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Advocating for allowing people to die (or otherwise be harmed) because they don't understand any given info space is immoral, no matter how "obvious" you feel that info space is. This is a very common emotional reaction to a wide variety of topics that represents an unrealistic ideology that simply isn't compatible with developed civilization. Other examples include: Internet/data security, industrial/mechanical/electrical safety regulation, self-driving cars, nutritional health, and many more.

This doesn't mean we can't have AI, but it does mean we need to mitigate the problems it presents. And that does not necessarily mean we must attempt to edit/moderate the AI itself (unless we develop effective ways to do so that don't hamstring the AI, but that seems intractable, and may never happen) - we can also address problems like this at other levels (UI level, social level, etc).

As technologists, it's our responsibility to not fall into the common trap of obsessively defending a technology against pragmatic non-technological problems related to it. If you find yourself saying something like "it's your fault for being stupid", that's a very reliable red flag that you might be falling into that trap.


I was taught not to eat unknown mushrooms when I was about 5 years old. Maybe I had to wait until 6 to understand that mushrooms were dangerous specifically because poisonous varieties could easily be confused with edible ones.

Seriously, this is just like the reason why we have to put "do not eat" warnings on a box of tacks.


Unfortunately stupid people get themselves killed every day. Some people drive around rail crossings built to protect them just to save 30 seconds of waiting time and then everyone acts shocked when they get side swiped by a train.

You can't police the stupid out of people and if people are so ravenous they're running round the woods eating every mushroom in sight and have to rely on Google's woeful AI products to not eat a dangerous one, then that really is their own fault.


This is an exaggeration/oversimplification - the choices aren't "save every last dummy" or "do nothing", and you don't have to come anywhere near "ravenously running round the woods eating every mushroom in sight" to be affected by this.


Your survival is your own responsibility. Believe it or not I didn't need to check with Google whether or not to put my head in the oven today. My IQ must be over 9000.




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