London Futurists's video: Assessing AI Risk Skepticism

How should we respond to the idea that advances in AI pose catastrophic risks for the wellbeing of humanity? Two sets of arguments have been circulating online for many years, but in light of recent events, are now each mutating into new forms and are attracting much more attention from the public. The first set argues that AI risks are indeed serious. The second set is skeptical. It argues that the risks are exaggerated, or can easily be managed, and are a distraction from more important issues and opportunities. In this London Futurists webinar, recorded on the 27th of May 2023, we assessed the skeptical views. To guide us, we were joined by the two authors of a recently published article, "AI Risk Skepticism: A Comprehensive Survey", namely Vemir Ambartsoumean and Roman Yampolskiy. We were also joined by Mariana Todorova, a member of the Millennium Project's AGI scenarios study team. The meeting was introduced and moderated by David Wood, Chair of London Futurists. For more details about the event and the panellists, see https://www.meetup.com/london-futurists/events/293488808/ The paper "AI Risk Skepticism - A comprehensive study" can be found at https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.03885. The image in the thumbnail was created with the help of Midjourney.