I appreciate your clear-headedness, and I do agree that the signees behind the "Open Letter" might have less altruistic reasons than what they want to portray. That said, the sheer power of this new technological tool threatens to pose such a direct shock on our society as it is currently structured that it is unclear if we can cope with such a shock. That is not taking into account the probability that a human agent uses the power of AI for nefarious reasons and manages to inflict incalculable damage on our society, or that AI itself eventually is able to inflict damage without the need for human guidance. Being on the side of Luddites is rarely a winning proposition, but in this particular case, the Luddites may have a point.
I appreciate your clear-headedness, and I do agree that the signees behind the "Open Letter" might have less altruistic reasons than what they want to portray. That said, the sheer power of this new technological tool threatens to pose such a direct shock on our society as it is currently structured that it is unclear if we can cope with such a shock. That is not taking into account the probability that a human agent uses the power of AI for nefarious reasons and manages to inflict incalculable damage on our society, or that AI itself eventually is able to inflict damage without the need for human guidance. Being on the side of Luddites is rarely a winning proposition, but in this particular case, the Luddites may have a point.