Comment by Perseids
12 hours ago
Yes, yes, true, but you've massively moved the goalpost. The original commenter was referring to people working at xAI right now. To continue your comparison, your argument would be like Oppenheimer claiming "How could I have ever known my work would be used as a weapon? I just wanted to make big explosions."
I don't know why this argument often pops up in these kinds of discussions. Approximately no one is judging people who have done their best effort to avoid doing harm. We are judging people who don't care in the first place.
Well if I moved it, consider this to be me putting it back where it was: people who continue to work on things which are concurrently being used in mostly harmful ways and have means to find a different job have no excuse.
As far as Oppenheimer is concerned, his argument is not that nukes are harmless, but that they are less harmful than Nazis, and much less harmful than Nazis with nukes.
Thanks, I can very much agree with that.
Re Oppenheimer: I know. My point was that he very much knew what his work was being used for, as should people working at xAI at the moment.