Experts regularly put the annual risk of nuclear exchange at about 2-5% per annum. So over a decade or longer, that risk is significantly above 10%. Those same odds also mean that we should have had additional nuclear exchanges in the 80 years that nuclear weapons have existed. And that also feels true -- history contains several really close calls which we were darn lucky to escape.

On the other hand, "nuclear exchange" does not necessarily mean all humans die or that civilization collapses. Even a limited exchange will be pretty awful, but even a widespread exchange doesn't necessarily mean the end of civilization.

So in my opinion, a nuclear exchange is much more likely than an AI apocalypse, but an AI is more likely to kill all humans.

Rather than worrying about major world powers killing a large portion of the global population in a nuclear war, I'd worry more about the ultra-wealthy - i.e., the people with enough wealth where they can call up a world leader and expect to meet them in short order.

Given the types of people we overwhelmingly find among this group, once AI and robotics technologies reach the point where production can be fully automated, they'll no longer have use for the rabble. A large population of underclass people then becomes nothing but a threat to be exterminated.

Thankfully, I'm pretty sure that's not something which will happen in my lifetime.

One of Europe's current (multi-)national security concerns is how much of its various economies are dependent on US software, cloud, and that a Trump executive order sanctioning any subset of those countries may terminate those economies in the same way a full stop terminates this sentence.

Germans around me still report use of fax machines, so might be fine :P

Less funny: AI-induced catastrophies include all human-induced catastrophies, except it's cheaper to get an army of obedient and (today fortunately only "moderately") competent sychophants to follow your orders.

Even less funny: currently too eager to implement poorly-phrased orders even when they're interpreted as being instructions to perform unlawful acts.

Nuclear war would not kill us all.

Bad ASI would pretend to be good until it could execute a plan to kill everyone all at once, or at least everyone capable of cutting the power.

Superintelligent means smarter than everyone put together. If it's smarter than you, it can foresee everything you can, and come up with plans better than I can.

the chances of a proper nuclear exchange when? This week? This year? At any time in the future? The probability approaches 1.

The probability of a nuclear exchange remains zero until the sovereignty of a nuclear capable state is threatened. Tens or hundreds of millions would have to die for such a threat to emerge. Therefore, there is virtually no risk of it happening at this point by any nuclear capable power, except by the terrorist state in the middle east with its stolen highly enriched American uranium (NUMEC affair), because their modus operandi is to watch the world burn and take over the ashes (patagonia fires, et. al.)

This is silly. There is close to 0% chance humans kill all humans, and there is exactly 0% chance AI kills all humans.

AI is bad because of the harms it currently causes. It is highly addictive is bad for your brain, it is being given away for free to children in hopes they become addicts. It is being used to harm people including via sexual exploitation and coercion.

The 10% chance of AI killing all people is a made up figure that we need not nor should be concerned about. We should be concerned about AI for the proven harm it already causes.

Where can I sign up for compensation for the constant "ddos" from openai?

It can't be just me, half the internet needs beefier servers I guess. That all just plays into cloudflare as well (which barely does anything for some reason).

Yeah, when someone writes a vague prompt that simply says "Do what it takes to finish X" and the unleashed agents end up doing something lethal and illegal you would think its on the AI company to prevent any illegality and not the vague prompt writer.

For context for those outside the US, this is a play on a common saying "Guns don't kill people. People kill people."

It's commonly used in relation to the 2nd amendment which gives citizens the right to bear arms. It comes up when there are political debates relating to gun violence.

It's a statement of responsibility. Whether it's the government, gun makers', or citizens' responsibility to ensure responsible gun use.

It wouldn’t actually be _that_ surprising. Tech isn’t progressive or countercultural* anymore. And a lot of how people feel about gun rights/gun control stateside really comes down to whether people identify with the population they perceive as owning guns—are they my people or The Other? (I don’t mean to dismiss that there’s an entirely rationalist argument to be had around whether permitting gun ownership and to what extent is good or bad or multivariate for society; I just don’t think it’s the one most people have. And—I’m fairly sure _my own_ take is colored this way.)

* if you know of an industry that’s properly progressive and countercultural and could conceivably pay at least survival wages, sign me right up. I’m good at this one but it no longer fills my cup. I’m tired.

The political, rather than legal, justification for unrestricted gun ownership in the US is that an armed citizenry is able to resist a tyrannical government.

Regardless of your opinion on that argument, I don't think it applies well as an argument against AI regulations.

I will say that LLMs are somewhat unlike guns in that they emit text.

Well guns don't kill people on their own. They just sit there. AI might actually be different and just kill people on its own.

Yeah freeze peach, freedumb of ass-embly, dumb process durr durr

rights are so stupid and blame is so mysterious

Who the fuck is talking about guns?

I know your question is rhetorical, but we know the answer: The USA treats corporations with kid gloves, and there's basically no consequence when a corporation does something that would be illegal or at least considered negligent if a human did it.

If you want to kill someone and not face consequences, form a corporation and have the corporation do it indirectly and stochastically.

> I don't understand why these companies automatically get a pass.

Because these companies have lots of dollars and if I treat them sympathetically enough I might get some of their dollars too.