LessWrong (30+ Karma)

“The Risk of Gradual Disempowerment from AI” by Zvi


Listen Later

The baseline scenario as AI becomes AGI becomes ASI (artificial superintelligence), if nothing more dramatic goes wrong first and even we successfully ‘solve alignment’ of AI to a given user and developer, is the ‘gradual’ disempowerment of humanity by AIs, as we voluntarily grant them more and more power in a vicious cycle, after which AIs control the future and an ever-increasing share of its real resources. It is unlikely that humans survive it for long.

This gradual disempowerment is far from the only way things could go horribly wrong. There are various other ways things could go horribly wrong earlier, faster and more dramatically, especially if we indeed fail at alignment of ASI on the first try.

Gradual disempowerment it still is a major part of the problem, including in worlds that would otherwise have survived those other threats. And I don’t know of any good [...]

---

Outline:

(01:15) We Finally Have a Good Paper

(02:30) The Phase 2 Problem

(05:02) Coordination is Hard

(07:59) Even Successful Technical Solutions Do Not Solve This

(08:58) The Six Core Claims

(14:35) Proposed Mitigations Are Insufficient

(19:58) The Social Contract Will Change

(21:07) Point of No Return

(22:51) A Shorter Summary

(24:13) Tyler Cowen Seems To Misunderstand Two Key Points

(25:53) Do You Feel in Charge?

(28:04) We Will Not By Default Meaningfully 'Own' the AIs For Long

(29:53) Collusion Has Nothing to Do With This

(32:38) If Humans Do Not Successfully Collude They Lose All Control

(34:45) The Odds Are Against Us and the Situation is Grim

---

First published:

February 5th, 2025

Source:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/jEZpfsdaX2dBD9Y6g/the-risk-of-gradual-disempowerment-from-ai

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

LessWrong (30+ Karma)By LessWrong


More shows like LessWrong (30+ Karma)

View all
Making Sense with Sam Harris by Sam Harris

Making Sense with Sam Harris

26,326 Listeners

Conversations with Tyler by Mercatus Center at George Mason University

Conversations with Tyler

2,398 Listeners

The Peter Attia Drive by Peter Attia, MD

The Peter Attia Drive

7,868 Listeners

Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas by Sean Carroll | Wondery

Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas

4,107 Listeners

ManifoldOne by Steve Hsu

ManifoldOne

87 Listeners

Your Undivided Attention by Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin, The Center for Humane Technology

Your Undivided Attention

1,451 Listeners

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg by All-In Podcast, LLC

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg

8,758 Listeners

Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST) by Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST)

Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST)

90 Listeners

Dwarkesh Podcast by Dwarkesh Patel

Dwarkesh Podcast

352 Listeners

Hard Fork by The New York Times

Hard Fork

5,358 Listeners

The Ezra Klein Show by New York Times Opinion

The Ezra Klein Show

15,037 Listeners

Moonshots with Peter Diamandis by PHD Ventures

Moonshots with Peter Diamandis

465 Listeners

No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups by Conviction

No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups

129 Listeners

Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast by swyx + Alessio

Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast

72 Listeners

BG2Pod with Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley by BG2Pod

BG2Pod with Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley

433 Listeners