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Mar 31, 2023Liked by Brian Albrecht

A recent example of this could be the "European are going to freeze over the winter because of gas prices" prediction that doomsayers gave when Ukraine was invaded. Dampening mechanisms at every level were set in motion very quickly (e.g. new gas supply sources, households accumulating wood).

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Just discovered your blog. I very much like the economic perspective on the AI doomers. We need more of that (Robin Hanson is one of the other few). It's distressing how some people (including Yudkowsky and Bostrom) have gone from being pro-tech to being technology doomers. JUST as AI is starting to look useful, lots of people are trying to stop it!

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Totally agree. Most LWers already accept the idea of "collective intelligence" of a group of people greater than the individual members. Well it's no stretch to observe further that this "collective superintelligence" is in fact capable of self-improvement and generally does so automatically. It's called economic growth and it's called technological progress and it's been happening for quite some time.

But the history of "superintelligent takeoff" tells us is that we seem to be reaching a stage of diminishing returns where marginal growth becomes ever more challenging. Adding "computers" and "algorithms" doesn't change this, it's already part of it. We've already had historical waves of radical automation and bouts of 10x population growth, we don't have to guess at the implications. It's all there in the economics.

People do sometimes worry about the alignment of collective superintelligences and even putting this issue above ordinary considerations of human progress. Those people are leftists, and ironically are generally criticised by LWers and economists alike.

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