#7: AI timelines, AI skepticism, and lock-in

Future Matters

Future Matters is a newsletter about longtermism and existential risk by Matthew van der Merwe and Pablo Stafforini. Each month we curate and summarize relevant research and news from the community, and feature a conversation with a prominent researcher. You can also subscribe on Substack, read on the EA Forum and follow on Twitter. Future Matters is also available in Spanish.

00:00 Welcome to Future Matters. 00:57 Davidson — What a compute-centric framework says about AI takeoff speeds. 02:19 Chow, Halperin & Mazlish — AGI and the EMH. 02:58 Hatfield-Dodds — Concrete reasons for hope about AI. 03:37 Karnofsky — Transformative AI issues (not just misalignment). 04:08 Vaintrob — Beware safety-washing. 04:45 Karnofsky — How we could stumble into AI catastrophe. 05:21 Liang & Manheim — Managing the transition to widespread metagenomic monitoring. 05:51 Crawford — Technological stagnation: why I came around. 06:38 Karnofsky — Spreading messages to help with the most important century. 07:16 Wynroe Atkinson & Sevilla — Literature review of transformative artificial intelligence timelines. 07:50 Yagudin, Mann & Sempere — Update to Samotsvety AGI timelines. 08:15 Dourado — Heretical thoughts on AI. 08:43 Browning & Veit — Longtermism and animals. 09:04 One-line summaries. 10:28 News. 14:13 Conversation with Lukas Finnveden. 14:37 Could you clarify what you mean by AGI and lock-in? 16:36 What are the five claims one could make about the long run trajectory of intelligent life? 18:26 What are the three claims about lock-in, conditional on the arrival of AGI? 20:21 Could lock-in still happen without whole brain emulation? 21:32 Could you explain why the form of alignment required for lock-in would be easier to solve? 23:12 Could you elaborate on the stability of the postulated long-lasting institutions and on potential threats? 26:02 Do you have any thoughts on the desirability of long-term lock-in? 28:24 What’s the story behind this report?