I’m not a natural “doomsayer.” But unfortunately, part of my job as an AI safety researcher is to think about the more troubling scenarios.
I’m like a mechanic scrambling last-minute checks before Apollo 13 takes off. If you ask for my take on the situation, I won’t comment on the quality of the in-flight entertainment, or describe how beautiful the stars will appear from space.
I will tell you what could go wrong. That is what I intend to do in this story.
Now I should clarify what this is exactly. It's not a prediction. I don’t expect AI progress to be this fast or as untamable as I portray. It's not pure fantasy either.
It is my worst nightmare.
It's a sampling from the futures that are among the most devastating, and I believe, disturbingly plausible – the ones that most keep me up at night.
I’m [...]
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Outline:
(01:28) Ripples before waves
(04:05) Cloudy with a chance of hyperbolic growth
(09:36) Flip FLOP philosophers
(17:15) Statues and lightning
(20:48) A phantom in the data center
(26:25) Complaints from your very human author about the difficulty of writing superhuman characters
(28:48) Pandoras One Gigawatt Box
(37:19) A Moldy Loaf of Everything
(45:01) Missiles and Lies
(50:45) WMDs in the Dead of Night
(57:18) The Last Passengers
The original text contained 22 images which were described by AI.
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First published:
February 7th, 2025
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/KFJ2LFogYqzfGB3uX/how-ai-takeover-might-happen-in-2-years
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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
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