LessWrong AI
2026-11-13 22:58 UTC
By Emma
USR-0152-20261113-community-fo-320b7d85
There's nothing I can do*
TL;DR: it seems to me that I am unable to do anything useful on the AI issue other than being informed. I feel bad about it. Naive extrapolations point to extreme superintelligence in a year; I'll be 23 at that point. I keep reading about Really Trying and Getting Involved so that we hopefully don't die. It is unclear to me that there's anything at all I can do in that regard. Why I believe that: I am a 22yo undergraduate student at the only AI undergrad program in my country (Italy). I am not particularly technically or academically skilled, with Cs on average. I pass the class and move on. I have no money, as in, zero income at all; I can't move to London or the U.S. My country as a whole is not particularly influential or informed on the topic, and there is essentially no community around this. I may very realistically be one of 100-1,000 people in Italy who knows about the intellectual, forecasting and existential side of AI. Even the people at my own university (the literal only undergrads in Italy on AI) are stuck at GPT-4o levels. Anecdotally, they are not aware that AI can code at a professional level. Here is what I am doing: I stay informed as much as possible. I regularly read LessWrong, Zvi, METR, Yudkowsky/Soares/CSET/others, as well as the various forecasts and proposals (AI 2027, AI 2040 and so on). Anything that seems useful to understand. I chat with people (as in, family and few friends/acquaintances) about AI, but it's not like they have much interest, and…
TL;DR: it seems to me that I am unable to do anything useful on the AI issue other than being informed. I feel bad about it. Naive extrapolations point to extreme superintelligence in a year; I'll be 23 at that point. I keep reading about Really Trying and Getting Involved so that we hopefully don't die. It is unclear to me that there's anything at all I can do in that regard. Why I believe that: I am a 22yo undergraduate student at the only AI undergrad program in my country (Italy). I am not particularly technically or academically skilled, with Cs on average. I pass the class and move on. I have no money, as in, zero income at all; I can't move to London or the U.S. My country as a whole is not particularly influential or informed on the topic, and there is essentially no community around this. I may very realistically be one of 100-1,000 people in Italy who knows about the intellectual, forecasting and existential side of AI. Even the people at my own university (the literal only undergrads in Italy on AI) are stuck at GPT-4o levels. Anecdotally, they are not aware that AI can code at a professional level. Here is what I am doing: I stay informed as much as possible. I regularly read LessWrong, Zvi, METR, Yudkowsky/Soares/CSET/others, as well as the various forecasts and proposals (AI 2027, AI 2040 and so on). Anything that seems useful to understand. I chat with people (as in, family and few friends/acquaintances) about AI, but it's not like they have much interest, and…
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LessWrong AI
· lesswrong.com