@VitalikButerin: Slowing AI compute hyper-scaling would be net good, he argues

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@VitalikButerin
@VitalikButerin

I know this is a predictable opinion from me but I don't agree with the strong emotional reaction against the anti-data-center movements that I've seen this week. As I see it, algorithmic progress means that whatever you would be able to do with more and bigger data centers in 2 years, you will be able to do with the data centers we have today in 4 years - probably sooner. So nothing remotely apocalyptically bad will happen from even extreme levels of success by anti-data-center people. Meanwhile we need all the time we can get to better harden the world against both already-visible cybersecurity issues and any bio and other risks soon to come. Science applications are bottlenecked by many things other than AI, so slowing AI down by one year will slow those down by much less than one year. Given this, a slowdown in compute hyper-scaling seems quite net good? Notice this is without any controversial "doomer arguments", RSI etc. Even if net-bad, it's certainly not worse than like 10+ other political things.

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@VitalikButerin: Slowing AI compute hyper-scaling would be net good, he argues

AI summary of the linked article

Vitalik Buterin argues that slowing the hyper-scaling of AI compute would be net good, and that he disagrees with the strong emotional reaction he has seen against anti-data-center movements this week. He reasons that algorithmic progress means what would require larger data centers in two years could be done with today's data centers in four years, probably sooner, so even extreme success by those movements would not lead to anything remotely apocalyptically bad. He also says the world needs more time to harden against existing cybersecurity issues and coming bio and other risks, and that science applications are bottlenecked by many things other than AI, so slowing AI by one year would slow them by much less than a year.

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