It takes a lot of effort to figure out what to actually believe/what is true. Why?
Last week I tried to map what expert actually think about AI and its risks. Summaries. What they actually believe, why, and the moment/video they made the claim.
Google gave me articles that were mostly paraphrasing or editorializing. YouTube was clickbait titles and clips that didn't match what I was looking for. Found a few long podcasts where the answer was probably buried somewhere, but I'm not scrubbing through three hours to find it.
And here's the thing — even if I had found a good clip, I'd have one person's view. Hinton thinks it's existential. Yann LeCun thinks that's overblown. Harrari thinks its dangerous and will erode human trust. Sam Harris is a fanboy obviously. Who else is in this debate?
The reasoning is out there. Researchers have talked through their thinking in hundreds of podcasts and interviews. But actually seeing the shape of the debate — who believes what and why, where they disagree, what the strongest arguments are on each side — feels impossible without mass effort.
Maybe this is just me. But I'm curious:
- Is it the time? Just takes too long to find anything useful.
- You are either locked in a 3-hour podcast to maybe find a 2 min segement relevant to the idea you care about. And you have to open an other 3-hour podcast to find this same idea discussed by another expert in another podcat.
- Is it the volume? Too much information out there, no way to sift through it. Information is cheap, but truth is expensive.
- It trust? Can't verify anything, AI makes stuff up, articles misrepresent
- Is it the missing map? Can't see the actual debate, just scattered takes.
I think humans can easily hold bad ideas and find it difficult to know what's a good or bad idea.
Is this a real problem for anyone?