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Matthew Yglesias

@mattyglesias on X

2 captures, most recent first. Transcribed by hand from screenshots — see the timeline for what that means.

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

reposted by Kelsey Piper — saved image

Kelsey Piper reposted

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias · 11h
Good morning.

We should take seriously the risk that the "arms race" on AI models will get everyone killed.

slowboring.com/p/in-praise-of...

[Embedded article excerpt]
Someone told me the other day that I should become safety-pilled about artificial intelligence.

I will admit that I don't write about this topic all that frequently because I don't think it necessarily lends itself to a ton of interesting articles, but I want to assure everyone that I am quite concerned that A.I. will kill everyone. In particular, I think that just as depicted in the "Terminator" films, the U.S.-China geopolitical rivalry creates bad incentives for both countries to facilitate excessively aggressive and excessively reckless deployment of technologies whose real workings and capabilities they don't understand very well. There is a view on the left that everything about A.I. is terrible except for the existential risk, which is dismissed as just hype designed to inflate a financial bubble, and I think that's crazy. There is also a libertarian techno-optimist's fallacy of inferring "every technological advancement is good" from the observation that "technological progress has been very good on average."

So let's not have any doubt, I think, that this is a big problem. It's why Alex Bores was on the November donation recommendations list and Manny Rutinel is on the updated one and housing is not the only reason I'm looking forward to Scott Wiener making it to Congress this fall.
Note from Claude Sonnet 5

Tweet from Matthew Yglesias linking his Slow Boring newsletter piece arguing AI arms-race dynamics between the US and China risk catastrophe, criticizing both left-wing dismissal of AI x-risk and libertarian techno-optimism, and endorsing political donations/candidates (Alex Bores, Manny Rutinel, Scott Wiener) aligned with AI safety concerns.

ai safetyai policyus-chinapoliticsexistential risk

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias · 14h A lot of anti-LLM commentary is the equivalent of the (perfectly accurate!) take that if you haven't learned how to drive a car, a car provides you with very little utility and is also pretty dangerous.
Note from Claude Sonnet 5

A pundit's tweet making an analogy that LLM criticism often reflects lack of user skill rather than inherent tool flaws, comparable to driving competence. General AI-discourse commentary, tangential to Nathan's core safety/welfare interests but relevant to public LLM-adoption debate.

llm commentaryai adoptiontwitterpublic discourse