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Comment by 15155 | Hacker News Reader

This is known as an "appeal to authority." "Scientists" and "their lives" are doing a lot of work here.

Yes, it's called expert epistemology, it's the basis of your entire life. Or do you do your own safety checks of every airplane you get on? Do you do your own research rather than trusting doctors? Do you think climate change doesn't exist because the reason we think it exists is because experts say it does, despite the fact that it snows sometimes?

A valid appeal to authority is normally accompanied by a specific expert's name or working group rather than some abstract "scientists." Also, these appeals to authority normally cite an expert in a field that has an existence exceeding 3 years.

Saying people spent "their lives" on fledgling technology is intellectually dishonest.. Are these "scientists" 22 years old? I'm sure you'll snipe back: "ALICE!!!" I couldn't care less about these completely irrelevant approaches.

The other issue is the venue these appeals are being made in. The people who work on this technology are actually here, commenting. This is like walking into a medical symposium and citing "doctors say" as if it were a valid way to shut down discussion amongst the people who wrote the textbooks.

It is a fact that among experts there is no consensus on saying '(super)intelligence is broadly safe and easy to control'. There might even be a consensus forming on the opposite claim.

Regardless, why would there be no scientific consensus if the question was easy and clear cut? I think the easiest reason is that these are hard questions to answer.

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