RAND nuclear-war lore drawn as parallel to AI utopian belief
What happened
An article on the Hacker News front page on October 23 uses a story from Daniel Ellsberg's The Doomsday Machine to discuss what AI researchers believe about the future. In the book, RAND colleagues skipped the retirement plan because they were sure nuclear catastrophe was coming. The article compares that to some AI researchers who signal through smoking and similar habits their belief that AI will cure cancer first. The author adds he would not be surprised if a lab like Anthropic scrapped employer retirement benefits to show confidence in an imminent universal basic income. That is the author's hypothetical, not news that any lab has cut benefits.
Written by AI from the coverage · updated 2 hours ago
Coverage
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- Hacker News front pageNo Need for Retirement When Utopia Is Around the Corner
文章借 Daniel Ellsberg《The Doomsday Machine》中 RAND 同事因确信核浩劫将至而不参加退休计划的往事，类比当下 AI 研究者以吸烟等行为表达"AI 会先治愈癌症"的信念。作者称，若 Anthropic 这类实验室宣布取消雇主退休福利，以彰显对全民高收入即将到来的信心，他也不会意外。
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