Gary Marcus

Rank 11 of 47
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Score 83
5/21/2025, 4:13:54 PM
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In reply to:
David Manheim
@davidmanheim
·
258d
@GaryMarcus @daganshani1 There's a huge difference between within-system non-breaking "failures" like Trump and tariffs, compared to an actual collapse.

I suspect that we'll see an economic depression, and the US might not even survive as a liberal democracy, but that's not on the scale of a GCR.
Gary Marcus
@GaryMarcus
·
258d
@davidmanheim @daganshani1 The entire western system was just undermined in a few months, alliances broken, rights suspended, etc.

If that’s not fragile, i don’t know what is.
David Manheim
@davidmanheim
·
258d
@GaryMarcus @daganshani1 And I don't think that society is so fragile today, and while I worry about the acceleration of technology (as in my recent post, https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/… ) and tech fragility (as in my paper, https://www.sciencedirect.com/sc…,) I don't think AI on its own is the issue.
David Manheim
@davidmanheim
·
258d
@GaryMarcus @daganshani1 I'm skeptical bad actors gain capabilities so much more quickly than good actors that there's a plausible global catastrophic event, say, >20% dead.
I worry about engineered pandemics, but unless a state actor builds them, they are unlikely to be far worse than natural pandemics.
Gary Marcus
@GaryMarcus
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258d
@davidmanheim @daganshani1 Nefarious actors doing bad things might cause great harm either directly (e.g. by facilitating bioweapons attacks at new scale) or indirectly (e.g undermining democracy, removing checks and balances and thereby escalating chance of unprecedented conflict).

There is also
David Manheim
@davidmanheim
·
258d
@GaryMarcus @daganshani1 Is your view that disaster is very likely because human civilization is very precarious, and it therefore won't take an intelligent adversary to cause a large scale disaster? Or that a nefarious actor would intentionally cause the death of more people than any previous event?

The statement is part of a broader discussion on the potential for global catastrophic risks (GCR) and the fragility of societal systems, particularly in the context of economic depression and political upheaval. The tone is speculative and analytical, engaging with the ideas presented by others in the conversation.

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