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AI safety is mostly a sex cult

344 points · 330 comments · Tomte

  1. perlgeek · · focus · HN ↗
    I've tried to read this, but somehow the article doesn't really come to a point. Is there any point besides Yud not being perfect, and having connections to people who openly talk about their sex life (and that it's somewhat non-standard)?
    1. sauwan · · focus · HN ↗
      I think the point is that Yud and the rationalist community have put themselves in an awkward position where their lifestyle now depends on "p(doom) is big" being true. Which means they can't necessarily be trusted to give unbiased updates on the true level of risk we're facing as new data and information comes up.

      Can "ASI will inevitably kill us all" be falsifiable before we create ASI? If not, then what separates it from religion?

      Not sure how much I agree with that position, but that's just how I understood it.

      1. Kinrany · · focus · HN ↗
        > Can "ASI will inevitably kill us all" be falsifiable before we create ASI?

        No, but there are decent proxies, like "Alice who is X standard deviations smarter than Bob will win >50% of the time at game Y even given a disadvantage that would make her chances <5% if she was playing against someone equally smart".

        I've thought about this analogy for less than five minutes, so it's far from perfect. Point is, ASI being made of silicon isn't very central to the problem. There are lots of analogies that are falsifiable, and "ASI will kill us all" can be decomposed into a simple and bulletproof composition of falsifiable beliefs, even if it is too specific to be itself directly falsifiable.

        1. mcint · · focus · HN ↗
          Uh oh, your opinions are merely part of the funnel to the sex cult. Can we really trust them? /s
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