Comment by wavemode
10 days ago
> expert opinions can be the slowest to update on the news that their specific domain may have, in hindsight, have been the wrong horse. It's the quote about it being difficult to believe something that your income requires to be false, but instead of income it can be your whole legacy or self concept
Not sure I follow. Are you saying that AI researchers would be out of a job if scaling up transformers leads to AGI? How? Or am I misunderstanding your point.
People have entire careers promoting incorrect ideas. Oxycontin, phrenology, the windows operating system.
Reconciling your self-concept with the negative (or fruitless) impacts of your life's work is difficult. It can be easier to deny or minimize those impacts.
Yeah that's the part I'm not following. You think AI researchers would have their life's work invalidated by the creation of AGI? How? Presumably (in that scenario) their life's work (AI research) will have been foundational to the creation of one of the most important inventions of all time.
Or is your reasoning that they will be upset about not having invented it themselves (similar to those conspiracy theories about, the cure for cancer existing but scientists withholding it so they can keep doing treatment research)?