Thursday 19 June 2025
Not Joking About AI
In many of my conversations about the dreadful risks of AI, I find myself laughing involuntarily. “AI is wrecking education, but it doesn’t matter too much because there won’t be jobs for these kids anyway, hahaha. Or else misaligned superintelligence will kill us all, hohoho.”
This is odd. I actually think these are very serious possibilities, so why do I laugh about them? My guess: I’m afraid these comments make my conversation partners uncomfortable — because they make me sound like a nut, or because they’re unpleasant to think about. Making them into a bit of a joke gives them licence to take them less seriously and feel more comfortable. It increases my comfort level as well.
I think it might give observers the impression that I’m actually not serious about these issues — and I think it’s desperately important we all take them more seriously. So these days, when I find myself laughing inappropriately, I often follow up with something like “actually I don’t think we should laugh about this anymore”. That still comes across as a bit jokey, but I think the point gets across.