> We started aggressively adopting AI in my company this year. I think I disliked (though never hated) it for a few days, but it’s a systemic change that I can’t just push back against.
I'm right there with you. I think AI will be bad as a whole for the world, but I use it for work every day and am pushing my team to use it more. I think it's a really effective tool for my company even if it's going to be bad for the world overall.
> I don’t believe that strong public opinion can stop technological development either—just take nuclear for example.
I see nuclear as an example of where public opinion did stop development. In the US at least, we've basically given up on nuclear power, much to our detriment.
Another example of this is human cloning, which seemed inevitable back when Dolly the sheep was first cloned.
I don't think AI is going to be as easy to give up on as nuclear. Nuclear has some long term/diffuse benefits, but in the short run it's just one among many types of electricity generation. AI is a whole category, not one substitutable member of an already common category. Us giving up on AI development would be more like giving up on electricity generation than like giving up on nuclear.
Human cloning is a solution with no corresponding problem. We can make more humans very easily, if we have someone willing to bear those humans and take care of them.
If AI becomes demonstrably useful, opting out will be incredibly challenging, since we cannot force other countries to disarm.