People can have peculiar opinions without having an identifiable psychiatric affliction. I doubt you are a psychiatrist and even if you were, you wouldn't be capable of diagnosing someone over the internet on the basis of a single text.
I am thoroughly dissatisfied with this being the highest voted comment at the moment. It does not make any argument at all. It just casts some aspersions on the author and his writing, judging it as 'schizophrenic' and 'awry'.
The comment can be summarized as 'the argument does not make any sense', without actually explaining why it doesn't make any sense. That summary would be a better comment, because we wouldn't get into this stupid irrelevant discussion about the author's mental health.
It would be trivial and boring to rebuke because the arguments are so flimsy. Perhaps my allusion to schizophrenia was uncalled for, I was trying to say that either the author is trying to be amusing (satire) or is a disorganized, paranoid thinker.
I guess I felt that using a clinical term would be less insulting but in retrospect I think calling out the argument as stupid and paranoid would have made it clearer why no point-by-point rebuttal is necessary. My other posts do get into the problem I have with the way he constructs his moral argument.
I've known Harry for a long time. Extremely intelligent. Amazing scientist. Hardcore pacifist. We are friends, we have been roommates, we have traveled together in the US, and in Greece. Good times.
He has taken a principled stance against AI, which I disagree with, but it's his decision. And I do respect it.
Every person that takes a principled stand will be called crazy.
This is sad, because if/when the time comes for YOU, dear reader, to take a principled stand on X, be sure they will call you crazy.
Anyways, I think his case isn't well put in the article. He provides a single scenario for a brutal use of AI. I think a better case can be put--scary stuff we are working on; AI is dangerous. I myself worry much more about Orwellianism and "We" and "Brazil" scenarios than the nuke stuff. But I don't think we should stop the work; I think the only route is to try to get more influence in the direction things may go.
I told Harry, back in the day when he wrote this, which is years ago (2006, probably), that I disagreed with his position, the nuke cat is out of the bag, we had a nice discussion about it, and that was that.
Is he crazy? Not by a longshot. I would leave my firstborn with him and travel around the world without a shred of worry.
So would my wife.
But wtf do I know; I'm just another crazy guy on the internet, right?
I never meant to impugn the man or his character and I now regret invoking schizophrenia so casually. As you said, his case isn't well put. It is his writing and arguments which I find sloppy and the connections he makes, as presented, smell somewhat delusional. This is not the same as saying that he's "crazy".
I am rejecting, strongly, the assertion that his is a principled stance. The piece is simply is not compelling since his malicious AI would be acting on behalf or under the command of humans, just like all weapons throughout history. I think it's a simplistic, misguided, stance. The kind I remember flirting with when I first took some college-level philosophy courses years ago.
I am thoroughly dissatisfied with this being the highest voted comment at the moment. It does not make any argument at all. It just casts some aspersions on the author and his writing, judging it as 'schizophrenic' and 'awry'.
The comment can be summarized as 'the argument does not make any sense', without actually explaining why it doesn't make any sense. That summary would be a better comment, because we wouldn't get into this stupid irrelevant discussion about the author's mental health.