The above heading is a good summary of 90% of the research that I read, but I’m thinking of this substack post, Why AI Will Save The World. As I am generally an AI pessimist, I’d note three things in response:
- AI does not need to be alive, sentient, or even intelligent to harm humans – only capable. Science fiction worked out most of the ways in the 1950s; it’s foolish to dismiss such concerns instead of actively countering them.
- Maybe the Musks of the world are indeed highly motivated to make their products inexpensive. But the pattern only holds for discrete products like TVs and computers. However, as anyone alive today can testify, the price of housing, food, and health care do not follow such patterns…. and as for parallel discrete products, few Americans can now afford a new single-cab pickup truck, much less a Tesla.
- So, yeah, I look forward to the cashless, holodeck-powered Federation, but consider that we might have a Butlerian Jihad or Eugenics War before then.