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Suppose we had to take moves in a high-stakes chess game, with thousands of lives at stake. We wouldn't just find a good chess player and ask them to play carefully. We would consult a computer. It would be deeply irresponsible to do otherwise. Computers are better than humans at chess, and more reliable.

We'd probably still keep some good chess players in the loop, to try to catch possible computer error. (Similarly we still have pilots for planes, even though the autopilot is often safer.) But by consulting the computer we'd remove the opportunity for humans to make a certain type of high stakes mistake.

A lot of the high stakes decisions people make today don't look like chess, or flying a plane. They happen in domains where computers are much worse than humans.

But that's a contingent fact about our technology level. [...]

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Outline:

(03:08) What will this era look like?

(05:40) Central challenges to be borne by humans

(08:51) Trying to help at far remove

(12:14) What to make of this

The original text contained 3 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

The original text contained 1 image which was described by AI.

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First published:
July 24th, 2024

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/AayHozeAkfrEex33m/the-last-era-of-human-mistakes

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:

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“The last era of human mistakes” by owencb

LessWrong (30+ Karma)

“The last era of human mistakes” by owencb