notes

quotations

The easy question, I think, is how the change should find us.

In 1948 CS Lewis said “Let that bomb, when it comes, find us doing sensible and human things – praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, [etc…]” This ethos is sensible for most people (who are unable to contribute to solving these problems), but it is an unacceptable answer for those working on AI today. If you wake up every morning and try to improve the trajectory of the transformative AI systems that could remake the world, you have an obligation. What percentage of humanity gets to influence these decisions, even at the margin?

When the future finds us, it should see us fighting like hell.

We should work hard in these pivotal years, leaving nothing on the table. Some believe that the entire nature of work could be radically transformed soon… How are we using these last years being information processing agents who move bits around a screen? Some believe there is a non-trivial chance that many people on earth could die through misuse or irresponsible development… Could we tell those people that we did all that we could with the time we had?

I want people working on big problems to be hungry. To shake complacency. To not get caught up in the short term incentives in their day to day work (or lack thereof). When I don’t prepare enough for an advising call with someone, or I read a Twitter summary instead of reading the paper everyone is talking about, or I faff around for a day at the office, I feel I am abdicating the future. I hope our ambitions rise to meet these last years of the human era.