lol

Can we call this the peak of the LLM hype cycle now?

In the case of O'Connor and people like him, I think it's about much more than his philosophy background. He's a YouTube creator who creates content on a regular schedule and makes a living off it. Once you start doing that, you're exposed to all the horrible incentives of the YouTube engagement algorithm, which inevitably leads you to start seeking out other controversial YouTubers to platform and become friendly with. It's an "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" situation dialed up to 11.

The same thing has happened to Sabine herself. She's been captured by the algorithm, which has naturally shifted her audience to the right, and now she's been fully captured by that new audience.

I fully expect Alex O'Connor to remain on this treadmill. <remind me in 12months>

I like his new framing of the accelerationists and transhumanists as pro-extinctionists.

"USG gets captured by AGI".

Promise?

I'm fine with the name. It's a good signifier that shit code has been written.

One of the most important projects in the world. Somebody should fund it.

The Pioneer Fund (now the Human Diversity Foundation) has been funding this bullshit for years, Yud.

This linked interview of Brian Merchant by Adam Conover is great. I highly recommend watching the whole thing.

For example, here is Adam, decribing the actual reasons why striking writers were concerned about AI, followed by Brian explaining how Sam Altman et al hype up the existential risk they themselves claim to be creating, just so they can sell themselves as the solution. Lots of really edifying stuff in this interview.

Happy Valentine's Day everybody!

I think in their minds, there is this magical threshold below which all the brown and disabled people live, and once you get rid of all the people residing below that threshold all you have left is smart people who want to make the world better.

Only an EA could take seriously someone who approvingly cites journals like "Mankind Quarterly" and crackpots like Richard Lynn, Steven Hsu, Jonathan Anomaly, and Emil Kirkegaard.

The author considers himself a "rationalist of the right" and a libertarian who enjoys Richard Hanania and Scott Alexander. He describes ten tenets of right-wing rationalism, 8 of which are simply rephrasings of various ideas promoted by scientific racists. It would be an understatement to say this guy is monomaniacally focused on a single topic.

(Oh, and he publishes his brain farts on Substack. Because of course he does.)