Don't Associate AI Safety With Activism

I’m on the side of AI Safety. AI has a good chance of ending the human species if we don’t do it right, and Not Doing It Right is the default outcome unless we’re very cautious.

PauseAI is an activist group that advocates for AI Safety. They adopt the language, aesthetics, and tactics of “activism.” The splash page of their website demands “DON’T LET AI COMPANIES GAMBLE WITH OUR FUTURE”. They encourage people to add a Pause symbol to their online handles. They can be seen protesting outside AI company HQs.

I agree with their goal. I’ve met some of them and they are good, thoughtful people. In most ways we are aligned. However I think they are harmful for the cause of AI Safety and they should drastically change everything they’re doing.

Increasingly activists are seen as defect-bots. Activists are frequently found to:

Destroy (or attempt to destroy) irreplaceable artistic works or cultural artifacts.
Shut down public services and thoroughfares.
Suppress scientific findings considered hostile to their message.
Blatantly lie about the words and actions of their opponents.
Mandate educational programs that denigrate and insult their participants.
In extreme cases they’ll actually celebrate the destruction of significant parts of cities/neighborhoods, and celebrate summary execution carried out by lunatics.

Activists come with an aura of low-key evil. They cannot be trusted with things you value, because everything is thought of as a tool to further the cause. You cannot believe what they say, because they care far more about their cause than about truth.

PauseAI does not do this, to be clear. But PauseAI embraces the aesthetics of groups that do these things. Therefore they associate the cause of AI Safety with activism. This will soon repel more people than it draws, if it doesn’t do so already. Resources being spent on PauseAI make the public less trusting of AI Safety arguments and should be diverted to almost anything else.