This applies not only to this article, but more general:

I have seen a few pieces which more or less complain that the debate became too polarized - that there are AI boosters and AI skeptic, both are, according to this, reasonable people, and that a kind of compromise needs to be found.

(I actually think we have seen something similar during the COVID pandemic, different people had different interests, some had kids, some owned a bar and needed income,some owned a cinema or an airline, some have a business that wants to sell again fuel to airlines, some had diabetes or kidney failure, some had older relatives which they wanted to be safe, and so on. Compromises are certainly necessary in life!).

As in the discussion on what to do to contain the pandemic, it all breaks down if the discussion becomes detached from facts, if statements turn into a belief system, if it becomes some kind of cult.

You can, for example, discuss the danger of icebergs to big passenger ships. To do business is always to take risks, and that’s also true if you operate ocean liners. But if you are a deckmate on the Titanic and just received a cable about icebergs being ahead and the captain says there is no way that icebergs can be sighted so far South, and their ship is UNSINKABLE, in all caps, you can’t discuss any more.

Discussions have to be centered snd founded in facts. If there is uncertainty about something important, the responsible way to deal with is to work in finding it out - by both sides which are discussing. If the counterpart is not interested in that , it is more a thing about belief, or, at worst, a cult.

If your job is to engineer a rocket that brings satellites into orbit, you won’t find much sense to compromise with a flat earther. As well, if your job is to protect people from infectuous diseases, you probably won’t find much overlap with somebody who “does not believe in germ theory”.

And we have seen that such polarizations can be manuctured, by spreading disinformation.

And the thing is the ai-pilled promoters (in case they are not bought or bots) do very little to convince AI skeptics. They always come back to the raw speed of its “reasoning”.

If the other side appeals to the will to compromise, have a sharp look whether it would actually be a compromise on facts, on beliefs, or on valid interests of different parties. Because you cannot compromise on facts. There are genuine compromises, and there are con promises.

The whole AI discusson and fervant promotion reeks of a belief system.

Edit: clarified a little