[bruce511]

I'm really not supposed to be sarcastic here, but you're miking it hard. So let me get that out of the way first...

You looked at the state of the world, you experienced climate change, witnessed the dismantling of the US govt, the destruction caused by killing USAID, the hot war between a nuclear state and a quasi-european nation, the genocide in the Middle East, plus a million other things this year, but yhd thing that really concerns you is AI?

On a more positive note, I know the world can be a scary place. I know change is unsettling. I know AI and the impact it will have is uncertain. But I have lived through multiple wotld-shattering changes. I grew up before we had TV, never mind computers or phones or smart phones. AI is just more of the same. And yhe future will bring more change. Self-driving cars will change everything.

The solution to change is not to try and ban it. The solution is to embrace it. Your life will be full of constant change. Don't worry about the future, the future will look after itself. Live in the moment that is now.

[aosaigh]

This is a patronising comment - first telling us what we should be concerned about than telling us there’s actually no point in being concerned about anything anyway, change just happens and we should get on with it.

What if AI isn’t like the other changes you’ve experienced? What if a superintelligence is developed (or emerges)? What are the implications of that? Can it be controlled?

The people running the biggest AI companies in the world are themselves worried these questions, so we should be too.

HN is exactly the type of place that should be interested in discussing issues like this and it’s unfair to just dismiss the concerns.

[bruce511]

Any comment from an experienced person to an inexperienced one can be categorized as patronizing. (Including this one.)

So sure, if you want to fret about the future, if you want to be anxious about hypothetical things like singularities or super-AIs or whatever, then go for it. Whatever makes you happy.

All I'm suggesting is that this path is not particularly unique. I've lived through the cold war. Through the moral panic of the 80s and 90s with the emergence of personal computers. Through cell phones. Through Y2K.

Yes, this is different. But it's also exactly the same. Forgive me for being sanguine. The future, whatever it is is coming. Will worrying about it add a single day to your life?

If you want to change the trajectory of the future, then I recommend running for public office. Perhaps others will follow you.

The genie though is out of the bottle. It cannot be put back.

(For what it's worth, I don't think a big statistics machine will end civilization. )