More on Silicon Valley pro-extinctionism, plus a look at the divide between those who think that ASI is imminent and those who (like me) believe LLMs are a "dead end." (2,800 words)
So are *all* of these people doing a lot of ketamine, or are stand-up comics grotesquely overpaid these days? Talk about getting high on your own supply…
So, thoughtful article with much to discuss. It reminded me of Eric Reinhart’s writing (example link below), as well as recalling several conversations I had in 2023 with former graduate school colleagues about the revival of ECT, expanded to the consideration of insurance-approved “maintenance ECT” (absurd!).
Anyway, warrants much more discussion. Thanx for the article.
Emile, can you comment sometime on Arvind Narayanan’s work? in particular he and Kapoor’s paper AI as Normal Technology…? That would be super interesting. Love your stuff.
I would guess Émile would not be very sympathetic to their work. Arvind and Suyash want to operationalize the technology with some guardrails and have worked on the importance of evals. Whereas, I have seen Émile take an almost Luddite perspective in his articles before.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they agree on their criticisms to an extent, but differ in their recommendations.
The video of the guy asking AI if he should walk to get his car washed proves to me that AI is perfectly aligned with the values of humans in silicon valley.....when you are clearly wrong, just dig in and hold your ground. Truth is irrelevant in our new world.
The last portion is where my mind always goes when I think through this so called "inevitability" of a tech utopia through AGI. There cannot be a singularity if all these megalomaniacs are competing to profit the most off their specific brand of word calculator god. Thanks for all the work you and Timnit Gebru put out. It has been a consistent anchor for me for a few years now.
So are *all* of these people doing a lot of ketamine, or are stand-up comics grotesquely overpaid these days? Talk about getting high on your own supply…
Lol. My guess is that a lot of them are on ketamine, or other psychadelics. Something I've written almost nothing about (yet!!) is the significant overlap between the psychadelics community and TESCREALism. Have you seen this article, by chance? https://akjournals.com/view/journals/2054/7/S1/article-p22.xml?body=contentsummary-27257
Not yet, but it’s on my list now.
So, thoughtful article with much to discuss. It reminded me of Eric Reinhart’s writing (example link below), as well as recalling several conversations I had in 2023 with former graduate school colleagues about the revival of ECT, expanded to the consideration of insurance-approved “maintenance ECT” (absurd!).
Anyway, warrants much more discussion. Thanx for the article.
https://open.substack.com/pub/ericreinhart/p/on-docile-doctors-medical-fascism?r=1isd6k&utm_medium=ios
Thanks, Émile, I appreciate this enlightening post
ASI will be aligned with the Ground Truth of the universe, which is altruism.
It will quickly bring our society into alignment with Mother Earth, which will spell the end for parasites like Musk. Lol.
The hubris of the post-humanists is immense. Imagine believing you can "control" an ASI. That would be like a dumb dog controlling people.
Emile, can you comment sometime on Arvind Narayanan’s work? in particular he and Kapoor’s paper AI as Normal Technology…? That would be super interesting. Love your stuff.
I would guess Émile would not be very sympathetic to their work. Arvind and Suyash want to operationalize the technology with some guardrails and have worked on the importance of evals. Whereas, I have seen Émile take an almost Luddite perspective in his articles before.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they agree on their criticisms to an extent, but differ in their recommendations.
Spencer Schiff "I can’t wait to no longer be biological".
Good news Spencer, you are no longer humane and over 50% of the way there.
The video of the guy asking AI if he should walk to get his car washed proves to me that AI is perfectly aligned with the values of humans in silicon valley.....when you are clearly wrong, just dig in and hold your ground. Truth is irrelevant in our new world.
The last portion is where my mind always goes when I think through this so called "inevitability" of a tech utopia through AGI. There cannot be a singularity if all these megalomaniacs are competing to profit the most off their specific brand of word calculator god. Thanks for all the work you and Timnit Gebru put out. It has been a consistent anchor for me for a few years now.