Is AI Safety Becoming Environmentalism?

I recently read someone’s call to action on AI safety[1] that included a line along the lines of “we need someone to convince your parents”, and it really stuck with me. Do we need someone to convince my parents? Who is “we”, and why is it important for my parents to know anything about AI safety? This also sounds kind of familiar. There is another movement I can think of that sometimes uses messaging like this. This is not a new observation by any means, but to me, it feels like the AI safety movement is increasingly “becoming” the environmental movement in a variety of ways. Let me say upfront: I’m not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, at least on consequentialist grounds. The environmental movement has achieved a lot: it has improved the lives of many people, animals, and it has protected the environment! But this trend does make me a little worried and sad, because I think the environmentalist movement has made a number of mistakes, and it would be bad for the AI safety movement to repeat them. In what ways is the AI safety movement becoming like the environmental movement? Here are some of my observations. • Arguments are now soldiers. Eliezer wrote: “Once you know which side you're on, you must support all arguments of that side, and attack all arguments that appear to favor the enemy side; otherwise it's like stabbing your soldiers in the back - providing aid and comfort to the enemy. People who would be level-headed about evenhandedly weighing all sides of an issue in their professional life as scientists, can suddenly turn into slogan-chanting zombies when there's a Blue or Green position on an issue.” Scott Alexander wrote that he felt he was retaliated against (admittedly in a perhaps minor way) by an organization in the space for believing the “wrong” arguments.• When people in the movement talk about climate or AI risk, they operate in a frame where there is a consensus, right answer. Anyone that disagrees must be either dumb or evil. Some people