Voldemort is fictional and so are bumbling wizard apprentices. Toy-level, not-yet-harmful AIs on the other hand are real. And so are efforts to make them more powerful. So the proposition that more powerful AIs will exist in the future is far more likely than an evil super wizard coming into existence.
And I don't think literal 5-word-magic-incantation mind control is essential for an AI to be dangerous. More subtle or elaborate manipulation will be sufficient. Employees already have been duped into financial transactions by faked video calls with what they assumed to be their CEOs[0], and this didn't require superhuman general intelligence, only one single superhuman capability (realtime video manipulation).
> Toy-level, not-yet-harmful AIs on the other hand are real.
A computer that can cause harm is much different than the absurd claims that I am disagreeing with.
The extraordinary claims that are equivalent to saying that the imperious curse exists would be the magic computers that create diamond nanobots and mind control humans.
> that more powerful AIs will exist in the future
Bad argument.
Non safe Boxes exist in real life. People are trying to make more and better boxes.
Therefore it is rational to be worried about Pandora's box being created and ending the world.
That is the equivalent argument to what you just made.
And it is absurd when talking about world ending box technology, even though Yes dangerous boxes exist, just as much as it is absurd to claim that world ending AI could exist.
Instead of gesturing at flawed analogies, let's return to the actual issue at hand. Do you think that agents more intelligent than humans are impossible or at least extremely unlikely to come into existence in the future? Or that such super-human intelligent agents are unlikely to have goals that are dangerous to humans? Or that they would be incapable of pursuing such goals?
Also, it seems obvious that the standard of evidence that "AI could cause extinction" can't be observing an extinction level event, because at that point it would be too late. Considering that preventive measures would take time and safety margin, which level of evidence would be sufficient to motivate serious countermeasures?
And I don't think literal 5-word-magic-incantation mind control is essential for an AI to be dangerous. More subtle or elaborate manipulation will be sufficient. Employees already have been duped into financial transactions by faked video calls with what they assumed to be their CEOs[0], and this didn't require superhuman general intelligence, only one single superhuman capability (realtime video manipulation).
[0] https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/04/asia/deepfake-cfo-scam-ho...