skeptical of implausible-sounding stories of potential risks.
This stood out to me when reading his take as well. I wonder if this has something to do with a security-mindedness spectrum that people are on. Less security-minded people going "Sure, if it happens we'll do something. (But it will probablynever happen.)" and the more security-minded people going "Let's try to prevent it from happening. (Because it totallycould happen.)"
I guess it gets hard in cases like these where the stakes either way seem super high to both sides. I think that's why you get less security-minded people saying things like that, becaus... (read more)