推断事情会如何变糟很容易It’s Easy to Extrapolate How Things Will Get Worse
纳瓦尔：很多关于我们很快就要造出通用人工智能（AGI）的理论，都建立在对算力的天真外推之上。
这几乎就是对算力不断增加的一种归纳。他们说："AI 在视觉上已经很厉害了，下棋能赢人类，打电子游戏也能赢人类；所以它很快就要开始思考了。"
另一个衍生观点是：人类正在耗尽地球上的所有资源，所以地球上人越多越糟糕。
但如果你相信知识源于创造力，那么明天出生的任何一个孩子，都可能是下一个爱因斯坦或费曼。他们可能凭借具有非线性产出和影响的创造力，发现某种永远改变世界的东西。
布雷特：眼下我们非常担心污染和一些物种的灭绝，对某些人来说这些担忧是合情合理的。但这绝不应该以牺牲长远愿景为代价——如果我们能以更快的速度进步，善用手头可用的资源，我们就能解决所有这些乃至更多的问题。
纳瓦尔：为什么世界上似乎总是悲观者多于乐观者，尤其是当我们仍然生活在以启蒙时代价值观为主的时代、还享有如此巨大的创新之时？
原因大概有很多。当悲观者比当乐观者更容易。预测生活会如何变好很难；外推它会如何变糟却很容易。
你还可以说，毁灭的风险太大——一旦毁灭就无法挽回——所以我们的本能就是当悲观者。
如果你是乐观者并且对了，那只是小有收获。但如果你乐观错了，被老虎吃掉了，那就一切归零。
Naval: A lot of the theories as to why we’re imminently going to create an AGI are based in a naïve extrapolation of computational power.
It’s almost an induction of more and more computational power. They say, “AI has already gotten good at vision and beating humans at chess and at video games; therefore, it’s going to start thinking soon.”
Another offshoot is this idea that humans are eating up all the Earth’s resources, so having more humans on Earth is a bad idea.
But if you believe that knowledge comes through creativity, then any child born tomorrow could be the next Einstein or Feynman. They could discover something that will change the world forever with creativity that has nonlinear outputs and effects.
Brett: At the moment we’re very concerned about the pollution and the loss of certain species, and these are legitimate concerns for some people. But it should never be at the expense of the long-term vision that we can solve all of those problems—and far more—if we could progress at a faster rate by using the resources that we have available to us.
Naval: Why does the world always seem to be full of more pessimists than optimists, especially when we still live with mostly Enlightenment Era values and such tremendous innovation?
There are probably multiple reasons for that. It’s easier to be a pessimist than an optimist. It’s hard to guess how life is going to improve; it’s easier to extrapolate how it’s going to get worse.
You could also argue that the risk of ruin is so large—you can’t come back from it—that we’re hardwired to be pessimists.
If you’re correct as an optimist, then you have a small gain. But if you’re wrong when you’re optimistic and you get eaten by a tiger, then it goes to zero.