Nicholas Christakis

So it may reprivilege

So I want to tell a brief toy story or toy model or toy example of the question you just put.

But before I tell that, I want to go on a slight digression.

Yeah.

And because I struggle a lot, as I suspect you do, with, you know, what is AI?

happening with these incredibly powerful tools that are being so rapidly developed in our society.

And there's this scene in the movie Fiddler on the Roof where the protagonist, who's a milkman in the town of Anatevka, you know, around the time of the Russian Revolution, just before actually, is

Very poor man goes to the town center, and there's a big argument that's going on there.

And someone makes something, and Reptebia, he's the character, says, you're right.

And someone makes the opposite point, and he says, you're right too.

And then someone says, Reptebia, they can't both be right.

And he says, you're also right.

Mm-hmm.

And this is how I feel when I listen to debates by experts on AI.

I listen to some computer scientists and some tech billionaires who talk about the amazing promise of AI and how there will be some bumps, but mostly it's going to be this extraordinary future and that to oppose it is to be a Luddite.

And I think you're right.

And then I listened to other incredibly expert computer scientists and tech theorists who say the exact opposite.

Who said, you know, I think I was at an event with Sam Altman a couple of years ago, or a year ago, actually.

And he said that he thought there was like a 2% human extinction risk from AI.

Yeah, but I mean, that's crazy to just not- Yeah, yeah.