Not by 2026 but by 2040 it will be.

I don’t necessarily think that AI will enter the culture wars, but I think the odds are greater than the market currently implies.

@JohnSmithb9be Sounds like an argument to bet YES!

@IsaacKing I did!

By 2026? There's no way people are going to be taking seriously the idea that AI is sentient by then, let alone enough for it to become a culture war issue.

@JosephNoonan Sounds like you should bet NO then! :)

@IsaacKing I already have. But maybe I will buy some more.

@JosephNoonan I was thinking yes at least in the sense that veganism is today. Not taken seriously by most people but still associated with a particular side of the political spectrum and criticized for it. Not sure if that was supposed to count though.

@WinstonOswaldDrummond That does seem more plausible. I think that most of the probability mass of this is in non-paradigm cases, which is the main reason I didn't bet the market down that far. There's virtually no chance that the question of whether AI is conscious becomes a totally clear cut, "People on the left believe it is, and believe on the right believe it's not", or vice-versa, but it is possible that it becomes more common on one side of the political spectrum, like veganism.

The question is, how far do we draw the line for what is/isn't part of the left/right culture war? Healing crystals are typically associated with the left (although with how much the right has turned against medical experts, I'm not sure if that association is even correct anymore), but I wouldn't call it a culture-war issue since it doesn't come up much in political debate, and most people on both sides agree that supporters of healing crystals are crackpots. Veganism is harder to tell, though. It's definitely associated with the left, and conservatives are often hostile to veganism. I would consider it part of the culture war, but I'm not sure if it would actually meet the criteria of the original culture war market.

@JosephNoonan I wouldn't count veganism. Many if not most of the people I know who claim to be leftists are strongly opposed to veganism and love to go around insulting them.

@IsaacKing I agree many/most leftists are anti-vegan. But it's also true that many conservatives and vegan leftists associate veganism with political ideology. Depending on your definitions, though, that may not count as a culture war. Maybe a less niche analogy could be the animal welfare movement as a whole. My impression is that it's still associated with the left, but it's not so unpopular that it's also widely criticized by the left. Though in that case, it doesn't seem as contentious of a topic as the issues that usually come to mind when you think about a "culture war". So if the perceived levels of importance and controversy of the topic are also relevant here, the AI sentience issue may still not apply even if it's similar to the current animal movement in lots of ways.

But I"m happy to just go with your judgment on this anyway.