Of course. I was merely explaining the reason why my response would focus on x-risk rather than better surveys, and why.

> but it's not like the oil and gas engineers dismissing climate change risks would describe themselves as self-interested liars either. They would likely say, as you realize, "No, my dismissal of the concerns of other experts is legitimate!"

Okay. But I have more to gain than to lose by advocating for AI Safety, since that's what I work on.

> The thing is, it doesn't require a lot of expertise to understand that there is actually an enormous risk

My comment was about X-risk and AGI. Find any of a myriad of comments here where I agree there are real risks that should be taken seriously. Those risks -- the reasonable ones -- are not existential and have nothing to do with AGI.

> Systems as smart or smarter than we are, that are not controlled for the benefit of humanity, are an existential risk...

I am not an adherent to this religious dogma and have seen no empirical evidence that the powerful rationalisms people use to talk themselves into these positions has any basis in current or future reality.

I want the LessWrong cult to have fewer followers in the halls of power precisely because I actually do give a damn about preventing the worst-case FEASIBLE outcomes, which have nothing to do with AGI bullshit.

BTW: if we're all too busy worrying about AGI who's going prevent the pile of ridiculous should-be-illegal bullshit that's about to cause a bunch of real harm? No one. If you want conspiracies about intent, look at who's funding all this AGI x-risk bullshit.

And you can be sure as hell of one thing: no one in big tech wants me giving Congress advice on what our AI and data privacy regulations should look like. They would MUCH prefer endless hearings on "risks" they might even know are bullshit nonsense.

But why focus any effort on 100% risks of data privacy instrusions, copyright infringement, wanton anti-trust violations, and large-scale disinfo campaigns when there's a 1% risk of extinction, right?

But anyways. I'm just some fool who has actually spent over a decade in the trenches trying to prevent specific bad outcomes. I'm sure the sci-fi essays and prognostications from famous CEOs are far more persuasive and entertaining and convicting than the ramblings of some nobody actually try to fix real problems with mostly boring solutions.