Is AI Exciting New Tech or an Existential Threat?
Experts and Superforecasters can’t reach consensus on humanity’s fate
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Smart people disagree about how much we should worry about artificial intelligence going haywire and harming humans. AI experts seem a little apprehensive, but trained forecasters aren’t nearly as concerned.
In a dire scenario, specialists in the field place the probability AI will snuff out humanity at 3%, while the forecasting generalists see it as less than 1%, a recent scientific project indicates.
But even though the chance of extinction seems slim, the research results weren’t all good news.
Experts project there’s a frightening 12% chance AI might set off a chain of events that kills 10% or more of the world’s population before the year 2100. The generalists rated the odds of such a catastrophe at a less-pessimistic...
