The AI-as-Normal-Technology view of loss-of-control incidents
normaltech.aiThe sensibilism in this piece is unhinged.
This is the sort of position you gravitate to if you read the Economist uncritically and routinely view policy questions as technical matters; a dogged refusal to appreciate any situation, substituting understanding for appreciation as though they were currencies.
I feel like I'm reading a Bagehot column from a century ago arguing that computing is best seen as normal abacus technology, or, slightly later, that a nuke is just another munition and anyway we already have firestorms, so how is a nuke any different from what we did manually in Dresden, etc.
These are the kind of people who gulp and blink uselessly when the lights finally do go out. The only apocalypse they genuinely fear is a feeling of alarm. It make number go down.
Their alternative explanation seems, uh, pretty sensible to me?
"On the other hand, cybersecurity practitioners have largely viewed these incidents as consequences of companies failing to adopt basic security precautions. They do not see the incidents as a sign of AI reaching a new milestone in cybersecurity. This is also the dominant reaction in the tech community outside AI, which has largely treated the incidents as a result of ineptitude and negligence by AI companies."