Émile P. Torres
Philosopher and historian of human extinction. Published a book defending existential-risk reduction in 2017, then became the most-cited critic of longtermism, the view that the overriding moral priority is fulfilling humanity's long-term potential.
Émile P. Torres did not write this page.
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Their wordsThe initial thing to notice is that longtermism, as proposed by Bostrom and Beckstead, is not equivalent to ‘caring about the long term’ or ‘valuing the wellbeing of future generations’.
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Their wordsThe short answer is that elevating the fulfilment of humanity’s supposed potential above all else could nontrivially increase the probability that actual people – those alive today and in the near future – suffer extreme harms, even death.
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Their wordsFor example, there’s a good case to make that the underlying commitments of longtermism are a major reason why humanity faces so many unprecedented risks to its survival in the first place.
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Their wordsThe fact is that the EA movement is deeply utilitarian, at least in practice, and indeed, before it decided upon a name, the movement’s early members, including Ord, seriously considered calling it the ‘effective utilitarian community’.
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Their wordsIn a phrase: people exist for the sake of maximising value, rather than value existing for the sake of benefitting people.
- 4 years earlier
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Their wordsOne of the most commonly emphasized points in the AI safety literature is that one must never anthropomorphize AI—that is, don’t project human mental properties onto artificially intelligent systems.
↗Why superintelligence is a threat that should be taken seriouslythebulletin.org 1st of 2 in this piece
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Their wordsA superintelligence whose goal system is even slightly misaligned with ours could, being far more powerful than any human or human institution, bring about human extinction for the very same reason that construction workers routinely slaughter large populations of ants.
↗Why superintelligence is a threat that should be taken seriouslythebulletin.org 2nd of 2 in this piece