I'm surprised to see Tyler Cowen on the "incremental" side of the Y axis. He seems pretty AI-pilled, at least compared to the guests he has on his pod that aren't themselves involved with AI companies.
I'm in the incremental bloom quadrant and I knew that even before I took the test. It's not even that I'm hesitant about this. I mean, I don't know the future but the incremental bloom is by far the likeliest thing I can imagine.
That being said, it strikes me as odd how empty this quadrant is. Why?
I tried to answer all the questions and it placed me in the extreme doom category while I would place myself closer to the center because I do not hold any particuarly strong opinions and I struggled to answer coherently some questions (e.g. I don't "expect" anything of the future or AI, I don't think "good future" is something I can conceptualize, same for "harm" on the level of society, etc.)
I believe your correct that this is a question everybody should ask themselves, and it would be very interesting to see how varied the responses are. I feel AI has been both a blessing and curse, and I hope it doesn't solely become the later.
What are the "simulated answers" for the public figures based on? They don't seem to be direct quotes, so I assume they're AI-generated in their voice from the sources? I'd make that more clear since you risk misrepresenting people's opinions.
all of the pages include the public sources they're based on and a clear disclaimer. this is also spelled out in the methodology section. many of these folks are using direct quotes to answer the questions where available as well
that being said, i agree, the simulated personas could be better flagged
Depending on what exactly this analysis means by Human Choices I either think it captured me well or got me completely wrong:
Human choices can make limited changes, but dominant forces constrain the outcome.
I actually believe Human Choice is the dominant force here. But I expect aggregate human choice to limit the changes a single individual can have on the global outcome.
i agree, but if you view the sources his answers are grounded in, he seems to have updated to being more moderate in light of recent progress. still def on the lower side of the predicted impact spectrum, but it seems he's taking the impacts more seriously now
i really spent a lot of time looking through results and trying to course-correct and fix the model where i found obvious issues, but it's definitely not perfect
if you find any particularly egregious results, they're likely due to not having good enough public sources for that user's viewpoints. def let me know and i'll try to improve them
Perhaps step outside this foolish dichotomy and consider whether LLMs are being vastly oversold as tools (no AI is not all LLMs and it's foolish to conflate the two). They can be useful in certain domains, they can be a useful crutch in helping humans think. Jumping from there to they will turn us all to grey goo or trigger a fucking renaissance is just unthinking acceptance of what you've been told by marketers and flimflam merchants like Altman and Musk selling you a dream.
The only doom LLMs could bring, which we're already seeing, is the enshittification of our shared spaces; infesting them with a simulacrum of thought and creativity, dumbing us all down till we think advertising copy is good writing and sloppy, shiny, happy images are the only kind of art we need.
which is why it's so important for people to answer this question.. your views are 100% supported by this project if you leave your expected bias at the door ;)
I'm curious why you think answering this question and plotting people on a chart based on doom or bloom would help in any way for those who don't think either doom or bloom is an appropriate framing, and I also don't really know what you mean by 'expected bias', expected by whom?
It's not an open question, it's a very closed one which severely restricts the possible futures considered.
1. this is just a useful marketing framing. the actual assessment uses a much higher dimensional space to model your worldview in a more meaningful, nuanced way
2. by expected bias, i meant that your answer didn't seem to actually look past the name at the actual content of the project or else you would've realized there are plenty of people modeled on here who share similar views as your own
3. i agree this type of knee-jerk reaction to the name & featured framing is reasonable. always tradeoffs when trying to get an idea to catch hold
Say that I believe that AI is an ordinary technology (in the same way as the internet or transistors) that will be used to concentrate massive amounts of wealth and power into a small set of unaccountable oligarchs and their handmaidens while everyone else gets endless enshittification.
Pretty great outcome if you're one of the lucky few. Why wouldn't Musk or Andreesen think that's "bloom"? The exact same outcome OTOH seems pretty doom to me (a random dude)
definitely; what you're referring to is known as extreme concentration of power is an aspect of more doom-type outcomes. it's not necessarily as existential as the extinction of all humanity, but it is accounted for in the model
I deliberately used non-emotive language and didn't explicitly hint at how I see things evolving with AI – otherwise what's the point if it's just telling me what I already know?
Instead I tried to stick to my view on both current and future capabilities of AI, and how it's likely to progress in the coming years.
My result was closed to Hinton which isn't that reflective of my actual view (I'd put doom at around 99% at this point). But that's probably just because of how I answered.
I like it though! Especially how it clearly exposes how unreasonable Ed Zitron is, and perhaps myself =)
I'm surprised to see Tyler Cowen on the "incremental" side of the Y axis. He seems pretty AI-pilled, at least compared to the guests he has on his pod that aren't themselves involved with AI companies.
I'm in the incremental bloom quadrant and I knew that even before I took the test. It's not even that I'm hesitant about this. I mean, I don't know the future but the incremental bloom is by far the likeliest thing I can imagine.
That being said, it strikes me as odd how empty this quadrant is. Why?
there are some more people here in the larger view of X users: https://www.doom-or-bloom.com/users
I tried to answer all the questions and it placed me in the extreme doom category while I would place myself closer to the center because I do not hold any particuarly strong opinions and I struggled to answer coherently some questions (e.g. I don't "expect" anything of the future or AI, I don't think "good future" is something I can conceptualize, same for "harm" on the level of society, etc.)
hmmm the system's def not perfect. hopefully the process was still useful?
thanks for your feedback; if you publish your results, i'll look into it and try to figure out where things went wrong
> log-in with X
No thanks? Also why do you even need a login?
it doesn't appear to be a requirement.
yeah, it's purely optional. by default, your results stay private in your browser session
but i wanted a way for people to publish their results to share w/ others
That's a reasonable explanation. IF you put it on the site there will be fewer complaints.
good call; will update the sign-in to be less prominent and a disclaimer. appreciate the feedback
It shunned me for lack of demonstrated reasoning, which is a weird metric in that context.
If you measure how much energy is invested into convincing an <input> element pointing to a machine of something, you're not measuring reasoning.
You're measuring how desperate a person is for communication (and, usually, how unstable they are).
seems like the assessment was pretty accurate based on the demonstrated reasoning in this response..
I believe your correct that this is a question everybody should ask themselves, and it would be very interesting to see how varied the responses are. I feel AI has been both a blessing and curse, and I hope it doesn't solely become the later.
def plan to follow up w/ some anonymized analysis of the results if i get enough submissions
What are the "simulated answers" for the public figures based on? They don't seem to be direct quotes, so I assume they're AI-generated in their voice from the sources? I'd make that more clear since you risk misrepresenting people's opinions.
all of the pages include the public sources they're based on and a clear disclaimer. this is also spelled out in the methodology section. many of these folks are using direct quotes to answer the questions where available as well
that being said, i agree, the simulated personas could be better flagged
appreciate the feedback
Depending on what exactly this analysis means by Human Choices I either think it captured me well or got me completely wrong:
I actually believe Human Choice is the dominant force here. But I expect aggregate human choice to limit the changes a single individual can have on the global outcome.yeah, moloch will come for us all in the end
Gary Marcus in the center? He is a strong AI skeptic, I think he should be lower, away from the "Civilizational change" direction.
i agree, but if you view the sources his answers are grounded in, he seems to have updated to being more moderate in light of recent progress. still def on the lower side of the predicted impact spectrum, but it seems he's taking the impacts more seriously now
that's why it's so important to show the sources used to derive these positions. like https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/why-my-pdoom-has-risen-dra...
i really spent a lot of time looking through results and trying to course-correct and fix the model where i found obvious issues, but it's definitely not perfect
if you find any particularly egregious results, they're likely due to not having good enough public sources for that user's viewpoints. def let me know and i'll try to improve them
thanks
The public figure viewer would be way better to use if I could inspect entries without opening a new page.
P(doom) ~ 100%, checks out, but I'm an easy case.
Bloom (like a mold)
P doom < 1 percent and at the bottom closest to incremental change.
edit: I would be curious to see how I'd changed over time as well. I would guess I was much more worried a year ago
really appreciate you taking the time to test it out && hope it was useful
I couldnt get past 30%. Useless.
Unask the question.
Perhaps step outside this foolish dichotomy and consider whether LLMs are being vastly oversold as tools (no AI is not all LLMs and it's foolish to conflate the two). They can be useful in certain domains, they can be a useful crutch in helping humans think. Jumping from there to they will turn us all to grey goo or trigger a fucking renaissance is just unthinking acceptance of what you've been told by marketers and flimflam merchants like Altman and Musk selling you a dream.
The only doom LLMs could bring, which we're already seeing, is the enshittification of our shared spaces; infesting them with a simulacrum of thought and creativity, dumbing us all down till we think advertising copy is good writing and sloppy, shiny, happy images are the only kind of art we need.
which is why it's so important for people to answer this question.. your views are 100% supported by this project if you leave your expected bias at the door ;)
I'm curious why you think answering this question and plotting people on a chart based on doom or bloom would help in any way for those who don't think either doom or bloom is an appropriate framing, and I also don't really know what you mean by 'expected bias', expected by whom?
It's not an open question, it's a very closed one which severely restricts the possible futures considered.
1. this is just a useful marketing framing. the actual assessment uses a much higher dimensional space to model your worldview in a more meaningful, nuanced way
2. by expected bias, i meant that your answer didn't seem to actually look past the name at the actual content of the project or else you would've realized there are plenty of people modeled on here who share similar views as your own
3. i agree this type of knee-jerk reaction to the name & featured framing is reasonable. always tradeoffs when trying to get an idea to catch hold
here's the results of your 2 answers posted into this tool btw. your views are remarkably close to ed zitron's (no judgement; just an observation): https://www.doom-or-bloom.com/public/assessments/8c615299-46...
Doom or Bloom for Whom?
Say that I believe that AI is an ordinary technology (in the same way as the internet or transistors) that will be used to concentrate massive amounts of wealth and power into a small set of unaccountable oligarchs and their handmaidens while everyone else gets endless enshittification.
Pretty great outcome if you're one of the lucky few. Why wouldn't Musk or Andreesen think that's "bloom"? The exact same outcome OTOH seems pretty doom to me (a random dude)
definitely; what you're referring to is known as extreme concentration of power is an aspect of more doom-type outcomes. it's not necessarily as existential as the extinction of all humanity, but it is accounted for in the model
i go into this more in this project: https://cultural-alignment.com/concepts/power-concentration
I deliberately used non-emotive language and didn't explicitly hint at how I see things evolving with AI – otherwise what's the point if it's just telling me what I already know?
Instead I tried to stick to my view on both current and future capabilities of AI, and how it's likely to progress in the coming years.
My result was closed to Hinton which isn't that reflective of my actual view (I'd put doom at around 99% at this point). But that's probably just because of how I answered.
I like it though! Especially how it clearly exposes how unreasonable Ed Zitron is, and perhaps myself =)
glad you found it helpful :) and yes, i find ed zitron super painful to listen to in general
Needs more dimensions for net worth and social media audience size.
i don't have net worth data in there, but you can sort by X follower counts on this more detailed page: https://www.doom-or-bloom.com/users
Nice, that's a good dimension.