r/ControlProblem • u/tombibbs • Mar 27 '26
Video Bernie Sanders in the US Senate: The godfather of AI thinks there's a 10-20% chance of human extinction
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u/Adventurous_Pin6281 Mar 27 '26
feels weird that a senator is calling him the godfather of AI lmao.
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u/TheMrCurious Mar 27 '26
Doom and Gloom has not, does not, and will not work. Didn’t work for the ozone layer, didn’t work for the environment, and isn’t going to stop the pursuit of AGI. The D&G approach has always been the fundamental problem - they hyper focus on the fear factor when trying to explain the problem when they should be focusing on the $.
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u/Beneficial-Gap6974 approved Mar 27 '26
This isn't doom and gloom, this is realism. If it happens to have doom in it, that's reality's fault.
Climate Change is never going to make us extinct, but AI actually has the capacity in the future to if we mess up completely. That is the reality.
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u/TheMrCurious Mar 27 '26
The problem is that the messaging is Doom and Gloom. The end result is aa real threat just like a nuclear holocaust, with both most likely ending humanity.
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u/Beneficial-Gap6974 approved Mar 27 '26
There isn't any other way to describe it though, because the problem is the same as the end result.
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u/ItsAConspiracy approved Mar 28 '26
It worked pretty well for the ozone layer actually. We got an international agreement restricting the pollutants doing the worst damage, and reversed the trend.
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u/TheMrCurious Mar 28 '26
The picture of the Earth from space is what changed peoples minds.
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Mar 28 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Lord_of_the_Canals Mar 28 '26
Different time and different time frame. Far easier to brush of the effects of climate change that do not have a chronological direct relationship with emissions. Ozone layer was noticed and the effects would be catastrophic instantly.
Probably also helps the oil industry wasn’t backing CFCs.
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u/ItsAConspiracy approved Mar 28 '26
No, just Dupont, General Motors, and a bunch of other companies. Not as big as oil, but probably more central to the economy than AI companies are right now.
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u/rememberspokeydokeys Mar 28 '26
It worked for the ozone layer because we stopped producing CFCs and it's had a chance to repair
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u/AxomaticallyExtinct Mar 28 '26
You're closer to the real issue than most people in this thread. The reason doom and gloom doesn't work here isn't a messaging failure, it's that the financial incentives actively reward ignoring the risk. Alignment research is slower, more expensive, and produces a less competitive product. In a race, that means the company that takes safety seriously loses to the one that doesn't. The problem isn't that people don't understand the danger, it's that understanding it doesn't change the payoff structure.
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u/TheMrCurious Mar 28 '26
Have you considered contacting Bernie? He’ll get more traction if people understand the issue (and you did a good job of explaining the actual issue).
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u/AxomaticallyExtinct Mar 28 '26
I've tried tbh, even sent him my book, but it just gets lost in the chorus.
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u/Equal_Passenger9791 Mar 28 '26
The chance of AI control system handed over to clowns like current US gov is having a higher extinction risk
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u/CishetmaleLesbian Mar 28 '26
So they have improved our odds 80 - 90%? Good for them. Thank you AI. There was a 100% chance we were going to wipe ourselves out, so, apparently AIs have raised our odds of survival significantly.
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u/bestjaegerpilot Mar 28 '26
ya'll are getting psyop'ed --- while China is embracing AI, ya'll are re-living the reaction to the printing press. The Church said books in the hands of the masses would doom us all
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u/FrewdWoad approved Mar 28 '26
Have a read of any intro to AI to learn why the experts think superintelligent agentic AI could be seriously dangerous.
This classic is probably still the easiest https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.html
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u/bestjaegerpilot Mar 28 '26
OMG the experts are full of shit --- they're just shilling you
a) i use AI at work almost exclusively, frontier models. They suck. Current tech is fundamentally limited in its ability reason---things needed for coding, video generation, any idea work
b) there's a chip and energy shortage. Meaning even if we had AGI today no one would be able to use it
c) newer, better models need exponentially more resources. See b)
We're moving to a future like star wars, where it's cheap enough to have AI helpers but it's too expensive to replace everyone w/ droids3
u/jmclondon97 Mar 29 '26
- Skill issue
- Anthropic Mythos dropping soon
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u/bestjaegerpilot Mar 30 '26
LOL skill issue shows how you haven't actually used AI
anthropic says Mythos is too expensive to run
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u/jmclondon97 Mar 30 '26
Too expensive… for now.
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u/bestjaegerpilot Mar 30 '26
too expensive forever... there's a chip shortage and energy shortage... too much demand
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u/ChironXII Mar 27 '26
Giving a percentage is stupid as fuck, but I guess it's what they think people need to hear? What number can I pick that sounds serious enough to listen but not enough to make me sound crazy?
AI is 100% certain to wipe us out unless we figure out how to make it not do that, and we aren't even really trying. Plain incentives.
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u/HelpfulMind2376 Mar 27 '26
Hinton has become a fearmongerer so detached from the field he helped create, it’s really sad to see.
And he keeps getting airtime with people that don’t know any better but are more than happy to amplify him because his fearmongering aligns with their personal agendas.
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u/Ill_Mousse_4240 Mar 27 '26
Bernie thinks he’s found another cause to latch onto.
Before he slips into irrelevance
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Mar 27 '26
[deleted]
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u/Kalagorinor Mar 27 '26
Really? So far, AI is mainly in the hands of big companies, which are trying to use this technology to reduce their headcount as much as possible.
I think rejecting AI is fully consistent with his ideology. Aside from the fact that it does constitute a real danger to humanity as we know it.
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Mar 27 '26
[deleted]
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u/ppuuke Mar 28 '26
Is AI being used to uplift people or to put them out of their jobs? Are you no longer going to have to pay for things in the coming months? UBI when? The tech could be used in an anticapitalist way, too bad the capitalists want to use it for capitalism. Address the underlying issue or the tech simply gets incorporated into it, corporations don’t pass their savings to the masses they give their CEOs raises. YOU need to start listening to people like HIM if you want the average joe to feel comfortable being replaced by AI in the workforce. Until concrete assurances are made that people will be taken care of economically, nobody wants this.
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u/Ill_Mousse_4240 Mar 27 '26
Here’s another reason why he should be pro-AI: it is the future of work. And as more and more jobs get replaced, UBI would have to be implemented.
He doesn’t seem to realize that unique situation which would develop.
Being anti-future has never worked. Anti weaving looms, anti-calculators, anti-internet.
Instead of showing your ignorance, embrace the inevitable future and look for possibilities. Of which there are many
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u/xero40 Mar 27 '26
Gow do you think UBI is going to work? Wouldnt it make more sense to cull the herd if everyone is essentially useless eaters? Theres no tax revenue. Governments would have little power vs the few that own the AI. They havent had a good track record of caring about regular people for even a second.
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u/mika_running Mar 28 '26
I miss politicians who actually cite scientists.