Ask HN: Should we be doing everything we can to bring about the AI singularity?
There is more suffering in nature than we can probably even imagine. I don't believe in an afterlife because the logistics of it don't make sense. Do dim humans have an afterlife? What about bright animals? Is there a cut off limit where all of a sudden you don't get an afterlife? So I think it's probably just this life. When I think of all the humans who never get to live up to their potential, who unjustly fade away unfulfilled, who never live an intellectually rich life, who find themselves on the wrong side of society or the law, etc. it makes me want to do everything possible to help the technilogical singularity arrive as soon as possible.
For a long time this is how I thought. I even started a college-level site devoted to math education and retention (had to pause it because I needed to take on projects that had a better chance of making money).
Lately I have been thinking a lot more about society (perhaps because of the covid19 insanity). Has technology really made life better for us? I'm not interested in statistics about age of death or personal wealth because I doubt those are the right ways to measure well being. Technology seems to concentrate wealth and well being. We've built cities around the automobile and in the process lost our communities. A large part of the internet has turned into a mind control and censorship industry. etc.
I'm starting to have doubts that we will be capable of creating a benevolent AI. ...if Musk makes it, possibly. If Bezos makes it, welcome to the dystopia.
Do you have any thoughts about any of this?