Longtermism poses a real threat to humanity

https://www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2023/08/longtermism-threat-humanity

“AI researchers such as Timnit Gebru affirm that longtermism is everywhere in Silicon Valley. The current race to create advanced AI by companies like OpenAI and DeepMind is driven in part by the longtermist ideology. Longtermists believe that if we create a “friendly” AI, it will solve all our problems and usher in a utopia, but if the AI is “misaligned”, it will destroy humanity…”

@technology

  • lloram239@feddit.de
    2·
    1 year ago

    The greatest criticism of this line of thought is that it gives people, or at the moment, billionaires permission to do whatever the fuck they want.

    Rich people have been doing whatever the fuck they want for thousands of years. Musk at least tries to build a cool big spaceship while doing so. I don’t really see the problem with that.

    How is giving rich people a reason to do good and having some long term vision a bad thing? We didn’t get climate change because people were looking too far ahead, we got it because it was cheap energy and people made a lot of money with it.

    This whole article reeks of short term thinking. Do whatever feels good in the moment, don’t care about the consequences.