Reasons that left-leaning people should get more involved in AI alignment and governance:

  • Panopticon: AI could empower dictators to track all dissidents via all devices, sway public opinion via targeted content and bot armies, and build literal thought police.
  • Slave-species: If future AI is sentient, we might be building a literal slave-species, without adequate rights or protections. If AI was screaming in the dark, how would we know? This seems horrific.
  • Hypercapitalism: If AI replaces most human labour, this would totally disempower the working-class. Unchecked AI takeoff might transform the planet into a sea of solar farms and datacenters in under a decade.