As someone who has been working on this topic for years, had short timelines all along, and is seeing things go down the drain as expected, I definitely resonate with your observations of sometimes being trapped in the fast world. I remember feeling like it was meaningless when my brothers finished high-school and decided on their careers, even though I was happy for them, and wanted to be happy for them.
I've also worked recently on being able to genuinely want things in the long term again. I had burned myself out of it, from the stress and the worry about the end of the world. But there is a form of dignity and courage in being willing to hope for a future, even when you know it might really not come to pass.
I'd only add one thing to your post. You present the slow world mostly as a preference, and almost as an indulgence. But to me, it's more meaningful than that: the slow world is what we're fighting for. I don't work on solving AI-risks because I'm excited about the thrill of the fast world; I work on it because I want to recover the slow world, for me, for my friends, for my family, for every single human on earth.
And though we can't constantly stay in the slow world (that would be denial), to come back to it again and again is to remember why what we're fighting for.
As someone who's been living in the Fast World a lot recently, I'm really glad you wrote this. But I think this also extends beyond thinking about AI Doom; for me personally, I find that living a healthy life requires me to act as if I am functionally immortal, as if I will have far more than 70-80 years to live in the best cases. Because If I didn't act this way, I would almost certainly spend a lot of time agonizing about which books I take the time to read, which movies I take the time to watch, and all the hours I spend going on walks or sitting around aimlessly. So perhaps this counterintuitive necessity is as old as humanity itself, even if 2-3 year timelines make it feel more salient.
I like the framing of fast vs slow. I do wonder if some people felt this way dozens or hundreds of years ago because they weren't going to get out alive either. A single human life is extremely fast and prevents you from executing on almost anything that you could do with your life anyway. Most humans are lucky to accomplish a few things their whole lives.
The CS Lewis quote talking about the bomb is a reason for optimism, depending on how you think AI will go. There were people who were convinced that nuclear extinction was inevitable, but ended up leading much worse lives than the people who didn't live their lives that way. Even if I think that AI will make the world much weirder than nukes, there's no benefit in being consistently sad or hopeless about it. On the positive side, it makes it pretty easy to spend money for my convenience!
Maybe it's possible to live in both worlds, or take good things from both. Like you can be a lot less concerned about retirement and long term health metrics but much more concerned with doing things that the slow world would recommend to you anyway
Perfectly said. So too were our parents or grandparents worried, not about the irresistible impedance of the normal currents of life of which we-know-not-what (and I'm sorry, we don't), but about the certain and irresistible red button of total destruction.
So too did our ancestors know that if the crops didn't grow, for the weak and the frail, there wouldn't be another harvest. Things wouldn't "get strange" as much as they'd get weak or bloody or both.
That we live in the shadow of death isn't new. That we live in the dark forest of strange possibility...is a revelation constantly deepening. It is precisely that which invites rich slowness. The depth of our experiences might be the only valuable thing at the end of the great device.
To believe in something more in-despair almost seeks to invite the despaired conclusion, if our impressionability is passed onto our digital engrams in strange connective capacities that reinforce building our own nightmares.
To live somewhere between myth and 21st century street-smarts seems to be life's invitation in the here and now. If I'm reading the invitation wrong I will still attempt to be fabulously out-of-dress...
Hi Sarah, wonderful post, you elucidate many feelings I've had around this topic as well, thank you :)
I've been thinking a lot about this sense of living in a parallel world and the resulting isolation, and will spend some time (lol) to reflect on this post, but I've come to somewhat different conclusions for myself despite sharing much of the same baseline understanding of the consequences of living in fast time.
My situation is a bit unique compared to that of many of the "Situationally Aware". I haven't ever really lived in slow time. Through the end of college (May 2024), I lived in more of what I would call soft-fast-time. This is a childish, living-in-the-moment mindset that sans AI I would be in the process of evolving to a slow-time outlook as my post-college life opened up to me. Due to my dive into the AI safety world though, it feels like I've put off the start-living-in-long-time point til post-are-we-all-dying rather than the end of college, instead entering something like a hard-fast-time regime (where there is a barrier in the way of the long-view rather than simply inattention to the distant possibilities).
Since the end of college, I uprooted my entire life and moved to London on my own – new country, no relationships, with my only connections being through my work and digital communication with those at home. While I've met a few friends here and there in London, the reality of my work and worldview follows me into these friendships, and it is difficult to foster slow-time, although I've gotten spots here and there (and I've been working on improving this in the new year with some success). Never having experienced really living in long-time, it feels difficult and borderline disingenuous trying to foster a more general sense of it now.
I recently have found myself yearning for long timeline things more than I have in the past, like eventually settling down with someone, refining hobbies over the years, and maybe even having kids someday (which is very much not something I was thinking about previously lol). From my perspective though, these are things which feel like they are reserved for the good timeline given how soon the inflection point seems. That said, I've not completely given up on them, I still spend time on hobbies and I'm open to finding a compatible person, but it's hard to imagine for example living with someone primarily in slow time, when I have little vision for what the long-future could look like.
I know there is certainly an argument to make that I should pursue these things now and live as if we're on the narrow path, but it very much feels like I can't shake the spectre of ASI appearing so early in life for me. Fighting it with everything I have seems like the sacrifice play to fight for the dream of a slower time (something something young male desire to die in a land war in Europe). There also is likely something else about burnout I should consider here, although so far I think I'm doing fine on that front.
Overall, I try to find some moments of slow time, but I feel very locked in fast time as it is is what the blurry future resolved itself to first for me. Given how fast our time be moving, it feels like I should just wait to try to live in slow time til I can see what that might realistically look like. Despite the lack of immediate resolution for me, I hold out hope for this abstract slow future, and will continue to fight for it to come to pass.
Re: "I want to really believe in those futures. I want to delude myself as thoroughly as I can. Because this is how I will feel these moments as they deserve to be felt."
I also prefer to feel those moments as they deserve to be felt, but I don't think actively deluding myself is my preferred way to go about trying to feel the feelings in the way that I want.
Isn't it possible to feel all the feelings the way we want to and prevent reality from "dominating our minds" (per the CS Lewis quote) without deluding ourselves?
In Randy Pausch's famous last lecture (21M views on YouTube) he made clear that he was not deluded--that he was fully aware of his short life expectancy--and yet he carried himself and acted in a way that showed his mind had not been "dominated." He expressed joy, etc, and was not acting depressed while giving his talk. Perhaps he took some time to cry with his family--because he wanted to let himself feel sadness--but he didn't let reality make him stop doing "sensible and human things" (again per the CS Lewis quote). It seems he managed to feel the way he wanted to feel and act the way he wanted to act without deluding himself.
Once you follow from a scientific viewpoint what's going on in the world, it's pretty difficult not to conclude that there are severe risks. There are climate change, loss of biodiversity, and several other environmental risks. There is the triple AI risk: abuse by bad actors, unprecedented levels of job losses with ensuing further extremes of wealth inequality, and eventual AI takeover. These are risks, not certainties. And they don't necessarily mean the extinction of humanity. But the probabilities are uncomfortably above zero, and the impacts at very least mean severe reductions in our levels of wellbeing (especially now that we enjoy levels of wellbeing better than in the entire history of humanity albeit still too unequally shared).
I find myself contemplating this often, and I always come to the same conclusion, i.e. that the chances of us still living a life as comfortable as we do right now or better in a decade or a few are really not that great. Yet, I am not gloomy and desparate. Instead I found that I go to great lengths living every day as fully as possible. Any day spent in misery is a waste. That doesn't mean to indulge in excessive hedonism, go on spending sprees. But to make the little things count. Meet with friends, try to do little good deeds, read a good book. These things really do make us happy, who would have thought?
In conclusion, yes, pursuing a long-term career in soulless corporate for the sake of money and status does seem to be a waste in light of above. But living a fulfilled life, full of meaning can never be a bad thing. And indeed, trying to contribute to the solutions, even if it's ever so small, trying to help prevent the various doomsday scenarios seems a very worthwhile endeavor indeed.
Thank you for writing this wonderful article. It's good to know I'm not alone feeling like this.
This is a fantastic read that's stayed in my mind, thanks for writing. Reminded me of Jacob Geller discussing "On The Beach", where everyone goes about their daily lives before the radiation floods in. Despite this backdrop, the plots and stories are normal and usual. Everyone carries on, because why shouldn't they? I think you're right to live in both worlds.
I'm consistently trying to check myself and tell myself that many people have believed in an apocalypse within their lifetimes, so perhaps my reasoning is faulty. However only this and nuclear war has ever felt a real possibility to me. Unlike nuclear war, all the incentives for sensible AI alignment feels off.
Maybe this pans out okay, but even if not, I think it's nice living in these times and staying in the present right now. There's a lot worth protecting
I have for some time now been playing with the concept of slow consulting. The results and way better. I'm happier, healthier and clearer. Though people still laugh when they hear it. We have somehow conflated slowness and steadiness to mean laziness. Nothing could be further from the truth. Thanks for writing this article and sharing your thoughts on this!
I loved your post Sarah! The everyday, the routine, the unexciting is what makes us. It's what keeps us grounded. Our experienced obsessed culture is exhausting. And it lacks quality. We want to collect as many experiences as possible instead of living them.
I wrote about this same topic in a very different way a while back. I'd love to hear your thoughts:
Now that I think of it, pretty much everything I wrote is about this topic... But I really appreciate how you put it in other words. Full of care. We need more of that. Thanks!
Thanks for this post.
As someone who has been working on this topic for years, had short timelines all along, and is seeing things go down the drain as expected, I definitely resonate with your observations of sometimes being trapped in the fast world. I remember feeling like it was meaningless when my brothers finished high-school and decided on their careers, even though I was happy for them, and wanted to be happy for them.
I've also worked recently on being able to genuinely want things in the long term again. I had burned myself out of it, from the stress and the worry about the end of the world. But there is a form of dignity and courage in being willing to hope for a future, even when you know it might really not come to pass.
I'd only add one thing to your post. You present the slow world mostly as a preference, and almost as an indulgence. But to me, it's more meaningful than that: the slow world is what we're fighting for. I don't work on solving AI-risks because I'm excited about the thrill of the fast world; I work on it because I want to recover the slow world, for me, for my friends, for my family, for every single human on earth.
And though we can't constantly stay in the slow world (that would be denial), to come back to it again and again is to remember why what we're fighting for.
As someone who's been living in the Fast World a lot recently, I'm really glad you wrote this. But I think this also extends beyond thinking about AI Doom; for me personally, I find that living a healthy life requires me to act as if I am functionally immortal, as if I will have far more than 70-80 years to live in the best cases. Because If I didn't act this way, I would almost certainly spend a lot of time agonizing about which books I take the time to read, which movies I take the time to watch, and all the hours I spend going on walks or sitting around aimlessly. So perhaps this counterintuitive necessity is as old as humanity itself, even if 2-3 year timelines make it feel more salient.
I like the framing of fast vs slow. I do wonder if some people felt this way dozens or hundreds of years ago because they weren't going to get out alive either. A single human life is extremely fast and prevents you from executing on almost anything that you could do with your life anyway. Most humans are lucky to accomplish a few things their whole lives.
The CS Lewis quote talking about the bomb is a reason for optimism, depending on how you think AI will go. There were people who were convinced that nuclear extinction was inevitable, but ended up leading much worse lives than the people who didn't live their lives that way. Even if I think that AI will make the world much weirder than nukes, there's no benefit in being consistently sad or hopeless about it. On the positive side, it makes it pretty easy to spend money for my convenience!
Maybe it's possible to live in both worlds, or take good things from both. Like you can be a lot less concerned about retirement and long term health metrics but much more concerned with doing things that the slow world would recommend to you anyway
Perfectly said. So too were our parents or grandparents worried, not about the irresistible impedance of the normal currents of life of which we-know-not-what (and I'm sorry, we don't), but about the certain and irresistible red button of total destruction.
So too did our ancestors know that if the crops didn't grow, for the weak and the frail, there wouldn't be another harvest. Things wouldn't "get strange" as much as they'd get weak or bloody or both.
That we live in the shadow of death isn't new. That we live in the dark forest of strange possibility...is a revelation constantly deepening. It is precisely that which invites rich slowness. The depth of our experiences might be the only valuable thing at the end of the great device.
To believe in something more in-despair almost seeks to invite the despaired conclusion, if our impressionability is passed onto our digital engrams in strange connective capacities that reinforce building our own nightmares.
To live somewhere between myth and 21st century street-smarts seems to be life's invitation in the here and now. If I'm reading the invitation wrong I will still attempt to be fabulously out-of-dress...
happy you wrote this, put words to what lots of us are experiencing
I find myself wishing I could have a drink with you at the edge of the galaxy. I think you would be great company.
All of the best!
David
Hi Sarah, wonderful post, you elucidate many feelings I've had around this topic as well, thank you :)
I've been thinking a lot about this sense of living in a parallel world and the resulting isolation, and will spend some time (lol) to reflect on this post, but I've come to somewhat different conclusions for myself despite sharing much of the same baseline understanding of the consequences of living in fast time.
My situation is a bit unique compared to that of many of the "Situationally Aware". I haven't ever really lived in slow time. Through the end of college (May 2024), I lived in more of what I would call soft-fast-time. This is a childish, living-in-the-moment mindset that sans AI I would be in the process of evolving to a slow-time outlook as my post-college life opened up to me. Due to my dive into the AI safety world though, it feels like I've put off the start-living-in-long-time point til post-are-we-all-dying rather than the end of college, instead entering something like a hard-fast-time regime (where there is a barrier in the way of the long-view rather than simply inattention to the distant possibilities).
Since the end of college, I uprooted my entire life and moved to London on my own – new country, no relationships, with my only connections being through my work and digital communication with those at home. While I've met a few friends here and there in London, the reality of my work and worldview follows me into these friendships, and it is difficult to foster slow-time, although I've gotten spots here and there (and I've been working on improving this in the new year with some success). Never having experienced really living in long-time, it feels difficult and borderline disingenuous trying to foster a more general sense of it now.
I recently have found myself yearning for long timeline things more than I have in the past, like eventually settling down with someone, refining hobbies over the years, and maybe even having kids someday (which is very much not something I was thinking about previously lol). From my perspective though, these are things which feel like they are reserved for the good timeline given how soon the inflection point seems. That said, I've not completely given up on them, I still spend time on hobbies and I'm open to finding a compatible person, but it's hard to imagine for example living with someone primarily in slow time, when I have little vision for what the long-future could look like.
I know there is certainly an argument to make that I should pursue these things now and live as if we're on the narrow path, but it very much feels like I can't shake the spectre of ASI appearing so early in life for me. Fighting it with everything I have seems like the sacrifice play to fight for the dream of a slower time (something something young male desire to die in a land war in Europe). There also is likely something else about burnout I should consider here, although so far I think I'm doing fine on that front.
Overall, I try to find some moments of slow time, but I feel very locked in fast time as it is is what the blurry future resolved itself to first for me. Given how fast our time be moving, it feels like I should just wait to try to live in slow time til I can see what that might realistically look like. Despite the lack of immediate resolution for me, I hold out hope for this abstract slow future, and will continue to fight for it to come to pass.
Re: "I want to really believe in those futures. I want to delude myself as thoroughly as I can. Because this is how I will feel these moments as they deserve to be felt."
I also prefer to feel those moments as they deserve to be felt, but I don't think actively deluding myself is my preferred way to go about trying to feel the feelings in the way that I want.
Isn't it possible to feel all the feelings the way we want to and prevent reality from "dominating our minds" (per the CS Lewis quote) without deluding ourselves?
In Randy Pausch's famous last lecture (21M views on YouTube) he made clear that he was not deluded--that he was fully aware of his short life expectancy--and yet he carried himself and acted in a way that showed his mind had not been "dominated." He expressed joy, etc, and was not acting depressed while giving his talk. Perhaps he took some time to cry with his family--because he wanted to let himself feel sadness--but he didn't let reality make him stop doing "sensible and human things" (again per the CS Lewis quote). It seems he managed to feel the way he wanted to feel and act the way he wanted to act without deluding himself.
Once you follow from a scientific viewpoint what's going on in the world, it's pretty difficult not to conclude that there are severe risks. There are climate change, loss of biodiversity, and several other environmental risks. There is the triple AI risk: abuse by bad actors, unprecedented levels of job losses with ensuing further extremes of wealth inequality, and eventual AI takeover. These are risks, not certainties. And they don't necessarily mean the extinction of humanity. But the probabilities are uncomfortably above zero, and the impacts at very least mean severe reductions in our levels of wellbeing (especially now that we enjoy levels of wellbeing better than in the entire history of humanity albeit still too unequally shared).
I find myself contemplating this often, and I always come to the same conclusion, i.e. that the chances of us still living a life as comfortable as we do right now or better in a decade or a few are really not that great. Yet, I am not gloomy and desparate. Instead I found that I go to great lengths living every day as fully as possible. Any day spent in misery is a waste. That doesn't mean to indulge in excessive hedonism, go on spending sprees. But to make the little things count. Meet with friends, try to do little good deeds, read a good book. These things really do make us happy, who would have thought?
In conclusion, yes, pursuing a long-term career in soulless corporate for the sake of money and status does seem to be a waste in light of above. But living a fulfilled life, full of meaning can never be a bad thing. And indeed, trying to contribute to the solutions, even if it's ever so small, trying to help prevent the various doomsday scenarios seems a very worthwhile endeavor indeed.
Thank you for writing this wonderful article. It's good to know I'm not alone feeling like this.
This is a fantastic read that's stayed in my mind, thanks for writing. Reminded me of Jacob Geller discussing "On The Beach", where everyone goes about their daily lives before the radiation floods in. Despite this backdrop, the plots and stories are normal and usual. Everyone carries on, because why shouldn't they? I think you're right to live in both worlds.
I'm consistently trying to check myself and tell myself that many people have believed in an apocalypse within their lifetimes, so perhaps my reasoning is faulty. However only this and nuclear war has ever felt a real possibility to me. Unlike nuclear war, all the incentives for sensible AI alignment feels off.
Maybe this pans out okay, but even if not, I think it's nice living in these times and staying in the present right now. There's a lot worth protecting
I have for some time now been playing with the concept of slow consulting. The results and way better. I'm happier, healthier and clearer. Though people still laugh when they hear it. We have somehow conflated slowness and steadiness to mean laziness. Nothing could be further from the truth. Thanks for writing this article and sharing your thoughts on this!
I loved your post Sarah! The everyday, the routine, the unexciting is what makes us. It's what keeps us grounded. Our experienced obsessed culture is exhausting. And it lacks quality. We want to collect as many experiences as possible instead of living them.
I wrote about this same topic in a very different way a while back. I'd love to hear your thoughts:
https://writerbytechnicality.substack.com/p/convenience-over-quality
I also discussed how a loss of our appreciation for the routine can be the sign of an impending crisis:
https://open.substack.com/pub/writerbytechnicality/p/its-happening?r=3anz55&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
Now that I think of it, pretty much everything I wrote is about this topic... But I really appreciate how you put it in other words. Full of care. We need more of that. Thanks!