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0 pointsjanalsncm12d ago0 comments

The problem with this argument is you can’t know or control what will happen in the future with something you built. This is the same moral dilemma the scientists faced after developing nuclear bombs.

And the future is not deterministic (or if it is, it is highly chaotic) so the existence of a thing does not have a simple relationship with what will happen in the future. Scientists who developed convolutional neural nets could not know how much good or evil was caused by image recognition technologies. The same technologies that are used to detect tumors in images can be used to target people for assassination.

There are exceptions, but my opinion is the supply chain of evil is paved with mundane inventions.

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Perseids12d ago

Yes, yes, true, but you've massively moved the goalpost. The original commenter was referring to people working at xAI right now. To continue your comparison, your argument would be like Oppenheimer claiming "How could I have ever known my work would be used as a weapon? I just wanted to make big explosions."

I don't know why this argument often pops up in these kinds of discussions. Approximately no one is judging people who have done their best effort to avoid doing harm. We are judging people who don't care in the first place.

janalsncmOP12d ago

Well if I moved it, consider this to be me putting it back where it was: people who continue to work on things which are concurrently being used in mostly harmful ways and have means to find a different job have no excuse.

As far as Oppenheimer is concerned, his argument is not that nukes are harmless, but that they are less harmful than Nazis, and much less harmful than Nazis with nukes.

Perseids12d ago

Thanks, I can very much agree with that.

Re Oppenheimer: I know. My point was that he very much knew what his work was being used for, as should people working at xAI at the moment.

Ar-Curunir12d ago

Plenty of the scientists involved in the Manhattan projects had immediate regrets. Plenty of rich people working in tech don't. That's the difference between having morals and not having morals, and the latter group needs to be judged and shunned.

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0 pointsjanalsncm12d ago0 comments

There are exceptions, but my opinion is the supply chain of evil is paved with mundane inventions.

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Perseids12d ago

janalsncmOP12d ago

As far as Oppenheimer is concerned, his argument is not that nukes are harmless, but that they are less harmful than Nazis, and much less harmful than Nazis with nukes.

Perseids12d ago

Thanks, I can very much agree with that.

Re Oppenheimer: I know. My point was that he very much knew what his work was being used for, as should people working at xAI at the moment.

Ar-Curunir12d ago

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