I criticize stuff like this a lot. I criticize the doomer “bomb data centers” rationalist cult even more. At the same time, maybe I shouldn’t, and I sometimes

I criticize stuff like this a lot. I criticize the doomer “bomb data centers” rationalist cult even more. At the same time, maybe I shouldn’t, and I sometimes find all the AI skeptic and even doomer discourse heartening. We really messed up with the Internet. I’m an Xennial and I had a minor role in it but I was there and it feels like the Internet was “our project.” I was literally born with the PC, discovered BBSes as a tween and the pre web Internet as a teen. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying the net is bad. I think it’s more positive than not (still). But my god the addiction and disinformation and brain rot and propaganda and child predators and you get the idea. The addiction is the big one, the root of all evil. “Maximizing engagement” is destroying civilization. But I digress. Back in the 90s, nobody talked about this. Well not nobody but maybe this one person pissing into the hurricane. Discourse on the net and computing in general was 99.99% breathlessly positive bordering on delusional utopian. We didn’t see it coming. Nobody was talking about how this could go off the rails and do horrible things. Well almost nobody. I guess dystopian cyberpunk nailed some of it but it was too much in the realm of fiction. It wasn’t part of the real world discourse which was all Mondo 2000 and early Wired and open source movement and PC industry optimism. So ironically all the anti AI discourse makes me cautiously more optimistic about AI. We are talking about the risks, the downsides, the ways it could go majorly bad. Maybe we will notice if it does and correct. If we’d done that with the net, noticed that maybe addictionmaxxing apps and sites was going to work “too well” or that flattening the discourse to 140 characters would harm the collective mind, things might be a little better today. Even if we go in with one eye a little open and correct a little bit, that could make a big difference. Could have with the net too.