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    Jerusalem Demsas Says AI Alarm Needs No Doomer View

    Argues concrete risks from uncontrolled programs warrant concern without picking camps.

    DH
    DK
    DH
    18 Sources, 26d ago, first seen 26d ago

    TLDR

    Jerusalem Demsas posted that alarm over out-of-control computer programs is reasonable without accepting claims of 30 percent annual GDP growth or superintelligence taking all jobs. She noted such programs could target government websites, bank accounts, investments, or individuals, whether by accident or in a human-led attack. In a follow-up she stated people need not settle higher-level AI disputes or sort into doomer, skeptic, or optimist camps, but can respond to the facts presented. Taylor Lorenz retweeted the second post.

    Combined views

    167.1K

    18 Sources, first seen 26d ago

    Combined views

    167.1K

    18 Sources, first seen 26d ago

    3.3K likes
    3.3K likes
    95 comments
    256 saves
    398 reposts
    95 comments
    256 saves
    398 reposts

    Sentiment

    Positive33.3%66.7%Negative

    Summary

    Many accounts dismissed long-term AI risks like extinction or bioterrorism as sci-fi fantasies, while others defended alignment concerns as real and urged pauses on frontier development.

    Based on 46 sentiment-bearing replies from 45 accounts across 4 conversations.

    Today's Rank

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    Sentiment

    Positive33.3%66.7%Negative

    Summary

    Many accounts dismissed long-term AI risks like extinction or bioterrorism as sci-fi fantasies, while others defended alignment concerns as real and urged pauses on frontier development.

    Based on 46 sentiment-bearing replies from 45 accounts across 4 conversations.

    18 Sources

    @JerusalemDemsasI just don't think you need to buy the "GDP will grow by 30%/year" or "superintelligence will take all our jobs" arguments to be alarmed by the reality that out of control computer programs could accidentally (or as part of a human-led attack) go after government websites, bank accounts, investments, individuals etc. etc.
    @TaylorLorenzRT @JerusalemDemsas: Sometimes you have to resolve higher level disputes in order to form an opinion on more concrete arguments but in this…
    @calebwatneyExtremely funny to me that the anti-AI safety take has now shifted to "We shouldn't worry about these crazy sci-fi risks... We should only care about near-term issues like AI-enabled bioterrorism and cyber hacking 😤"
    @AndyMasleyIt was only a few years ago that enabling bioterrorism or cyber attacks was seen as the ridiculous doomer position distracting from the “immediate obvious” threats of AI at the time.
    @S_OhEigeartaighRT @AndyMasley: It was only a few years ago that enabling bioterrorism or cyber attacks was seen as the ridiculous doomer position distract…
    @ccataliniCal Newport is 💯 right. Doomerism and anthropomorphism hijack the AI risk debate. The actual risks have one fatal flaw: they’re fixable.
    @hlntnrRT @calebwatney: Extremely funny to me that the anti-AI safety take has now shifted to "We shouldn't worry about these crazy sci-fi risks..…
    @DavidSKruegerRT @calebwatney: Extremely funny to me that the anti-AI safety take has now shifted to "We shouldn't worry about these crazy sci-fi risks..…
    @tyler_m_johnI'm old enough to remember when AI-enabled bioterrorism was a distraction from immediate and obvious threats like biased datasets. Well guess what, we still haven't done anything about the bioterrorism and it may be too late. It takes years to lay the groundwork for this stuff.
    @Dr_AtoosaI read some strange criticisms of this post. So here is my take. I’m not fully endorsing the piece by Newport, but there’s quite some factually true information in it. Responsible and careful people (in our out of the subcultures) should acknowledge the disservice (alongside the service) that EA and Yudkowskian rationalist communities have done to AI governance AND AI governance discourse. I think a charitable reading of Pinker's post here is this: the classic doomer AI-extinction narrative (a singleton AI or a family of super powerful AIs will likely kill all of humanity so literal “extinction” via literal AI “takeover”) have hurtfully monopolized quite a lot of attention for quite some time. Attention is a scarce resource. Much more attention could have otherwise gone toward mitigating concrete, more immediate risks like cybersecurity or biosecurity disasters. The catalogue of, a broader conception of what actually existential risk could be about was "popularized" by detailed argumentation only quite recently. Here are two sources: in January 2024 via the concept of "gradual and cumulative x-risk" (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11098-025-02301-3), and later in January 2025 via the "gradual disempowerment thesis": https://arxiv.org/pdf/2501.16946 These recent papers bridged "immediate, concrete risks" with "existential risks." @SigalSamuel from @voxdotcom has given a quite extensive coverage of the disourse here: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/461680/if-anyone-builds-it-yudkowsky-soares-ai-risk I think it's time to stop strawmaning those who challenge the classic "ASI takeover-and-literal extinction" scenario. Those who strawman, intentionally or unintentionally, frequently suffer from a "dataset bias" fallacy by falsely claiming that those challengers of the classic scenario are "skeptics" or "deniers" (without saying skeptics or deniers of what exactly") and then saying that the challengers only care about immediate, localized harms of dataset bias. This binary is so deeply outdated. For Many people outside the EA and Yudkowskian-Rationalist subcultures, the catalog of serious, dangerous, systemic, and catastrophic risks has always been far broader. It included complex, compounding deeply dangerous vulnerabilities by the development and/or deployment of advanced AI that could threaten society’s long-term resilience without requiring a singular, speculative "apocalyptic machine" moment.

    18 Sources

    @JerusalemDemsasI just don't think you need to buy the "GDP will grow by 30%/year" or "superintelligence will take all our jobs" arguments to be alarmed by the reality that out of control computer programs could accidentally (or as part of a human-led attack) go after government websites, bank accounts, investments, individuals etc. etc.
    @TaylorLorenzRT @JerusalemDemsas: Sometimes you have to resolve higher level disputes in order to form an opinion on more concrete arguments but in this…
    @calebwatneyExtremely funny to me that the anti-AI safety take has now shifted to "We shouldn't worry about these crazy sci-fi risks... We should only care about near-term issues like AI-enabled bioterrorism and cyber hacking 😤"
    @AndyMasleyIt was only a few years ago that enabling bioterrorism or cyber attacks was seen as the ridiculous doomer position distracting from the “immediate obvious” threats of AI at the time.
    @S_OhEigeartaighRT @AndyMasley: It was only a few years ago that enabling bioterrorism or cyber attacks was seen as the ridiculous doomer position distract…
    @ccataliniCal Newport is 💯 right. Doomerism and anthropomorphism hijack the AI risk debate. The actual risks have one fatal flaw: they’re fixable.
    @hlntnrRT @calebwatney: Extremely funny to me that the anti-AI safety take has now shifted to "We shouldn't worry about these crazy sci-fi risks..…
    @DavidSKruegerRT @calebwatney: Extremely funny to me that the anti-AI safety take has now shifted to "We shouldn't worry about these crazy sci-fi risks..…
    @tyler_m_johnI'm old enough to remember when AI-enabled bioterrorism was a distraction from immediate and obvious threats like biased datasets. Well guess what, we still haven't done anything about the bioterrorism and it may be too late. It takes years to lay the groundwork for this stuff.
    @Dr_AtoosaI read some strange criticisms of this post. So here is my take. I’m not fully endorsing the piece by Newport, but there’s quite some factually true information in it. Responsible and careful people (in our out of the subcultures) should acknowledge the disservice (alongside the service) that EA and Yudkowskian rationalist communities have done to AI governance AND AI governance discourse. I think a charitable reading of Pinker's post here is this: the classic doomer AI-extinction narrative (a singleton AI or a family of super powerful AIs will likely kill all of humanity so literal “extinction” via literal AI “takeover”) have hurtfully monopolized quite a lot of attention for quite some time. Attention is a scarce resource. Much more attention could have otherwise gone toward mitigating concrete, more immediate risks like cybersecurity or biosecurity disasters. The catalogue of, a broader conception of what actually existential risk could be about was "popularized" by detailed argumentation only quite recently. Here are two sources: in January 2024 via the concept of "gradual and cumulative x-risk" (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11098-025-02301-3), and later in January 2025 via the "gradual disempowerment thesis": https://arxiv.org/pdf/2501.16946 These recent papers bridged "immediate, concrete risks" with "existential risks." @SigalSamuel from @voxdotcom has given a quite extensive coverage of the disourse here: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/461680/if-anyone-builds-it-yudkowsky-soares-ai-risk I think it's time to stop strawmaning those who challenge the classic "ASI takeover-and-literal extinction" scenario. Those who strawman, intentionally or unintentionally, frequently suffer from a "dataset bias" fallacy by falsely claiming that those challengers of the classic scenario are "skeptics" or "deniers" (without saying skeptics or deniers of what exactly") and then saying that the challengers only care about immediate, localized harms of dataset bias. This binary is so deeply outdated. For Many people outside the EA and Yudkowskian-Rationalist subcultures, the catalog of serious, dangerous, systemic, and catastrophic risks has always been far broader. It included complex, compounding deeply dangerous vulnerabilities by the development and/or deployment of advanced AI that could threaten society’s long-term resilience without requiring a singular, speculative "apocalyptic machine" moment.