[outdig]

I'll give you one simple reason why slowing down AI dev is not wise.

You'll slow down. America will slow down. The rest of the world won't.

You think North Korea, or China, or Russia, is going to be like "oh yeah, USA has regulations, so I'm not spend millions or billions to develop my own custom AI for my own needs." because that kid in his basement with a good idea, is not going to do the development?

[jillesvangurp]

Exactly. The cat is out of the back. Right now, people and companies in China, India, North & South Korea, Japan, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, etc. are trying to replicate results (obviously with lots of variation in success rates) as fast as they can. And they are motivated by just one thing: they don't want to be outsmarted by some foreign AI. They want to get there first.

Especially China, South Korea, Japan, and India have some highly capable people. Same for Europe. Though as a European, I'm skeptical of this continent being able to pull together a coherent effort. The rest of the world is not going to be waiting for Silicon Valley to deliver them the next version of chat gpt and figure out the least offensive level of wokeness.

Companies across the world are doing the R&D and they'll be shipping whatever they have to get a piece of the market. And not all of those companies and countries are going to be very interested in ethics.

This technology is hugely relevant across essentially all industry sectors with a potential to help knowledge workers in R&D, technological sectors, law, medicine. And of course the defense industry. Just because people don't like it doesn't mean other people won't go there. They will. This is technology with an obvious potential for weaponization. It's going to be a pretty bad time to be defenseless against that. I don't think it will take long for this stuff to start having some real world impact in conflicts across the world.

So, there's a sense of urgency here in not giving away a head start and trying to keep up. Spinning your wheels for a year or so is just not going to be helpful. Another argument here is that some AI researchers might be recruited away. A lot of them are foreigners and their home countries might come calling.

[ok_dad]

Why shouldn’t we slow down? What’s the threat to America from slowing down? Things are getting pretty rough with the constant grind. Maybe it would be good for America to slow down a bit. AI isn’t going to help the average American, just those who want to replace the average American with a computer.

[aetherane]

If the US gives other countries an ample head start to establish the major AI companies and doesn't compete, it is unlikely that it's GDP will support as good a standard of living in the future.

[chollida1]

I mean, by this logic only the single leading AI country will have any decent standard of living.

But if you believe that many counties will have a decent standard of living/gdp growth, then it stands to reason that not being first or best shouldn’t matter too much.

The US wasn’t first with cell phones and that doesn’t seem to hav mattered too much no matter how u Iquitos they are.

A country like the USA can always catch up if they decide they want to

[JohnFen]

I don't buy that at all. But even if it's accurate, it feels a little like "we have to burn the village in order to save it".

If barreling forward full steam brings on serious problems, that would harm our standard of living as well. I'm not sure I'm OK with letting other people roll the dice on my future to that degree.

[93po]

The advances that AI will give us will help cure diseases, make energy plentiful, make huge advances in stopping climate change, and plenty of other things that will help save millions of lives. People are literally dying until we make these advances.

[sitkack]

Those things will still be there in 6 months. Millions more will be displaced and the economy in a shambles. The network can't take the upset. We should figure it out and not just rush headlong without thinking.

Pause, not stop. Think before we act. The consequences are real.

[93po]

8.8 million people a year die from carbon emissions. 6 months of deaths is more than 4 million people. If we can transition to clean energy 6 months sooner we'll save millions of lives.

[jjtheblunt]

If "AI" kills phone customer service menu insanity and inanity, it will help the entire galaxy. (not to invoke hyperbole or anything)