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Comment by cousin_it

1 day ago

The phrase "grift behind AI doomerism" suggests that either the book author or the reviewer (or both) don't have a clue. AI will cause real and huge problems.

I think that depends on whether your definition of “doomerism” is the same as theirs.

Cars have killed millions of people. Add to that the consequences of electricity, industrialization, urbanization, and even capitalism itself. But billions and billions of people are not only better off -- living lives of outrageous luxury when measured against recent history -- but they wouldn't have existed at all.

Everything good comes with tradeoffs. AI will likely also kill millions but will create and support and improve the lives of billions (if not trillions on a long enough time scale).

But the main figures behind the Ai doomerism are nutjobs either applying bayesian math in a bad way or right wing extremist believing that black people are inferior for genetics reason (I know it's an overreach that doesn't represent all the population of Ai doomers, but the most important people in that sphere are represented by what I said).

Furthermore, they're people without a history in academia or a specific past in philosophy. Although i do agree that investigating Ai dangers should be done, but in an academic context