Make AI Boring Again
The author, a contrarian who values debate, reflects on the heightened emotions in AI discussions. He has blocked more people in the past three weeks than in the last ten years, citing widespread fear. He argues that AI is not uniquely evil—it's just technology.
On the ethics of engagement, the problem with purity politics, and a world worth fighting for
Crossposted from here.
I am a contrarian who likes to argue and complain a lot. Because of this, I have never been inclined to block people who argue with me or complain about my work, or even lash out at me with some hostility. I could say a lot of noble sounding things about how I value debate and open discourse, and those things would be true, but I also just feel like I should tolerate other people as much as they have to tolerate me.
I recently wrote a piece about AI enthusiasts vs AI skeptics — a very mild piece, I might add, almost repulsively brimming over with both-sides-are-good-people’s and can’t-we-all-just-get-along’s. Yet I have blocked more people in the past three weeks than the past ten years.1 There is a fear in the water right now that is bringing the crazy out in all of us.
The stakes are not low. The world is burning, after all. CEOs go on job-murdering sprees and the Industrial Revolution may be coming for knowledge workers. Even the Pope is alarmed.
AI is not special
It bothers me when I see people holding AI up like it’s something special — uniquely evil, incomparably harmful, irreparably tainted. It is none of those things. AI is just technology.