Nick Bostrom describes a perceived geographical gradient in attitudes towards AI, contrasting American pessimism with greater enthusiasm in China and the global south. Nick Bostrom suggests that differing expectations about gains and losses may contribute, while noting that concrete disasters are easier to picture than unfamiliar benefits.
Nick Bostrom distinguishes recognisable benefits, such as medical advances, from new modes of experience and human life. Nick Bostrom uses an analogy of ape ancestors weighing whether to become human: they might anticipate abundant food but could not grasp literature, humour, politics or spirituality.
Nick Bostrom concludes that humans should not assume all possible values are already transparent to them. The analogy supports humility and hope about unexplored possibilities, not a prediction that AI will inevitably deliver a good outcome.
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