Why AI Will Save the World

Economists have observed

a longstanding pattern in reform movements of this kind. The actors within movements like these fall into two categories – “Baptists” and “Bootleggers” – drawing on the historical example of the prohibition of alcohol in the United States in the 1920’s:

Baptists

“Baptists” are the true believer social reformers who legitimate... See more

As it happens,

this was a central claim of Marxism, that the owners of the means of production – the bourgeoisie – would inevitably steal all societal wealth from the people who do the actual work – the proletariat. This is another fallacy that simply will not die no matter how often it’s disproved by reality. But let’s drive a stake through its hea... See more

But you’ll notice

what I slipped in there – I said we should focus first on preventing AI-assisted crimes before they happen – wouldn’t such prevention mean banning AI? Well, there’s another way to prevent such actions, and that’s by using AI as a defensive tool . The same capabilities that make AI dangerous in the hands of bad guys with bad goals m... See more

The Lump Of

Labor Fallacy flows naturally from naive intuition, but naive intuition here is wrong. When technology is applied to production, we get productivity growth – an increase in output generated by a reduction in inputs. The result is lower prices for goods and services. As prices for goods and services fall, we pay less for them, meaning tha... See more

we have used our intelligence to raise our standard of living on the order of 10,000X over the last 4,000 years.

What AI offers

us is the opportunity to profoundly augment human intelligence to make all of these outcomes of intelligence – and many others, from the creation of new medicines to ways to solve climate change to technologies to reach the ... See more

The tipoff to

the nature of the AI societal risk claim is its own term, “AI alignment”. Alignment with what? Human values. Whose human values? Ah, that’s where things get tricky.

First, recall that

John Von Neumann responded to Robert Oppenheimer’s famous hand-wringing about his role creating nuclear weapons – which helped end World War II and prevent World War III – with, “Some people confess guilt to claim credit for the sin.” What is the most dramatic way one can claim credit for the importance of one’s work without sound... See more

Historically, every new

technology that matters, from electric lighting to automobiles to radio to the Internet, has sparked a moral panic – a social contagion that convinces people the new technology is going to destroy the world, or society, or both. The fine folks at Pessimists Archive have documented these technology-driven moral panics over the... See more