Today’s links The real AI fight: Effective Accelerationists and Effective Altruists are both in vigorous agreement about something genuinely stupid. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2003, 2008, 2013, 2018, 2022 Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading The real AI fight (permalink) Last week’s spectacular OpenAI soap-opera hijacked the attention of millions of normal, productive people and nonsensually crammed them full of the fine details of the debate between “Effective Altruism” (doomers) and “Effective Accelerationism” (AKA e/acc), a genuinely absurd debate that was allegedly at the center of the drama. Very broadly speaking: the Effective Altruists are doomers, who believe that Large Language Models (AKA “spicy autocomplete”) will someday become so advanced that it could wake up and annihilate or enslave the human race. To prevent this, we need to employ “AI Safety” – measures that will turn superintelligence into a servant or a partner, nor an adversary. Contrast this with the Effective Accelerationists, who also believe that LLMs will someday become superintelligences with the potential to annihilate or enslave humanity – but they nevertheless advocate for faster AI development, with fewer “safety” measures, in order to produce an “upward spiral” in the “techno-capital machine.” Once-and-future OpenAI CEO Altman is said to be an accelerationists who was forced out of the company by the Altruists, who were subsequently bested, ousted, and replaced by Larry fucking Summers. This, we’re told, is the ideological battle over AI: should cautiously progress our LLMs into…Pluralistic: The real AI fight (27 Nov 2023)