Tobes (author/narrator of the LessWrong linkpost)

I have a half-formed thought along the lines of even if there is only a small chance that this becomes a big pandemic, it might be worth reacting strongly.

The cost of underreacting is much greater than the cost of overreacting.

But I don't say this.

I am a little bit reassured by his confidence that all will be well.

A few weeks later, I come home to see my housemate carrying crates of canned food to his room.

He has spent a lot of time on internet rationality forums and at their suggestion has started stockpiling.

His cupboard is filled with huge quantities of soup.

I think that this is pretty ridiculous.

My other housemates and I watch him as he lugs the crates up the stairs to his room.

We look at each other and roll our eyes.

I am at a dinner hosted by a friend in South London.

I am talking to an acquaintance, a PhD student studying machine learning at a London university.

I ask him how he has been doing.

Not very good to be honest, he says glumly.

I am pretty worried about AI and no one in my lab seems to take this seriously.

they all think it's science fiction it makes me feel really lonely and a bit crazy he looks dejected it's not just the ideas though i think this thing is actually going to kill me it's horrifying i commiserate with him it must be hard to be surrounded by people who dismiss your ideas all day

I wonder if his anxiety has more to do with lockdown exacerbated loneliness than with the whole AI apocalypse thing.

A year later we will see each other at another party and he will tell me that he has now quit the PhD and is feeling much better.

He will say that he still thinks it's likely that AI will kill him.

Heading.