Recently, many people have given increasingly short timelines for AGI. What unites many of these statements is the thorough lack of any evidence. Instead, many resort to narrative arguments, ad-hoc predictive models, and mistaken arguments. In this post, I will cover these different types of non-evidence-based arguments.

I have described my views on AI risk previously in this post, which I think is still relevant. I have also laid down a basic argument against AI risk interventions in this comment where I argue that AI risk is neither important, neglected nor tractable.

Narrative arguments

Narrative argument is a way to present an argument in a form of a story, parable, or extended metaphor. These arguments present a chain of events as probable or even inevitable due to their narrative coherence: if the "logical continuation" of the story follows a pattern, that pattern is then postulated to exist in the real world as well. This depends on the "story-logic" matching real-world causal mechanisms.

Narrative arguments can be a powerful way to demonstrate or explain a phenomenon in an understandable way, but they need to be supported by actual evidence. The existence of the narrative is not evidence in itself. Narratives [...]

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Outline:

(00:46) Narrative arguments

(03:32) Ad-hoc predictive models

(05:50) Evidence mismatch

(07:53) Conclusions

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First published:

Source:

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.