Yeah, articles about the dangers of general AI basically missed the simpler, immediate problems of human using mechanical means to modify themselves and their environment without any ability to collectively, wisely consider the consequences (problems that begin long before machines are intelligent).
If humans are a collectivity, "we" right now have created the means for most people to live without working. But upshot of this hasn't been paradise but increasing privation in advanced nations as everyone still needs a conventional job for social and material survival but fewer and fewer people can find them (and the oversupply of workers reduces their price). Just as much, those who leverage the transformation of society using technology have benefited greatly but the resulting inequality of wealth distribution has produced tremendous despair for a significant percentage of the population with little indication that any further transformations are going to fix this (basic income is one effort but I don't see how this can happen without severe inflation, etc).
A similar unthinking dynamic can be seen in climate change and the effective total lack of serious response to it.
It will be a long time, if ever, before some AGI rules humanity. But the use of mechanical processes to control human behavior began not with AI, not with social media but longer-ago with mass media and it's certainly in high gear at the moment (in both mass and social media of course), allowing whatever well-connected actors to control the "news cycle" and guarantee the lack of coherent, collective discussion of the overall, serious problems of this society (as mentioned above and as most people can see in front of them).
If humans are a collectivity, "we" right now have created the means for most people to live without working. But upshot of this hasn't been paradise but increasing privation in advanced nations as everyone still needs a conventional job for social and material survival but fewer and fewer people can find them (and the oversupply of workers reduces their price). Just as much, those who leverage the transformation of society using technology have benefited greatly but the resulting inequality of wealth distribution has produced tremendous despair for a significant percentage of the population with little indication that any further transformations are going to fix this (basic income is one effort but I don't see how this can happen without severe inflation, etc).
A similar unthinking dynamic can be seen in climate change and the effective total lack of serious response to it.
It will be a long time, if ever, before some AGI rules humanity. But the use of mechanical processes to control human behavior began not with AI, not with social media but longer-ago with mass media and it's certainly in high gear at the moment (in both mass and social media of course), allowing whatever well-connected actors to control the "news cycle" and guarantee the lack of coherent, collective discussion of the overall, serious problems of this society (as mentioned above and as most people can see in front of them).