Why Imagine Future Dystopias Rather Than Utopias? [Rogue-AI]

By Bbenzon @bbenzon

In a typical Black Mirror episode:
• An improvement plausibly on the horizon is imagined.
• It happens.
• Everything goes horribly wrong.
In the White Mirror I was advocating:
• An improvement plausibly on the horizon is imagined.
• It turns out much better than imagined.

— David Deutsch (@DavidDeutschOxf) October 25, 2022

This is "adjacent" to a problem I've been thinking about: Why is it that the prospect of Rogue AI's have become the focal point of an intellectual community (aka "cult") but utopian AI-mediated futures have not? Because imagining futures is much more difficult than breaking something that exists. Moreover, there are many possibilities for the future, representing various values. Getting people to agree on imagined futures would be difficult. Getting people to agree on protecting what we have is much easier, and so is a more plausible focus for community.