The benefits and soul-crushing downsides of A.I. progress

There are many benefits to A.I., such as being able to generate beautiful art, inspiring music, captivating writing, and mesmerizing videos. It democratizes creation (people can now create what’s in their minds), lowers costs (replacing human labor with algorithms), and enables hyper-personalization (works can be made just for you). The benefits are big and important. But there is also something soul-crushing about it. People spend decades learning a craft and then see an A.I. make something...
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13 metaphors to give the flavor of why sufficiently advanced A.I. could be extremely dangerous

Generated with the A.I. Midjourney
1. Suppose a new species evolves on earth with the same intellectual, planning, and coordination abilities relative to us that we have relative to chimps. Chimps are faster and stronger than most humans - why don't they run the show? 2. Suppose aliens show up on earth that are far smarter than the smartest among us at all cognitive tasks. They have specific goals that aren't fully aligned with ours, are completely unconstrained by human morality, and don't value our survival. What happens ne...
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