Comment by jchw

> But, why would we not create a fully AI-operated factory/chemical plant/fab as soon as it is economically advantageous? Or a missile silo, as soon as it seems tactically necessary?

Well, for one thing, because it would be dangerous? Why don't you just give Claude Code access to your entire computer without any safeguards? If you wouldn't even give Claude Code unfettered access to your workstation, which really doesn't have much consequential on it in the grand scheme of things, Why in the Fuck would someone give them direct access to infrastructure?

In that situation, I am not afraid of AI. I am terrified of the people making decisions, though.

But secondly, and this is something that needs to be stressed: We use funny words to describe AI. Maybe even the word "AI" is a little bit funny. But anyway, We actually don't even have the means to create "autonomous" AI, really. When we say "autonomous" in relation to AI, we really just mean that it runs without any direct human intervention, but it pretty much always hard-depends on humans maintaining hardware, because AI can't sprout legs and run on its own.

I find it annoying that we're all cool debunking Ed Zitron for being wrong, but we have an ever increasing body of evidence that AI safety doomers are wrong, and it keeps getting much, much stronger, and we're still sitting here pretending this is a real threat. Meanwhile, we're actually seeing the real threat that AI has for humanity, so why are we listening to these LessWrong doomers that have never been right before again? (And I say that as someone who is generally a fan of Scott Alexander, for whatever that's worth.)