Zhengyao Jiang argues pessimistic AI narratives harm the research community by driving strategic defection over scientific cooperation

I think narratives like the "permanent underclass" mindset can be very harmful. Not because they cause emotional depression, but they change the game-theoretic dynamics.

People cooperate in prisoner's dilemma/commons scenarios when they believe the game has many turns.

But if you believe the game only has a few turns, and that you should win otherwise you become the "permanent underclass", then the rational self-interested move is to defect: do whatever you can to win in the short term.

I think the whole AI research community is in that scenario now. No one stays in academia to educate new talent. Frontier lab competition becomes more and more aggressive and toxic.

I can't imagine how much public benefit those doomer narratives alone will cost us. Especially if they're wrong, which I think they are