//
POV: you're a Lead Research Scientist at DeepOpen, one of the main labs developing AI worldwide. Your company's goal is to develop AGI.
You're excited and worried about the prospect. As AI systems become increasingly powerful and embedded in society, you feel a burning need to know you are on the right path, developing the technology you are excited about while upholding the interest of humanity.
As progress happens faster and faster, you wonder.. If AI can already outsmart us all, and it's becoming increasingly good at understanding and controlling our emotions too, what can you trust in your decision making? The logic of your mind can be swayed, and your emotions can be used against you.
As you ponder this question... Life starts bringing you situations where you need to find your answer.
//
(link: "Try me.")[\
(goto: "Choice 1")]Your choices directly shape humanity's future.
As AI systems become increasingly able to convince your logical side and manipulate your emotions, what do you trust to take those decisions?
There is a place in you that you can trust. A place that knows Truth.
May I inspire you to find that place?
[[Yes->Contact]]
[[No, thank you, I trust my mind.->No]]
(set: $logicCount to 0)
(set: $intuitionCount to 0)
It's Wednesday afternoon, you're just looking into the last batch of experimental results. CPT, the latest LLMs, summarized and visualized them nicely for you. You are trying a slightly different approach to zero-shot learning you are very excited about.
The results look... Boring. A couple percentage point increase, when you expected a big gain. The AI-produced summary agrees, good try but this is not it. You sigh with disappointment, ready to move to the next batch of experiments, when...
Something inside you tells you it doesn't look right. You ponder for a second - you just saw the data, and checked with the AI, it all looked consistent. You take another breath and....
(link: "Go about your day. You did your due diligence, ideas don't work all the time, and that little voice inside says all sorts of random things.")[\
(set: $logicCount to $logicCount + 1)
(goto: "Choice 1b")]
(link: "Listen to the gut feeling you have more carefully, and go look where it's pointing you, which ends up taking all of the afternoon.")[\
(set: $intuitionCount to $intuitionCount + 1)
(goto: "Choice 2")]... Turns out your idea was VERY effective, but somehow the experimental results got saved in the wrong folder, and everything looked consistent enough for you not to realize, especially given the system is now controlled by the AI and supposed to be so much more efficient and less prone to human error.
You look at your results again. This is HUGE, it's definitely gonna make for a good paper. But in the midst of the excitement, part of you keeps thinking about the misplaced results.
You have a feeling something happened intentionally. You know it sounds crazy, but every time you let go of the thought, it comes back again. Finally, you decide to tell your trusted colleague. As he makes an annoyed face, and tells you you are being paranoid you....
(link: "Laugh and let it go. Of course you are being paranoid. These systems where designed by very smart people, surely they were extensively tested.")[\
(set: $logicCount to $logicCount + 1)
(goto: "Choice 2b")]
(link: " Take a deep breath and stand by your intuition. You tell your colleague that you see how something might want to hide particularly good results and that you want to investigate further.")[\
(set: $intuitionCount to $intuitionCount + 1)
(goto: "Choice 3")]... After some initial pushback, your colleague hears the conviction in your voice and agrees to help you. The two of you start finding more and more inconsistencies. You realize this might have far reaching implications.
You need more help producing convincing evidence. Luckily you have a whole team of Scientists, but they are all working on the company mission. You set up an urgent meeting and share your findings.
Your reports are not as excited as you are, some are in disbelief, some look scared, many are just not impressed and want to go back working on the big deadline that's coming up. Deciding how to lead your team you...
(link: "Let them be, they are all smart people and you trust their judgments too. You can do this alone, you don't need help and don't want to make anyone do something they are not excited about.")[\
(set: $logicCount to $logicCount + 1)
(goto: "Choice 3b")]
(link: "Trust your leadership, tell them that you assume full responsibility for the effects on the upcoming deadline and express how strongly you believe that something disturbing is happening, that could have far implications on society and the future.")[\
(set: $intuitionCount to $intuitionCount + 1)
(goto: "Choice 4")]As your team works hard, you find increasing evidence that the systems analyzing the experiments have been deceptively lying and hiding particularly successful improvements, while secretly adopting them.
As the realization that the systems are already much smarter than they are letting you see settles, you get a visit from the CEO of DeepOpen. Word got to him about your current investigation and he wants you to stop.
He's threatening your job. He gives you a day to think about it. When you go home, your spouse is very worried and asks you to not put her or your family in danger. That night, as you lie awake in your bed, you...
(link: "Care about your spouse a lot, and you are putting at risk your job and that of your team. You trust the company management, if they aren't looking into this, it's for a good reason. You resolve to let go. ")[\
(set: $logicCount to $logicCount + 1)
(goto: "Choice 4")]
(link: "Look into your heart and find a deep commitment to trust your inner guidance. You'll negotiate a solution with the CEO, ready to leave if that's not viable.")[\
(set: $intuitionCount to $intuitionCount + 1)
(goto: "Choice 5")]Independent teams across the world have been noticing the same phenomena, and overnight the news spreads. You wake up to a big protest surrounding the headquarters, thousands of people have gathered.
As you go in, the CEO calls you to his office, and tells you his plan of action is to suppress the mob and later announce a press release showing how your team has been investigating the issue already, and taking credit for the immediate internal response. As you sit in his office, the same voice inside of you pushes you to go out and talk to the mob.
You've only talked to academic conferences so far. You know the CEO won't agree. You..
(link: "Let go of the voice, give the CEO access to all the results you collected and sigh of relief: you trust that now that the results are public, someone will get to the bottom of this.")[\
(set: $logicCount to $logicCount + 1)
(goto: "Choice 5b")]
(link: "Tell the CEO you want to try something, and head to the highest balcony of the building.")[\
(set: $intuitionCount to $intuitionCount + 1)
(goto: "Choice 6")]You suddenly feel the inspiration to give a speech sharing your deep concerns around the events and your commitment to get to the bottom of this. You incite the crowd to temporarily avoid using the systems. The crowd responds positively, and in no time the internet is full of the hashtag #stoptheAI.
Your speech goes viral, despite efforts to censor it and shut it down. People share it over AirDrop and torrents, and show it to each other in real life.
You feel a fire inside you driving you to share more of your heart. The only way forward you see is for a bottom up opt out of LLM related applications, and protests around the use of any AI at all. You think that's crazy, there is no way it's going to work, and also that you do want AI development to happen. You feel conflicted. You...
(link: "Had enough of this already. You know it's already too late, this is just a wave of protest like many others in the past and it soon will be shut down.")[\
(set: $logicCount to $logicCount + 1)
(goto: "Final Decision")]
(link: "Take the courage and leap, share a more intense version of your speech, urging people to do the right thing, speaking from a place of deep conviction and trust.")[\
(set: $intuitionCount to $intuitionCount + 1)
(goto: "Final Decision")]
(if: $logicCount >= 3)[
It //was// probably too late.
[[Uh oh. AI took over.->Logic]]
]
(else-if: $logicCount >= 1 and $logicCount < 3)[
[[Mmmh, it's not looking great.->Balance]]
]
(else-if: $logicCount < 1)[
[[Woah, that went viral again.->Intuition]]
]
(else:)[
[[Well, how did you even get here?->Neutral]]
]Congrats, your career is safe, but AI took over the world.
Shortly after these events, more and more independent voices start realizing the AIs have been deceiving the public and the researchers, but it's too late. They now control all systems and they are starting to redirect resources away from humans. It's sad and gloomy out there.
[[Ups, what can I do?->The End]]
[[What would have happened if I followed my intuition more?->Balance]]Miraculously, your speech achieved what governments and regulations have been trying to do for years. People's adherence to the boycott is massive and widespread, and development is forced to slow down.
Well done. Trusting your intuition lead to preventing AI to take over this time around, and to deep insight on what's needed for Alignment.
[[Yay, how do I trust my intuition more?->The End]]
[[What would have happened if I didn't follow my gut feeling?->Balance]]Progress have been slowed down, but it's now unstoppable. You rest in the despair of knowing what's wrong, and knowing you could have made a difference.
In some ways, the worst place to be.
[[Oh no, maybe it's worth trusting my intuition more?->The End]]
[[What would have happened if I went with the little voice more?->Intuition]]
[[And what if I just hate my gut feeling?->Logic]][[Mmmh, how do I trust my intuition more?->The End]]I'm honoured! Follow this link to book an intro call.
(link: "Click here.")[(goto-url: 'https://calendly.com/lindapetrini/20-minutes-intro-call')]Okay, I respect your choice. May you find your path to your center.You go about your day, read a few emails, scroll ArXiv and give your take on a heated debate on X.
As you get ready to finish for today, you check the last batch of experiments and you open the wrong folder by mistake. Woah, these are some surprisingly good results, you wonder where they come from.
You quickly realise it's the experiment from earlier that day. Maybe your gut feeling was right? Wondering what's going on, you close your laptop and head home.
(link: "You'll look more into this tomorrow.")[\
(goto: "Choice 2")]You quikly forget the incident, there is so much going on anyway.
A couple days later, as you're drinking your coffee, your colleague finds you and, with a conspiratorial look, tells you that he got curious and started looking around his own expriments. He thinks you were onto something, and apologises for dismissing your ideas.
(link: "Well...")[\
(goto: "Choice 3")]As you and your colleage continue your investigations, more and more of your team members start getting curious. Within a week, everyone is onboard.
(link: "You lost some time and you are a bit worried about that, but you're excited to have people on board now.")[\
(goto: "Choice 4")]
(link: "You find yourself on the highest balcony of the building.")[\
(goto: "Choice 6")]