1. Why losing your job terrifies you
Johnathan Bi: In a recent essay you wrote, you said that the dominant reaction you have towards AI when it concerns your work is grief and dread. Why is that?
Harvey Lederman: Well, I think many of us feel at the moment that there’s a threat that AI will take the jobs that we love, if we love our jobs. Whether it’s scientific discovery, mathematical discovery, my own case philosophical discovery, or whether it’s being a doctor, a nurse, or being a lawyer, that these jobs are all in some way under threat. I’ll say that although I described my dominant emotion as grief, a thing that I wanted to emphasize in the essay and something that’s important to me is that I think grief, a sense of loss for what we are losing, is compatible with a sense of optimism about what it will bring about. So you can feel sad for something that is gone even when you recognize that overall things are getting better.