> Wasn't that point already refuted by the paperclip maximizer thought experiment long before LLMs became a thing?

I mean, no, because Bostrom hypothesized that an AI given the task of maximizing paperclips would consume all life in its quest to produce paperclips but there's just so many assumptions in this chain of thought, it's not credible (to me).

Here's one portion of Bostrom's quote:

> The AI will realize quickly that it would be much better if there were no humans because humans might decide to switch it off.

So Bostrom imagines the AI realizing? Ok, hold on there chief, there's about a few hundred priors you haven't addressed.

Better off without humans because humans might switch it off? So now we're talking about human feelings here. Emotions. Fear. There's my other comment down below that addresses that.

As long as we keep projecting our fears and emotions onto transformers we are no further along to understanding the extinction risk of LLMs than soothsayers rooting around in the entrails of dead animals are to understanding the outcome of battles.