Comment by mottiden
8 hours ago
I think that the environment that surrounds him may explain his perspective. As human beings, we see things very much influenced by the people around us. I think that every day, at large labs, people are surrounded by discussions similar to 'we have obtained another dimension of intelligence'. Shared expectations can become self-reinforcing, making a particular vision of the future seem around the corner.
I see this from everyone I know who works at Anthropic, they seem trapped in some sort of AI psychosis where AI is on the verge of ending the world.
Meanwhile, back in the real-world, most people I know use Chatgpt a few times a week for totally mundane shit and even more people never use AI at all.
And in my world, the latest frontier models still do moronic shit in the codebase all the time.
Meanwhile, my friend X at Anthropic tells me he fears that AI is going to have a terminator moment within the next year or two...
It's bizarre honestly.
It seems to be a strange variation of Pascal's wager to me: both arguments make an extraordinary claim while neutralizing any rational discussion about it, by appealing to infinitely extreme outcomes.
[dead]
Funny way of spelling "delusion".
They described the phenomenon quite eloquently. Reducing that to delusion is an imposition of judgment with an implicit bias to table further conversation.
What would be the harm in tabling the conversation? Otherwise smart people are losing their minds over chatbots--experiencing delusions about "dangerous capabilities" or whatever. There's not really much of a productive conversation to have with a psychotic, unless it's your job to study them.
Lester Bangs: what are you listening to?
William Miller: Stillwater
Lester Bangs: Stillwater?
HANGS UP
Lester Bangs: Fucking kid’s doing drugs