Before LLMs were mainstream, rationalists and EA types would come on Hacker News to convince people that worrying about how "weak" AI would be used was a waste of time, because the real problem was the risk of "strong" AI.
Those arguments looked incredibly weak and stupid when they were making them, and they look even stupider now.
And this isn't even their biggest error, which, in my opinion, was classifying AI as a bigger existential risk than climate change.
An entire generation of putatively intelligent people lost in their own nightmares, who, through their work, have given birth to chaos.
Weak ai is a problem, but isn't going to lead to 100% human extinction
Human extinction won't happen until a couple years later, with stronger ai (if it does happen, which I unfortunately think it will- if we remain on our current trajectory)
"This theoretical event that I just made up would lead to 100% human extinction"
Neat, go write science fiction.
Hundreds of billions of dollars are currently being lit on fire to deploy AI datacenters while there's an ecosystem destabilizing heat wave in the ocean. Climate change is a real, measurable, present threat to human civilization. "Strong AI" is something made up by a fan fiction author. Grow up.
It can't be true because it sounds like science fiction to you?
Everything about every part of AI in 2025 sounds exactly like science fiction in every way. We are essentially living in the exact world described in science fiction books this very moment, even though I wish we didn't.
Have you ever used an ai chatbot? How is that not exactly like something you'd find in science fiction?
The idea of “Strong AI” as an “existential risk” is based entirely on thought experiments popularized by a small, insular, drug-soaked fan fiction community. I am begging you to touch grass.
Those arguments looked incredibly weak and stupid when they were making them, and they look even stupider now.
And this isn't even their biggest error, which, in my opinion, was classifying AI as a bigger existential risk than climate change.
An entire generation of putatively intelligent people lost in their own nightmares, who, through their work, have given birth to chaos.