Fear of Super Intelligent AI Is Driving Harvard and MIT Students to Drop Out

> “I was concerned I might not be alive to graduate because of AGI,” said Blair, who is from Berkeley, California. “I think in a large majority of the scenarios, because of the way we are working towards AGI, we get human extinction.” She’s lined up a contract gig as a technical writer at the Center for AI Safety, a nonprofit focused on AI safety research, where she helps with newsletters and research papers. Blair doesn’t plan to head back to MIT. “I predict that my future lies out in the real world,” she said.

Well, it's great that the Center for AI Safety (whatever that means) is carefully choosing their contractors carefully, checking for biases and stuff, right?

> Physics and computer science major Adam Kaufman left Harvard University last fall to work full-time at Redwood Research, a nonprofit examining deceptive AI systems that could act against human interests.

> “I’m quite worried about the risks and think that the most important thing to work on is mitigating them,” said Kaufman. “Somewhat more selfishly, I just think it’s really interesting. I work with the smartest people I’ve ever met on super important problems.”

Isn't this the classic SV move to "drop out and start working on your passions"? But now somehow being about AI fears is different? I see no difference to all the previous generations that dropped out to work on cool stuff. Today's thing is AI and that's the only difference. Yesterday's were FAANGs, and before that silicon, and before that electronics. But fear and loathing go brrrrr.

> He’s not alone. His brother, roommate and girlfriend have also taken leave from Harvard for similar reasons. The three of them currently work for OpenAI.

Yeah, no shit! They hate and fear it soooo much, but they went to work for oAI :) What college student wouldn't? It's like saying "I dropped out to work for google", 15 years ago.

> That’s led many to drop out to start their own companies. Since 2023, students have been leaving college to chase the AI gold rush, drawn to the success stories of generations past like Altman and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

SO WHY DID YOU USE THAT FEAR MONGERING TITLE, VICTORIA?!