alt Hacker NewsThere's a scene in the movie "War of the Worlds" by Spielberg where the protagonist's son walks into a war zone because he is entranced by the battle (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7rfWPbEufo). He is obliterated (along with the rest of the US forces) shortly after.
I've always been struck by that scene, because in a lot of ways, if we really are headed towards a superintelligence, I at least want to be there and see it happen in the last few minutes before foom! As an example, the author thinks AI will revolutionize entire fields overnight. I welcome that. Nearly all fields of biology have become moribund, focusing more and more on esoteric side details, rather than addressing the key problems.
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Not refuting your overall point, but the son wasn’t killed. They reunite at the end of the movie.
> He is obliterated
Technically, he is not. He returns in the final scene.
It might not be "foom!", it might just be like...all the computers and networking infra in the world go dark over the course of a few minutes. Could really look like anything, part of the issue is that we haven't the slightest idea what "misalignment" looks like for a superintelligent system.