I also think that in the grand scheme of things, we have “burned our hands” plenty of times and we still don’t seem to care because “the benefits outweigh the risks.”
Also, I like David Friedberg’s argument where he says that you can do as much as you can to slow it down, but it’s already too late because of the amount of open source models available. I think a fair comparison could be the black market. You can do as much as you want against it: regulate it, slow it down, etc… it will be there and there will be demand for it.
I admire Jeffrey, but saying that we’d be better off without having invented the technology is an easy and clickbait thing to say. Just like saying we’d be better off without drugs, factory farming, cars, etc… you can say this about many many things.
I think that what’s important is seeing the writing on the wall, acknowledge that both really good things can happen as much as really bad things and ensure humanity as a whole does not suffer the consequences. Unfortunately, history has demonstrated that’s never the case and us mere mortals are the ones that will suffer the consequences.
I'd like to hear the reasoning how this follows from AI. Obviously it can't be data centers, since the water (and energy, to a lesser extent) talking points are mostly vaccine-denier level of fake news, so I assume he must be talking about technological progress in general being bad and pushing out nature?
The way I see it, AI and its potential advances in research and clean energy, might very well make life on our planet more sustainable. Take away AI - on which trajectory were we in 2020 when it came to destroying the planet and climate change? Did not look good. What did help is technological innovation in batteries and solar.
I can see being careful about AI, but with this kind of critic, I never understand what their theory of human progress is. Apparently they want it stalled somehow, because AI or not, alienation and loss of control are attributes of even the "organic" types of civilizational advancement.