Vitalik Buterin thinks AI may surpass humans, community responds

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin’s blog post highlighting the threats he sees artificial intelligence (AI) could pose to humanity has attracted many fiery responses from AI and blockchain community members.

On Nov. 27, Buterin published a blog post titled “My techno-optimism,” which discussed how AI is “fundamentally different” from other inventions like guns, airplanes and social media. Furthermore, Buterin explained that it could develop a new form of “mind,” which could work against humans and become the new apex species.

The blog post attracted discussions on various fronts and sparked different sentiments on X (formerly Twitter). Some voiced their agreement with the Ethereum founder, while others shared their criticisms of the post.

An X account called Emergent Perspective, which focuses on events in the internet age, replied that they agree with Buterin’s thoughts on the blog post. According to the X user, people who argue that positive intentions can guarantee that AI “can do no harm” scare them. “That has been true of absolutely nothing in human history, and this will not be the first exception,” they added.

I’m with @VitalikButerin on this one.

The only people whose opinions on #AI scare me are the people who argue that “Positive Intentions = guarantee that AI can do no harm.”

That has been true of absolutely nothing in human history, and this will not be the first exception. https://t.co/BVGwPjIbMg

— Emergent Perspective (@_emergent_) November 27, 2023

Another X user voiced other worries about AI. A community member who goes as “Wei Dai” on X said that one of their concerns is that AI may inherently disfavor defense, decentralization and democracy. According to Dai, AI could accelerate the “wrong intellectual fields,” and humans pushing against it may not be enough. 

Related: How decentralization can mitigate ‘dystopic’ artificial intelligence risks — SingularityNET exec

Not everyone agreed with Buterin’s sentiment. Another community member criticized Buterin and claimed that technology specialists like Buterin “seem to have a complete disregard or immature view” of human psychology. The community member argued that the motivation behind building “morally poor” human experiences is always money. The X user urged the community to understand both things and people and not just one or the other.

the problem with Vitalik’s post imo:
he has a predefined idea of ‘humanitarian values’
but i dont think those are a priori
i believe the values come after and with the tech

cfr horse-carriage riders when the motorcar made its intro

in general i think he’s a gud guy tho https://t.co/6ZWjWT9fdZ

— 0xBlixa (@0xBlixa) November 28, 2023

Meanwhile, a community member also argued on X that one of the problems with the blog post is Buterin’s predefined idea of humanitarian values. The community member explained that these should not be predefined and must come after and with the technology. 

While many expressed their agreement and disagreements, others simply sat on the fence, saying they look forward to participating in humanity’s collective effort to find the answers.

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